What does this research mean for the field?

Childhood psychological maltreatment is associated with higher cyberbullying-related online aggression among university students, with subjective well-being accounting for a small indirect association. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine whether retrospectively reported childhood psychological maltreatment is longitudinally associated with cyberbullying-related online aggression among university students, and whether subjective well-being mediates this relationship.

September 8, 2026Scientific ReportsOpen Access

The longitudinal relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment and the university student cyberbullying related online aggression

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

LXLei Xiang SZShiyuan Zhang YCYuhan Chen

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Prospective cohort study reveals childhood psychological maltreatment predicts cyberbullying aggression in college students, suggesting subjective well-being partly mediates this link.

Key Points

To examine whether retrospectively reported childhood psychological maltreatment is longitudinally associated with cyberbullying-related online aggression among university students, and whether subjective well-being mediates this relationship.
Conducted a two-wave prospective survey across six universities in southern, southwestern, and central China among 2,019 matched students (mean age 18.97 years) followed across a seven-month interval.
Assessed retrospective childhood psychological maltreatment before age 16, subjective well-being, and difficulty describing feelings at wave 1, followed by cyberbullying-related online aggression over the prior six months at wave 2.
Estimated mediation models using 5,000 percentile bootstrap resamples, controlling for demographic covariates and evaluating the robustness of exploratory interaction effects via HC3 robust standard errors and logistic regressions.
Childhood psychological maltreatment showed a significant positive association with later cyberbullying-related online aggression (beta = 0.279, p < 0.001).
Subjective well-being accounted for a statistically significant but modest indirect effect of 0.020 (percentile bootstrap 95% CI [0.003, 0.037]), representing 6.69% of the total effect.
An exploratory interaction between maltreatment and difficulty describing feelings was significant in a linear model (beta = 0.055, p = 0.004, Delta R2 = 0.0036), but was not supported under HC3 robust standard errors (p = 0.071), ordinal logistic regression (p = 0.718), or binary logistic regression (p = 0.178).

Cite This Study

Xiang et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9fd75858e84d0ff5b45eac https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-67418-9

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

September 8, 2026Scientific ReportsOpen Access

The longitudinal relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment and the university student cyberbullying related online aggression

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

LXLei Xiang SZShiyuan Zhang YCYuhan Chen

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Prospective cohort study reveals childhood psychological maltreatment predicts cyberbullying aggression in college students, suggesting subjective well-being partly mediates this link.

Key Points

To examine whether retrospectively reported childhood psychological maltreatment is longitudinally associated with cyberbullying-related online aggression among university students, and whether subjective well-being mediates this relationship.
Conducted a two-wave prospective survey across six universities in southern, southwestern, and central China among 2,019 matched students (mean age 18.97 years) followed across a seven-month interval.
Assessed retrospective childhood psychological maltreatment before age 16, subjective well-being, and difficulty describing feelings at wave 1, followed by cyberbullying-related online aggression over the prior six months at wave 2.
Estimated mediation models using 5,000 percentile bootstrap resamples, controlling for demographic covariates and evaluating the robustness of exploratory interaction effects via HC3 robust standard errors and logistic regressions.
Childhood psychological maltreatment showed a significant positive association with later cyberbullying-related online aggression (beta = 0.279, p < 0.001).
Subjective well-being accounted for a statistically significant but modest indirect effect of 0.020 (percentile bootstrap 95% CI [0.003, 0.037]), representing 6.69% of the total effect.
An exploratory interaction between maltreatment and difficulty describing feelings was significant in a linear model (beta = 0.055, p = 0.004, Delta R2 = 0.0036), but was not supported under HC3 robust standard errors (p = 0.071), ordinal logistic regression (p = 0.718), or binary logistic regression (p = 0.178).

Cite This Study

Xiang et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9fd75858e84d0ff5b45eac https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-67418-9

Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark