The effect of victims' aggressive responses on cyber bullying.

Abstract

Despite being a relatively new phenomenon, cyber bullying has risen in prominence due to the rapid growth of new cases. In this article, the researcher proposed that victim response strategies can influence cyber bullies’ behaviours and hence the outcome of bullying episodes. Victims’ aggressive responses were examined for their effect on the intensity of cyber bullying and the cyber bullies’ emotions and victim perception. Results showed that, compared with victims’ non-aggressive responses, aggressive response strategies did not increase the intensity of cyber bullying, did not induce more anger-related emotions in cyber bullies, but negatively influenced bullies’ warmth and competence perceptions of the victims. These findings have important implications for the area of cyber bullying prevention strategies.