Understanding the overlap between cyberbullying and cyberhate perpetration: Moderating effects of toxic online disinhibition
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Problem behaviour theory postulates that different forms of norm violations cluster and can be explained by similar antecedents. One such cluster may include cyberbullying and cyberhate perpetration. A potential explanatory mechanism includes toxic online disinhibition, characterised by anonymity, an inability to empathise and to recognise and interpret social cues. The current study to develop a better understanding of the relationship between cyberhate and cyberbullying to inform effective intervention and prevention efforts. AIMS: To test the link between cyberbullying and cyberhate and whether this relationship was moderated by toxic online disinhibition. METHODS: Self-report questionnaires on cyberbullying, cyberhate, and toxic online disinhibition were completed by 1,480 adolescents between 12 and 17 years old (M = 14.21 years; SD = 1.68). RESULTS: Increases in cyberbullying perpetration and toxic online disinhibition were positively related to cyberhate perpetration. Furthermore, cyberbullies reported more cyberhate perpetration when they reported higher levels of toxic online disinhibition and less frequent cyberhate perpetration when they reported lower levels of toxic online disinhibition. CONCLUSION: The current study provides evidence of a possible link between cyberbullying and cyberhate perpetration, moderated by toxic online disinhibition. This suggests that, to be effective, prevention and intervention programmes should (i) consider the co-occurrence of varying forms of cyberaggression and (ii) consider potential effects of the online environment on aggressive online behaviour among young people.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Anonymity feeds into the disinhibitory effect and is linked to increased cyberbullying perpetration.
“Thus, anonymity feeds into the disinhibitory effect (32) and consistent with previous research is linked to increased cyberbullying perpetration (22, 33–36, 38, 106).”
From A thematic analysis of adolescents’ perceptions of cyberbullying and cyberaggression: definitional distinctions and educational gaps (2026) · cites this paper as [35]
Cites
(2013) · Cited by 44,563 · see citing works
The online disinhibition effect
Suler, J. (2004) · CyberPsychology & Behavior · doi:10.1089/1094931041291295 · Cited by 4,375 · see citing works
Cyberbullying: Its nature and impact in secondary school pupils
Smith, P. K., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., Fisher, S., Russell, S., & Tippett, N. (2008) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01846.x · Cited by 3,639 · see citing works
Lewis, T. T., Cogburn, C. D., & Williams, D. R. (2015) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032814-112728 · Cited by 1,003 · see citing works
Boyce, W., Torsheim, T., Currie, C. E., & Zambon, A. (2006) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s11205-005-1607-6 · Cited by 910 · see citing works
Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: A meta-analytic review.
Benner, A. D., Wang, Y., Shen, Y., Boyle, A. E., Polk, R., & Cheng, Y. (2018) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/amp0000204 · Cited by 897 · see citing works
Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon?
Olweus, D. (2012) · European Journal of Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1080/17405629.2012.682358 · Cited by 705 · see citing works
Socioeconomic Status and Bullying: A Meta-Analysis
Tippett, N., & Dieter Wolke, C. (2014) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2014.301960 · Cited by 598 · see citing works
A meta‐analysis of sex differences in cyber‐bullying behavior: The moderating role of age
Barlett, C., & Coyne, S. M. (2014) · Aggressive Behavior · doi:10.1002/ab.21555 · Cited by 392 · see citing works
Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development; a Longitudinal Study of Youth
Labouvie, E. W. (1978) · Journal of Studies on Alcohol · doi:10.15288/jsa.1978.39.948 · Cited by 333 · see citing works
Hartley, J. E. K., Levin, K., & Currie, C. (2016) · Child Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s12187-015-9325-3 · Cited by 266 · see citing works
Exposure to Online Hate in Four Nations: A Cross-National Consideration
Hawdon, J., Oksanen, A., & Räsänen, P. (2017) · Deviant Behavior · doi:10.1080/01639625.2016.1196985 · Cited by 234 · see citing works
Udris, R. (2014) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.036 · Cited by 234 · see citing works
Zych, I., Baldry, A. C., Farrington, D. P., & Llorent, V. J. (2019) · Aggression and Violent Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.avb.2018.03.004 · Cited by 217 · see citing works
Wachs, S., & Wright, M. F. (2018) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph15092030 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Co-Occurrence of Physical and Cyber Dating Violence and Bullying Among Teens
Yahner, J., Dank, M., Zweig, J. M., & Lachman, P. (2014) · Journal of Interpersonal Violence · doi:10.1177/0886260514540324 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Wright, M. F., Harper, B. D., & Wachs, S. (2018) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2018.04.001 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Self-citationTargets of Online Hate: Examining Determinants of Victimization Among Young Finnish Facebook Users
Räsänen, P., Hawdon, J., Holkeri, E., Keipi, T., Näsi, M., & Oksanen, A. (2016) · Violence and Victims · doi:10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-14-00079 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Strohmeier, D., & Spiel, C. (2003) · Journal of Applied School Psychology · doi:10.1300/j008v19n02_07 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Costello, M., & E.Hawdon, J. (2018) · Violence and Gender · doi:10.1089/vio.2017.0048 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Voggeser, B. J., Singh, R. K., & Göritz, A. S. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02372 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Wachs, S., & Wright, M. F. (2019) · Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2018.0551 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Self-citationBullying among immigrant and non‐immigrant early adolescents: School‐ and student‐level effects
Vitoroulis, I., & Georgiades, K. (2017) · Journal of Adolescence · doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.10.008 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Traditional, Cyber and Combined Bullying Roles: Differences in Risky Online and Offline Activities
Wachs, S., Junger, M., & Sittichai, R. (2015) · Societies · doi:10.3390/soc5010109 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Self-citationBergmann, M. C., & Baier, D. (2018) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph15020274 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Online Extremism and Online Hate Exposure among Adolescents and Young Adults in Four Nations
E.Hawdon, J., Oksanen, A., & Räsänen, P. (2015) · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Differentiating Cyberbullies and Internet Trolls by Personality Characteristics and Self-Esteem
Zezulka, L., & Seigfried‐Spellar, K. C. (2016) · The journal of digital forensics, security and law · doi:10.15394/jdfsl.2016.1415 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Bloom Filters Optimized Wu-Manber for Intrusion Detection
Aldwairia, M., Alkhamaiseh, K. N., Alharbi, F., et al. (2016) · The journal of digital forensics, security and law · doi:10.15394/jdfsl.2016.1427 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kansok-Dusche, J., Ballaschk, C., Krause, N., Zeißig, A., Seemann-Herz, L., Wachs, S., & Bilz, L. (2023) · Trauma, Violence, & Abuse · doi:10.1177/15248380221108070 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
“Other authors connect hate speech and bullying via the perpetrator’s intention to harm a person or group (e.g., Blaya et al., 2020; Blaya & Audrin, 2019; Lehmann, 2020; Räsänen et al., 2016; Wachs et al., 2019, 2020; Wachs & Wright, 2019).”
InfluentialSelf-citationOnline disinhibition: conceptualization, measurement, and implications for online deviant behavior
Cheung, C. M. K., Wong, R. Y. M., & Chan, T. K. H. (2020) · Industrial Management & Data Systems · doi:10.1108/imds-08-2020-0509 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
What’s in the Box? An Analysis of Undesirable Content in the Common Crawl Corpus
Luccioni, A., & Viviano, J. (2021) · Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (Volume 2: Short Papers) · doi:10.18653/v1/2021.acl-short.24 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Wang, X., Qiao, Y., Li, W., & Dong, W. (2022) · The Journal of Early Adolescence · doi:10.1177/02724316211064515 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Hate speech in adolescents: A binational study on prevalence and demographic differences
Castellanos, M., Wettstein, A., Wachs, S., Kansok-Dusche, J., Ballaschk, C., Krause, N., & Bilz, L. (2023) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2023.1076249 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Self-citationWhat's in the Box? A Preliminary Analysis of Undesirable Content in the Common Crawl Corpus
Luccioni, A. S., & Viviano, J. D. (2021) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.02732 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Scott, J., & Barlett, C. (2023) · Children · doi:10.3390/children10071156 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Smith, E. J., Rai, R., Scase, M. O., & Wilson, A. D. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1746672
- Authors
- Wachs, S., Wright, M. F., & Vazsonyi, A. T.
- Affiliations
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- University of Kentucky (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wachs, Sebastian
- Venue
- Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-06
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 179-188
- ISSN
- 0957-9664 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2857
- OpenAlex
- W2955694336
- Cited by
- 133
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 15.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- cyberbullying, online aggression, adolescents, online anonymity, empathy, cyberbullying prevention
- MeSH terms
- Problem Behavior, Cyberbullying, Adolescent, Aggression, Child, Female, Germany, Hate, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Male, Crime Victims, Internet, Self Report
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
