Relationship between shyness and cyberbullying in different study stages: The mediating effects of upward social comparison and self-esteem

In recent years, abundant data have emerged that verify the mechanism of cyberbullying. In the current study, a total of 5,215 valid questionnaires were received and examined to determine whether upward social comparison and self-esteem functioned as mediators in the relationship between shyness and cyberbullying. The results indicated that (1) shyness positively predicted cyberbullying and (2) upward social comparison and self-esteem mediated this relationship through two mediating pathways, namely, the separate mediating effect and the sequential chain mediating effect. (3) There are also gender differences and developmental-stage differences in the mediation model. Concretely speaking, the multigroup analysis showed a significant difference in gender between cyberbullying and upward social comparison and significant differences in developmental stages from upward social comparison to self-esteem and from self-esteem to cyberbullying. These results suggest that we should pay attention to the roles of shyness, upward social comparison and self-esteem in the prevention of cyberbullying and develop different measures for individuals of different genders and in different developmental stages.