a Department of Communication Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences , University of Antwerp.
b Occupational & Organisational Psychology and Professional Learning , KU Leuven.
Health Commun. 2019 May;34(5):560-566. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2017.1422098. Epub 2018 Jan 9.
Adolescents tend to go to bed later and sleep less as they grow older, although their need for sleep stays the same throughout adolescence. Poor sleep has negative consequences on personal and interpersonal functioning, including increased aggressive tendencies. With adolescents' social life increasingly including interactions via digital media, these interactions may also become more aggressive when adolescents' sleep problems increase. One of the ways in which online aggression may be enacted is through cyberbullying. Although previous research has examined the role of sleep disruptions in offline bullying, the role of sleep in cyberbullying has not yet been addressed. Therefore, this study examines the longitudinal effect of poor sleep quality on later cyberbullying behavior. Thirteen- to fourteen-year-old adolescents completed self-report measures on sleep quality, anger, cyberbullying perpetration, and frequency of digital media use. Because one of the pathways through which sleep is proposed to be linked to aggression is an affective pathway, namely via angry affect, a mediation model of poor sleep quality predicting cyberbullying via feelings of anger was tested. Results from structural equation modeling and a bootstrap test indicated that poor sleep quality was indeed indirectly associated with later cyberbullying behavior through heightened feelings of anger, even when taking the effects of the use of digital media and previous cyberbullying behavior into account. This finding provides support for the proposed affective pathway linking sleep problems to aggression. As sleep problems and anger seem to play a predicting role in cyberbullying behavior, suggestions for cyberbullying intervention and prevention strategies are formulated.
青少年随着年龄的增长往往会晚睡、睡眠时间减少，尽管他们在整个青春期的睡眠需求保持不变。睡眠质量差会对个人和人际关系功能产生负面影响，包括增加攻击倾向。随着青少年的社交生活越来越多地包括通过数字媒体进行的互动，当青少年的睡眠问题增加时，这些互动也可能变得更加具有攻击性。在线攻击的一种方式是网络欺凌。虽然先前的研究已经研究了睡眠中断在离线欺凌中的作用，但睡眠在网络欺凌中的作用尚未得到解决。因此，本研究考察了睡眠质量差对以后网络欺凌行为的纵向影响。13 至 14 岁的青少年完成了关于睡眠质量、愤怒、网络欺凌行为和数字媒体使用频率的自我报告测量。由于睡眠与攻击性之间的一种途径是情感途径，即通过愤怒情绪，因此测试了睡眠质量差通过愤怒情绪预测网络欺凌的中介模型。结构方程建模和自举检验的结果表明，即使考虑到数字媒体使用和以前的网络欺凌行为的影响，睡眠质量差确实通过愤怒情绪与以后的网络欺凌行为间接相关。这一发现为将睡眠问题与攻击性联系起来的情感途径提供了支持。由于睡眠问题和愤怒似乎在网络欺凌行为中起着预测作用，因此制定了网络欺凌干预和预防策略的建议。
