Saima Majeed, Sidrah Ashiq and Farah Malik
Objectives: The aim of the present research was to investigate the possible psychological predictors of cyber bullying behavior in early adulthood. It was hypothesized that lack of empathy and emotional-behavioral problems would be related to the cyber bullying as well as will prove significant predictors of cyber bullying behavior in early adulthood.
Design: It was a co-relational study and cross-sectional research design was followed.
Duration and place of study: It took six months to collect data from three sites of Lahore, Pakistan; that were colleges, universities and net cafés.
Sample and method: Purposive Sample of 150 young adults including 78 men and 72 women with age range 18-25 was drawn Assessment measures were Toronto Empathy Questionnaire 1 and Cyber Bullying Scale2. For emotional problems Depression, Anxiety and Stress 23 and for behavioral problems Aggression Questionnaire 4 was used.
Results: Results revealed that there was a significant inverse relationship between empathy and cyber bullying, whereas significant positive relationship between emotional-behavioral problems and cyber bullying. Multiple Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that lack of empathy and emotional problems were significant predictors of cyber bullying. All the three groups including young adults from universities, colleges and net cafes perform significantly different on all study variables. The present research findings will give new directions for future studies in the field of cyber crimes as well as in making therapeutic intervention plans to treat emotionalbehavioural problems in youth.
