ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1567523
This article is part of the Research TopicUnderstanding Cyberbullying from Various Perspectives - Volume IIView all 4 articles
Bullying and cyberbullying. A high risk, in boys and girls, of superficial learning, poor planning and academic procrastination
Provisionally accepted
Alba Rusillo-Magdaleno1
Manuel Jesús De La Torre-Cruz1*
Teresa Martínez-Redecillas2
Alberto Ruiz-Ariza1- 1University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain
- 2University of Granada, Granada, Spain
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The aim of the present study was to analyse the association of bullying and cyberbullying with deep learning, superficial learning, planning and decision making, as well as school procrastination. A total of 1263 Spanish schoolchildren (51.39% girls) aged 10-16 years (13.23 ± 1.77) participated. The association between variables and the analysis of exposure risk was performed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and binary logistic regression respectively. All analyses were conducted separately for boys and girls and adjusted for age, body mass index, mother's education and average weekly physical activity. Results showed that girls who were victims of bullying and cyberbullying had significantly higher procrastination towards class tasks (7% and 16%, respectively). In addition, cyberbullying victims acquire more superficial learning (5.28%). In general, victims of bullying have almost twice the risk of having higher values of superficial learning and procrastination than non-victims. This risk is multiplied by 3 and 4, respectively, in the case of cyberbullying victims. On the other hand, bullying aggressors were also found to have high superficial learning (7.34%) and higher procrastination (17.45%). In the case of cyberbullying, aggressors also had more superficial learning (boys = 13.38% and girls = 9.56%), worse values in planning and decision making (boys = 3.82% and girls = 3.3%) and more procrastination (boys = 16.81% and girls = 20.48%). In both sexes, the risk of exposure to aggression towards the above variables is multiplied by 8, 2 and 10, respectively. All these findings reveal that bullying and cyberbullying can affect young people in key learning variables, beyond those of physical, psychological or socio-emotional aspects already known. Immediate and systematic actions are needed to monitor and prevent bullying and cyberbullying inside and outside the school context, creating safe spaces and providing counselling for both victims and aggressors.
Keywords: Aggression, Victimization, Bullying, cyberbullying, Teaching, Learning, Schoolchildren, decision-making
Received: 27 Jan 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rusillo-Magdaleno, De La Torre-Cruz, Martínez-Redecillas and Ruiz-Ariza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Manuel Jesús De La Torre-Cruz, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain
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