BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Personality and Social Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1622523

This article is part of the Research TopicUnderstanding Cyberbullying from Various Perspectives - Volume IIView all 5 articles

The relationship between parenting style and bystander's promotion of cyberbullying among college students: the mediating effect of neuroticism and moral disengagement

Provisionally accepted
Bing  WangBing Wang1Chang  LiuChang Liu2*
  • 1Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, China
  • 2Woosuk University, Wanju-Gun, Democratic People's Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

To explore the relationship between parenting style and bystander's promotion of cyberbullying among Chinese college students, as well as the mediating effect of neuroticism and moral disengagement. A total of 495 college students were selected as participants in this study. The short form Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran for Chinese, the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Short Scale for Chinese, Moral Disengagement Scale and Cyberbullying Bystanders Behaviors Questionnaire were used to conduct the test. The results showed that: (1) rejection was positively correlated with neuroticism, moral disengagement and bystander's promotion of cyberbullying; Emotional warmth was negatively correlated with neuroticism, moral disengagement and bystander's promotion of cyberbullying. Neuroticism and moral disengagement were positively correlated with bystander's promotion of cyberbullying. (2) The mediating effect analysis showed that the direct effect of parenting style (rejection and emotional warmth) on the bystander's promotion of cyberbullying was significant. In the relationship between parenting style (rejection and emotional warmth) and bystander's promotion of cyberbullying, the mediating effect of neuroticism and moral disengagement and the chain mediating effect of neuroticism and moral disengagement were significant.

Keywords: Parenting style, cyberbullying, neuroticism, Mediating effect, college students 1

Received: 03 May 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Liu. 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: Chang Liu, Woosuk University, Wanju-Gun, Democratic People's Republic of Korea

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