The Relationship Between Parental Attachment and Cyberbullying with the Mediating Role of Social Networking Dependency in Students
Keywords:
parental attachment, cyberbullying, students, social networking dependencyAbstract
The present study aimed to examine the relationship between parental attachment and cyberbullying, considering the mediating role of social networking dependency among students. The research employed a descriptive correlational design based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population consisted of all male upper secondary school students, from whom 280 participants were selected through convenience sampling. Participants completed the Parental Attachment Questionnaire developed by Armsden and Greenberg (1987), the Cyberbullying Questionnaire by Antoniadou et al. (2016), and the Social Networking Addiction Scale developed by Shahnawaz and Rehman (2020). Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling based on multivariate regression through SPSS version 18 and AMOS version 23 software. The results indicated a significant negative relationship between parental attachment and cyberbullying, as well as a significant positive relationship between social networking dependency and cyberbullying. Furthermore, parental attachment exerted an indirect effect on cyberbullying through social networking dependency. Model fit indices supported the adequacy of the proposed structural model, and 34% of the variance in the dependent variable was explained by the model variables. These findings confirm the important role of parent–child relationships and adolescents’ level of engagement in social networking in preventing cyberbullying behaviors.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Sara Shakeri (Author); Alireza Homayouni; Jamal Sadeghi (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
