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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 165 ( 2015 ) 202 – 207

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of CPSYC 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.623

ScienceDirect

CPSYC 2014

Does Moral Emotion Plays Role in Cyber-bullying?

Arini Sasikirono Suparli

a

& Neila Ramdhani

b

*

aMaster student at Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta 55281 Indonesia bFaculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta 55281 Indonesia

Abstract

Number of cyber-bullying among the Internet user has been increased. People can post unusual act and words to express their negative feeling in the cyber-world. This may membawa efek emosi tidak nyaman tidak hanya bagi orang yang disasar tetapi juga orang yang membaca. Tindakan cyber-bullying ini mungkin dilakukan oleh orang yang berada pada kondisi tertentu. Therefore this research questioned does any of moral emotions, for example shame, guilt, detached have correlation with cyber-bullying? The purpose of this study is to find out which moral emotions most play role in cyber-bullying among adolescent. A survey had been carried out to collect both emotion morale and cyber-bullying data. Eighty senior high-school students, 41 females and 30 males participated in this study. Data analyzed by using a simple correlation. It was found that shame (mean=34.23) and externalization (mean= 19.72) are higher compare with guilt (mean= 19.71), detached (mean= 19.72), alpha-pride (mean=9.31), and beta-alpha-pride (mean= 9.81). All aspects of moral emotions negatively correlated with cyber-bullying. Beta-pride is the lowest (r= .27) while externalization is the highest (r= .48) correlation with cyber-bullying. Therefore, moral emotions plays important role towards cyber-bullying. Each aspect of emotion will be discussed further.

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of CPSYC 2014. Keywords: Emotion morales; cyber-bullying; shame, guilt; detached; beta-pride; alpha-pride.

1. Background

The increase of the use of Internet among teenagers has brought revolutionary change to adolescent social life. With Internet, people’s connectivity to one another becomes easier (Evan, 2012). This Internet revolution has been

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +62 274550435; fax: +62 274550436. E-mail address: Neila_psi@ugm.ac.id

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

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flourishing along with the increasing use of social media in which social connectivity can no longer be hampered by time and place. Given this condition, everyone can enjoy their solitariness so that it has become a necessity despite the human’s natural need of having other human around them (Suller, 1996).

Like a double-bladed knife, Internet brings also negative impact to its users, for example, cyber-bullying. It is every behavior done through electronic or digital medium by an individual or a group of individuals repeatedly posting hostile or aggressive messages on purpose of causing damage or discomfort of others (Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, 2013; Berne, Frisen, Schultze-Krumbolz, et al., 2013; Moreno, Wong-Lo, & Bullock, 2014). American Psychological Association (2013) defines bullying as a repeated aggressive behavior done by an individual that causes other’s discomfort. Bullying can be categorized in several forms i.e. physical contact, sarcasm and other disturbing deeds in-group. Bullying often done via cyber media are among others mockery, insult, news about an individual or a group of individuals on purpose of positioning them into uncomfortable condition (Elledge, Williford, Boulton, et al., 2013).

Some researchers have specified that bullying including that done via cyber world can be done by both men and women. In cases of bullying, men usually involve physical violence while women attack other women most often without physical contact, for instant, by gossiping and messages that can cause depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, suicidal tendency and psychosomatic symptoms like headache and sleep disorder. The question asked by this research is whether men or women do cyber-bullying most?

Bullying either in real world or in cyber world is a very much violation against norms. It is related to individual’s moral evaluation. When anyone evaluates their behaviors and they think, then appears an emotion called moral emotional behavior (Tangney, Malouf, Stuewig & Mashek, 2011). Moral emotion is an emotion emerges when an individual evaluates his/her behavior based on moral standard (Tangney, Stuewig & Mashek, 2007). Moral emotion can be shame, guilt, pride or embarrassment (Tangney & Tracy, 2011). Shame arises when an individual feels having done something wrong over Standard, Rule and Goal (SRG). When anyone experiences shame, they tend to blame totally on themselves (Tangney, Malouf, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2011). Brown (2010) found that when feeling shame, every individual sees themselves as a low and incompetent person. Accordingly, shame often is associated with a state of being trapped, powerless and isolated. It is closely connected to depression (Robinaugh & McNally, 2010).

The guilt is a moral emotion that also arises when individuals infringes their SRG (Tangney & Tracy, 2011). Yet, it is different from shame. When individuals feel guilty, they do not focus on themselves in general but on the incorrect behavior (Tangney, Stuewig & Mashek, 2007). Hence, often it is said that guilt is more constructive because it concerns more about the behavior than the person doing mistake so that the guilt makes it more possible for the person to change/correct his/her behavior (Tangney, Stuewig, Hafez, 2011; Tangney, Malouf, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2011).

The pride is an emotion arising when an individual manages to exceed his/her SRG. It is divided into two parts, namely hubristic pride or alpha pride and authentic pride or beta pride. The hubristic pride is a feeling arising in anyone who can achieve success due to the talent or what they have already had while authentic pride is an emotion arising in one who makes success due to their efforts (Tracy, Shariff, & Cheng, 2010).

Logically cyber-bullying is a form of “crime” that is potential to generate valuation on morality. The valuation will reveal moral emotions that affect individual’s behaviors (Tangney, Malouf, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2011). Moral emotions, which are often called self-conscious emotions, are emotions resulted from one’s evaluation of their individuality and behaviors in compared to certain values or moral standards (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007; Tangney & Tracy, 2011). The values or moral standards can be those made by the individuals themselves or adopted from those prevailing in society. Moral emotions give motivation to individuals to obey the moral standards, do good things and avoid bad things (Kroll & Egan in Tangney et al, 2007). Accordingly, moral emotion can function as moral measurement, which is to give feedback over individual’s behaviors in accordance with any prevailing moral standards so that the hypothesis of this research was that moral emotions have correlation to cyber-bullying.

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2. Method 2.1. Participants

There were one hundred and sixty teenagers voluntarily participating in this research. They were 80 high school students aged 14-18 years old and 80 university students aged 18-20 years old, 103 of them were female and 57 male.

2.2. Measurement

To collect primary data, the measurement used in this research was the Tendency of becoming Cyber-bullying Assaulter Scale (TCAS) and Moral Emotion Scale (MES). The TCAS, which was constructed by Mawardah (2012), addresses cyber-bullying through its main aspects, namely intimidation, power and constant occurrence in electronic media. This scale consists of 50 points of questions, 25 of which are favorable and 25 others are unfavorable. Meanwhile, the MES is an adoption of TOSCA-A (Test of Self-Conscious Affect for Adolescents) that was developed by June p. Tangney (in Robins, Noftle, Tracy, 2007). This scale was chosen because it can measure some primary moral emotions at once such as shame, guilt and pride. In addition to these emotions, it can also measure the behavioral tendency of an individual who is facing moral situation like externalization and

detachment/unconcern. This scale consists of 10 negative scenarios and 5 positive scenarios, in each of which there

are some statements representing certain behavior that is based on tendency of certain moral emotion. The TOSCA-A scale has been translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Mayawati in accordance with proper translation procedures and back translation. The result of back translation into English has been discussed with Tangney (Damanik Widodo, Sutandi, et al., 2013).

3. Results

3.1. Experience in Committing Cyber-bullying

Based on the results of this research, it was found that in general more occurrences of cyber-bullying were done by men than women (F = 8.367; p < .01). Both women and men’s involvement as assaulters of cyber-bullying first with intimidation then followed by power and continuity. In all types of cyber-bullying, men’s involvement was statistically higher if compared with that of women (Table 1).

Table 1. Cyber-bullying based on the Gender of the Assaulters

Variables Males Females F

M SD M SD

Intimidation 15.2281 9.70276 11.3942 7.0757 8.307*

Power 12.1579 8.67424 9.0865 6.20853 6.748*

Continuity 11.2982 10.01600 7.9423 7.59129 5.707**

Total CB 38.6842 26.43466 28.4231 18.31106 8.367*

The results of analysis also indicated that the variance of data obtained were homogenous if seen from the status of the respondents even though they were students of different level of education, high school and university therefore, Anova was applied in analyzing the data. As shown in the table, the highest means of cyber-bullying assaulters were in the group of high school students compared with the university students (F = 14.426; p < .01). High school students had higher level of involvement in cyber-bullying cases involving intimidation, power and continuity than university students (table 2).

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Table 2. Different levels of education on experience of doing cyber-bullying (N= 160)

Variables High School Students (N=80) University Students (N=60) F M SD M SD Intimidation 15.1375 9.76916 10.3951 5.542280 14.400** Power 12.1375 8.39340 8.2346 5.42280 12.312** Continuity 11.1500 10.25633 7.1358 6.13342 9.110** Total CB 38.4250 26.04999 25.7654 14.78367 14.426**

Based on those tables above, it can be concluded that the predictor of education level (F= 14.426; p< .01) was higher than that of gender (F= 8.367, p< 0.05). In all types of cyber-bullying, it indicated that education level is the best predictor to see cyber-bullying experience.

3.2. The Relationship between Moral Emotions and Cyber-bullying

Table 3 shows that moral emotions of both male and female subjects that influence tendency to become cyber-bullying assaulters were dominated by shame (Mean= 34.4386) while when facing moral related situation subjects tend to externalized themselves (Mean = 35.7719). Based on the regression analysis, among those moral emotions, it seems that Guilt (B = 1.172, p < .01) is the best moral emotion predictor for explaining the tendency of becoming cyber-bullying assaulter.

Table 3. The Comparison of Moral Emotion Aspect and Tendency of Becoming Cyber-bullying Assaulter based on Gender

variables Males Females B

M SD M SD Shame 34.4386 10.10367 33.7019 7.18531 -0, 165 Guilt 19.1930 6.97557 17.1154 7.18531 1.172** Alpha pride 8.9298 3.17276 8.9515 6.79135 0.002 Beta pride 9.2982 2.91526 9.4136 2.62484 -0.612 Detached 19.8596 4.98726 21.7788 4.23567 -1.237 Externalization 35.7719 8.90028 38.4231 5.99465 -0.053 Total Cyber-bullying 38.6842 26.43466 28.4231 18.31106 51.906

Similar findings were also resulted when educational level variable include into the analysis of tendencies to become cyber-bullying assaulter. Tabel 4 shows that the moral emotions, both in high school students and university students, are also dominated by shame (Mean= 34.4386) then externalization also were more than detached when subjects facing moral situations. Based on the regression analysis, it was found that Guilt (B = 1.082, p < .01) is the best moral emotion predictor for explaining cyber-bullying.

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Tabel 4. The comparison of moral emotion aspect and tendency of becoming cyber-bullying assaulter based on education level

Variables High School Students University Students B

M SD M SD Shame 34.2250 7.48496 33.7037 9.09456 -0, 278 Guilt 19.7125 7.65588 16.0123 5.53736 1.082** Alpha pride 9.3125 2.41091 8.5750 3.15336 -0.380 Beta pride 9.8125 2.32811 8.9438 2.69882 -0.279 Detached 21.5875 4.73793 20.6173 4.42314 -1.388 Externalization 35.7500 7.77777 39.1975 6.26382 -0.097 CB 38.4250 26.04999 25.7654 14.78367 9.249

Based on the tables (3 & 4), it can be seen that the best predictor of the aspect of moral emotions in influencing tendency to become cyber-bullying assaulter is guilt (1.082; p < 0.05)

4. Discussion

Interesting discussion on moral emotions and cyber-bullying begins by answering a question about which predictor affects more behavior of cyber-bullying. Is it gender or status? The other question follows based on the analysis of this research: why is guilt the best predictor of cyber-bullying? If observed based on gender, the tendency to do cyber-bullying in men is stronger. It is probably caused by the factor of chronological age in which male adolescents grow slower than female ones, including their maturity (Stang & Story, 2005). Education level is the best predictor to see cyber-bullying experience. The biggest mean of cyber-bullying actors is in high school students. It seems that the stage of early adulthood affects teenagers’ moral emotions in which they have already had better emotional stability as entering independence in life. Most of university students have lived separated from their parents. Their responsibility has turned bigger after attending university.

The level of experience to become cyber-bullying actors in university students is lower compared with that in high school students. The stage of growth in later adolescence (>18 years old) seems to strengthen the development of self-identity so that they are able to manage emotion in responding changes of social situation and to manage aggressive drive in responding repression from their peer friends (Stang & Story, 2005).

Guilt is the best predictor among other moral emotions in affecting an individual to become a cyber-bullying actor. Apparently the criteria of Internet according to Suller (1996; 2004) give change to dissociative anonymity (you do not know me) and invisibility (you do not see me) to get stronger. It has proven in this research. The feeling of being sinful in real life does not affect moral values in individuals who are interacting in the Internet due to the existence of dissociative imagination. They may consider what they do is just a game.

Based on the analysis of other moral emotion indicators i.e. shame, detachment, externalization, alpha pride and

beta pride the result was different. They have negative correlation with cyber-bullying. Although the values of these

five moral emotions are not significant yet the effect is negative on a cyber-bullying assaulter. It means that when the levels of shame, detachment, externalization, alpha pride and beta pride are higher, the tendency of individual to do cyber-bullying is lower.

References

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Berne, S., Frisén, A., Schultze-Krumbholz, A., Scheithauer, H., Naruskov, K., Piret, L., Zukauskiene, R. (2013). Cyberbullying assessment instruments: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, (18), 320-334. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2012.11.022 Brown, J.D. (2010). High self-esteem buffers negative feedback: Once more with feeling. Cognitive and Emotion, 24(8), 1389-1404.

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Damanik, F.V., Widodo, M.K.D.N., Sutandi, M., Mayawati, E.H., & Widyatmoko, C,S. (2013). Shame Mediates Attachment and Submissive

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