Serial Multiple Mediation of Anxiety and Hostile Attribution Bias in the Relationship Between Need for Uniqueness and Adolescents’ Cyberbullying Perpetration: A Two-Wave Study

Cyberbullying perpetration has become a common concern for academics and the public. However, whether need for uniqueness is associated with cyberbullying perpetration and the underlying mechanisms of this relationship remain to be identified. Based on the integrated model of emotion processes and cognition in social information processing, this study aimed to examine the relationship between need for uniqueness and cyberbullying perpetration and the mediating roles of anxiety and hostile attribution bias. Participants were 827 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.45, SD = 0.92, 400 boys). They completed the paper-and-pencil questionnaires in two-time waves. The hypotheses were tested by correlation analysis and Model 6 of the PROCESS macro. The correlations analysis indicated that need for uniqueness, anxiety, hostile attribution bias and cyberbullying perpetration were positively correlated with each other. Moreover, the mediation model testing indicated that anxiety and hostile attribution bias acted as parallel and sequential mediators between need for uniqueness and cyberbullying perpetration. This study contributes to our understanding of why individual characteristics, such as the need for uniqueness, are associated with cyberbullying perpetration from both an emotional and cognitive perspective. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of addressing anxiety and hostile attribution bias in interventions to reduce cyberbullying perpetration. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.