Cyber Bullying Vs. Traditional Bullying:a Meta-Analysis Of Differential Victimizationassociate Withmental Health Amongadolescent

Bullying is a serious issue in many areas and countries. Research indicated that bullying affect mental health of victims and bullies, including depression, anxiety, reduce of self-esteem, decrease of life satisfaction and many others(Gruber & Fineran, 2007; Due et al., 2005).Recently, with the advancement of information technology, a new form of bullying has been gaining the attention of researchers and the public: cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is typically defined as aggression that is intentionally and repeatedly carried out in an electronic context(e.g., e-mail, blogs, instant messages, text messages) against a person who cannot easily defend him- or herself(Smith et al., 2008). Some researchers believe that cyber-bullying and traditional bullying are actually two different bullying types. But others argue that cyber-bullying is just a “new bottle but old wine”(Li, 2007; Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2008). The present research tries to provide further evidence for this debate and examines the moderate effects of culture variables, participant group and bullying type(e.g. relational bullying, physical bullying, verbal bullying and cyber-bullying).40 empirical researches were identified with a total simple size of 56,009. The results shows: the average effect size of the relationship between victimization and depression, anxiety and self-esteem are 0.282, 0.143,-0.233, respectively. For depression, bullying types, culture and participant group are its moderators; Traditional bullying(0.318) has stronger association with depression than cyber-bullying(0.262); The association between depression and victimization in North America(0.377) is stronger than that in Europe(0.196) and China(0.140); The effect size between victimization and depression in primary school(0.377) is higher than that in high school(0.177). For anxiety, culture and participant group are the significant moderators; Specifically, the relationship between anxiety and victimization in North America(0.208) is closer than that in China(0.121) and Europe(0.119); Effect size between victimization and anxiety in high school(0.174) is larger than that in primary school(0.102). For self-esteem, cyber-bullying(-0.261) has stronger negative association with self-esteem than traditional bullying(-0.212). In addition, bullying types like relational bullying, verbal bullying, physical bullying and cyber-bullying have no significant difference on depression and anxiety, but general bulling and cyber-bullying have significant difference on self-esteem.According to the results of meta-analysis, traditional bullying and cyber-bullying are two different bullying forms. Culture variables and participant group significantly affect the negative effects of bullying. Protective strategies and policies should be established according to the characters of cyber-bullying, especially family therapy have been found effective in helping both bullies and victims(Nickel, Krawcyzk, et al., 2005b). Future studies should explore the mechanism of how culture variable affect the relationship between bullying and mental health, and examine hypothesis of the cultural self-construals(Barlett et al., 2014), which need well designed longitudinal research and bigger meta-analysis.