The Relationship Between Parental Discipline Behavior And Junior High School Students' Cyberattack: A Moderated Chain-mediated Mediation Model

In the context of the information technology era,cyber aggression have gradually become one of the major problem behaviors of adolescents with the popularity of the Internet.Cyber aggression have characteristics that traditional aggression do not have,such as anonymity.Victims of cyber aggression have more anxiety and fear because they cannot know the identity of the attacker,and cyber aggression can cause more serious and lasting psychological damage to youth than traditional aggression.Among the factors influencing adolescent aggressive behavior,the role of parents has been widely concerned by researchers.Parental disciplinary behavior has certain peculiarities in the Chinese cultural context,and discipline is generally considered reasonable and effective in correcting adolescent misbehavior by Chinese parents.However,research shows that adolescents who experience disciplinary behaviors such as psychological aggression or corporal punishment instead exhibit more problematic behaviors.Therefore,this study will examine the role of parental disciplinary behavior in influencing adolescent cyber aggression.In addition,the generation of aggressive behavior is often influenced by a combination of environmental and individual factors,so we will further investigate through which cognitive mechanisms the effects of parental disciplinary behavior on cyber aggression are realized.Adolescence is a critical period for adolescent development.Once adolescents begin to develop,the dramatic changes in their physical functions can greatly affect their psychological development.In addition to family environment and individual cognitive factors,we introduced the physiological factor of pubertal timing to explore whether the effect of parental disciplinary behavior on cyber aggression varies depending on the developmental period in which the adolescents are in,and to further examine the moderating role of pubertal timing.This study used the Cyber Aggression Scale,the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale,the Hostile Attribution Type Questionnaire,the Interpersonal Reactivity Index,and the Pubertal Development Scale to administer questionnaires to 684 students and mothers in grades 7-9 at a middle school in Qingdao.The questionnaires collected data related to parental disciplinary behavior,adolescent cyber aggression,perspective taking,hostile attributions,and pubertal timing.The main conclusions from the analysis are as follows:(1)Parental disciplinary behavior was significantly and positively associated with junior high school students' cyber aggression,and was able to positively predict junior high school students' cyber aggression.There were gender differences in this predictive effect,with children of different genders differing in their sensitivity to parental disciplinary behaviors,with boys' cyber aggression being more influenced by their fathers' corporal punishment and girls' cyber aggression being more influenced by their parents' psychological aggression.(2)Perspective taking and hostile attributions play a chain mediating role between parental disciplinary behavior and cyber aggression,with parental disciplinary behavior influencing the generation of cyber aggression by affecting perspective taking and further influencing hostile attributions.The separate mediating effect of perspective taking was significant,whereas the separate mediating effect of hostile attribution differed by disciplinary style,with psychological aggression significantly and positively predicting hostile attribution,while the predictive effect of corporal punishment was not significant.(3)Pubertal timing played a moderating role in the chain mediating relationships between parental disciplinary behavior,perspective taking,hostile attributions,and cyber aggression,as evidenced by late maturation moderating the relationship between paternal corporal punishment and cyber aggression in boys and late maturation moderating the relationship between parental psychological aggression and perspective taking in girls.Early maturing and developmentally appropriate adolescents are more sensitive to parental disciplinary behaviors,and the negative effects of parental disciplinary behaviors on perspective taking and cyber aggression are stronger in adolescents who are already developing,while late maturing buffers the negative effects.Based on these results,parents should pay attention to the way they use disciplinary behaviors with their children of different genders,taking care to reduce verbal abuse for girls and physical punishment for boys.In addition,parents should pay more attention to the physical changes and psychological needs of their adolescent children,and schools should conduct educational programs to help adolescents better understand puberty-related knowledge,reduce unnecessary fear and psychological stress,and promote their healthy and positive development.