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. 2022 May 1;19(9):5501.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095501.

Teasing and Internet Harassment among Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Envy and the Moderating Role of the Zhong-Yong Thinking Style

Qiong Wang  1 , Ruilin Tu  1 , Yihe Jiang  2 , Wei Hu  3 , Xiao Luo  1
Affiliations

Teasing and Internet Harassment among Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Envy and the Moderating Role of the Zhong-Yong Thinking Style

Qiong Wang et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Extant research studies have documented that teen victims of traditional bullying are more likely to be perpetrators of Internet harassment. Teasing is a typical form of verbal bullying, but, unfortunately, its link with Internet harassment perpetration has rarely been investigated to date. Therefore, this study constructed two moderated mediation models to explore the relation between weight-related/competency-related teasing (the two main types of teasing) and Internet harassment, and whether these associations are mediated by envy and moderated by the Zhong-Yong thinking style. A total of 1811 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.22 years, SD = 0.97) were investigated to examine the two models. The results clarified that: (1) weight-related/competency-related teasing was positively predictive of adolescent Internet harassment; (2) envy acted a partially mediating role in the associations between weight-related/competency-related teasing and Internet harassment; (3) the Zhong-Yong thinking style not only moderated the link between weight-related/competency-related teasing and envy, with the effect being more profound for a high-level Zhong-Yong thinking style possessed by adolescents, but also moderated the direct link between competency-related teasing and Internet harassment, with the relation being more potent when the level of Zhong-Yong thinking style was low. Nevertheless, the direct link between weight-related teasing and Internet harassment was not moderated by the Zhong-Yong thinking style. These findings are important to comprehend the psychological mechanisms linking weight-related/competency-related teasing to Internet harassment, and provide some enlightenment for preventing and intervening in adolescent Internet harassment perpetration.

Keywords: Internet harassment; Zhong-Yong thinking style; competency-related teasing; envy; weight-related teasing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The proposed moderated mediation model.
Figure 2
Figure 2
ZYTS as a moderator in the relationship between weight-related teasing and envy (ZYTS = the Zhong-Yong thinking style).
Figure 3
Figure 3
ZYTS as a moderator in the relationship between competency-related teasing and envy (ZYTS = the Zhong-Yong thinking style).
Figure 4
Figure 4
ZYTS as a moderator in the relationship between competency-related teasing and Internet harassment (ZYTS = the Zhong-Yong thinking style).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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