Cyberbullying perpetration and its association with the big five and dark triad personality traits

Abstract

Cyberbullying, a new variant of interpersonal aggression which occurs online, has been associated with multiple negative outcomes such as increased experience of negative emotions, clinical disorders, and antisocial behaviors. Extant research on the associations between cyberbullying and personality traits in the big five (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) and dark triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) personality models has highlighted several interesting relationships. This review aims to consolidate and organize these relationships in a coherent manner to provide a clear overview on the association between each trait and cyberbullying perpetration. The review begins with a description of cyberbullying, and its prevalence and outcomes. Following that, the associations between cyberbullying perpetration and each of the personality traits in the aforementioned models are reviewed. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature, only conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and psychopathy showed largely consistent findings with cyberbullying perpetration. Explanations for such findings are explored, and conflicting explanations are identified. In addition to research implications, prevalent research limitations are identified, and future research directions are proposed.