Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Testing the relationship between media violence exposure and cyberbullying perpetration.

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The past decade has seen a surge in research testing the variables and psychological processes involved in cyberbullying perpetration (defined as repeatedly harming another via electronic communication). Recent correlational and longitudinal research findings have seemingly uncovered a new predictor of cyberbullying perpetration: media violence exposure. Our research further tested the correlation between media violence exposure and cyberbullying perpetration but statistically controlled for trait aggression and traditional bullying to determine if the previously found relationship between media violence and cyberbullying is spurious to broader aggression or not. Adult participants (N = 377; average age = 34.87 years) recruited from Mechanical Turk (MTurk) completed measures of cyberbullying and bullying perpetration, trait aggression, and media violence exposure. Replicating past work, correlational analyses showed that media violence correlated with cyberbullying, traditional bullying, and trait aggression; however, the relationship between media violence exposure and cyberbullying perpetration was reduced to nonsignificance when controlling for other forms of aggression. Theoretical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)