The role of empathy for adolescents' cyberbullying behaviour

The negative relationship between empathy and aggressive behaviour has been demonstrated in meta-analyses (e.g., Jolliffe & Farrington 2004). On the basis of these findings it was hypothesized that a lack of empathic responsiveness may also be a characteristic of cyber bullies. In the present study 2,070 students of Luxembourg secondary schools completed an online survey that included a German version of the Cyberbullying questionnaire (Smith et al. 2008) and a newly developed empathy scale. ANOVAs indicated significant differences between cyber bullies and non-cyber bullies. Most importantly, it was observed that cyber bullies demonstrated less empathic responsiveness than non-bullies. The findings confirm and substantially extend the research on the relationship between empathy and aggressive behaviour. From an educational point of view the findings suggest that training of empathy skills might be an important tool in decreasing cyberbullying.