Abstract:

Cyberbullying is a problem that is being intensively investigated by researchers. Although, most of the works focus on the ways in which school students interact in social media, cyberbullying has entered the worlds and lives of higher education students. Recent developments on the topic (Faucher et al., 2014; Doucette, 2013; Barlińska et al., 2012; Webber and Ovedovitz, 2018 among others) provide insights on student behaviour in digitally supported discourse in a variety of cultural and linguistic contexts by placing an emphasis either on describing victimization experiences and identifying the impact of cyberbullying on students’ emotions, health and well-being or on highlighting effective intervention or prevention practices. Little information, however, is available on the effects of cyberbullying among Bulgarian university students. This paper provides an insight into the situation by presenting data from an empirical study revealing the cyberbullying experience of 215 students from one Bulgarian higher education institution. A Cyberbullying Questionnaire and the Basic Empathy Scale were used to gather data from the study subjects in order to establish the interplay of affective empathy, cognitive empathy and cyberbullying along with the power dynamics of university students’ online interaction. The analysis indicates that both affective and cognitive empathy have an effect on gender differences in cyberbullying while the intentions behind cyberperpetration are linked to the desire to exert control over the other. The implications provided by the study can be used as a trigger to future research on national level in order to get a clear picture of the current situation of cyberbullying at university level.

Keywords:

Cyberbullying, university students, gender, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, hate speech.