“It’s All in a Good Night’s Sleep”: Examining the Meta-Analytic Relationship Between Sleep and Cyberbullying Perpetration

A burgeoning amount of empirical research has focused on the variables and psychological processes that predict cyberbullying perpetration. One variable that has received recent attention is sleep (quality and duration), and the findings are mixed. Therefore, the purpose of the current meta-analysis is to understand the moderating variables and mediating processes that relate sleep with cyberbullying perpetration. After identifying relevant research that met our inclusionary criteria, we used a random effects meta-analysis in R to synthesize effect sizes regarding the relationship between sleep and cyberbullying perpetration. First, our results showed that sleep was negatively related to cyberbullying perpetration. Second, using MASEM techniques, results showed that aggression, self-control, and negative emotionality significantly mediated the meta-analytic relationship between sleep and cyberbullying. Finally, moderation tests showed that neither study design (correlational vs. longitudinal), participant age, nor sleep construct (quality vs. quantity) moderated the overall relationship between sleep and cyberbullying. These results support past research and provide practical guidance regarding the relationship between sleep and cyberbullying.