Joint Trajectories of Traditional and Cyberbullying in Chinese Youth: Mental Health Outcomes

Traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization frequently co-occur and correlate significantly with mental health outcomes. However, little is known about the joint trajectories of traditional and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization among youth during the transition into adolescence or their prospective associations with mental health outcomes. This 3-year longitudinal study addressed these research gaps by collecting six waves of survey data from 2,154 Chinese elementary school students (54.87% boys, M age = 9.61, SD = 0.65 at baseline). Parallel process latent class growth modeling revealed four distinct joint trajectory groups: uninvolved (77.8%, consistently low traditional and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization), traditional bullying victimization (12.4%, stable high traditional bullying victimization alongside low traditional perpetration and low cyberbullying perpetration and victimization), traditional bullying perpetration (7.1%, stable high traditional bullying perpetration alongside low traditional victimization and low cyberbullying perpetration and victimization), and fully involved with predominant cyberbullying perpetration (2.7%, initially low involvement across all bullying behaviors but later markedly elevated, particularly in cyberbullying perpetration). Notably, no trajectory characterized solely by cyberbullying perpetration and/or victimization was identified. Results indicated that boys exhibited higher odds than girls of being classified in the traditional bullying perpetration and fully involved with predominant cyberbullying perpetration groups compared to the uninvolved group. Furthermore, the highest frequencies of internalizing and externalizing problems and the lowest levels of well-being were observed for youth in the fully involved with predominant cyberbullying perpetration group, followed by those who were persistently involved in one predominant bullying experience, and finally, those in the uninvolved group. These findings advanced the literature by elucidating the nature of joint trajectories of traditional and cyberbullying and their prospective associations with mental health outcomes, highlighting the significance of developing targeted interventions for different groups to reduce mental health problems and enhance well-being.