Examining Cross-Cultural Differences in Youth’s Moral Perceptions of Cyberbullying Atiyeh Shohoudi Mojdehi, MA, 1 Karissa Leduc, MA, 1 Azadeh Shohoudi Mojdehi, PhD, 2 and Victoria Talwar, PhD 1 Abstract Cyberbullying has captured attention around the globe with research taking place in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. However, few of these studies have compared children and adolescents from countries with diverse cultural backgrounds, with research on Middle Eastern countries remaining scarce. To examine the influence of culture, gender, and participant roles in cyberbullying (bystander vs. perpetrator) on children and adolescents’ moral evaluations of hypothetical cyberbullying events, participants read and evaluated four vignettes. Three sets of data were collected in Canada (n = 100), China (n = 100), and Iran (n = 101). Participants (N = 300; 49 percent male) were between 8 and 16 years of age (M = 11.73; standard deviation = 0.76). Two vignettes considered the perspective of a perpetrator, whereas the two others considered the perspective of a bystander. A repeated-measures analysis of variance showed that youth from Iran evaluated cyberbullying events less negatively than Canadian and Chinese youth. Regardless of culture, females evaluated cyberbullying events more negatively than males. Persian youth evaluated cyberbullying less negatively than Canadian and Chinese youth. With age, participants attributed less shame to cyberbullying behaviors. However, Chinese and Persian youth attributed more hubristic pride than Ca- nadian youth with age. Also, Canadian and Chinese children rated perpetrator behaviors more negatively than their Persian counterparts. However, bystander behaviors were similarly negatively rated across cultures. This study breaks new ground by examining moral evaluations of cyberbullying according to participant role, culture, and gender. Findings from this study may be helpful to educators and policymakers to strengthen moral and diversity education in schools to help mitigate cyberbullying events. Keywords: bullying, cultural differences, youth, moral evaluations Introduction R esearch on cyberbullying has increased dramati- cally in the past decade. With rates as high as 30 percent in youth, 1 cyberbullying is often defined as the use of com- puterized platforms to send or post content that hurts or embarrasses others. 2 This phenomenon has captured atten- tion around the globe with research taking place in North and South America, 3 Europe, 4 and Asia. 5 However, few studies have made comparisons of youth from countries with diverse cultural backgrounds and those that have generally focused on the psychosocial factors leading to cyberbullying in ado- lescents. 6 As such, the ways in which the behavior is rooted in youth of different ages and cultures thus remain unclear. Most Western cultures are founded in individualism. For instance, in North America, individuals are encouraged to acknowledge, not minimize, their personal achievements and good deeds. 7 Conversely, in Eastern cultures, individuals are encouraged to be part of a collective. This empirical index for cultural dimensions shows that Western countries are individualist, whereas Eastern countries are collectivist. 8 The relationship between individuals and culture might also be demonstrated in aggressive behavior, such as cyberbullying. A previous research 9 highlighted the rela- tionship between perceptions and reactions to cyberbully- ing by emphasizing that an individual’s moral perceptions may be influenced by their cultural background. As such, cultural differences in perceptions toward cyberbullying may be related to socialization processes in different cul- tures. Understanding the nature and extent of cyberbullying in different cultures and countries may help address the problem of cyberbullying from an international perspective and provide us with an understanding of the phenomenon worldwide. 1 Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. 2 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. CYBERPSYCHOLOGY,BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING Volume 22, Number 4, 2019 ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2018.0339 243 Downloaded by McGill University e-journal package from www.liebertpub.com at 02/26/20. For personal use only.