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Adolescent bullying victimization can have long-term mental health and well-being outcomes. This study focused on the potential mediating role of the perceived long-term negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization to understand its relations with mental health and well-being problems during emerging adulthood. A retrospective study consisting of closed and open-ended questions was conducted among 1010 Flemish and 650 Dutch emerging adults aged 18-26. Path analyses among early victims (N-Flemish = 644; N-Dutch = 217) demonstrated that the relations between bullying victimization intensity and current self-esteem, social interaction anxiety, and life satisfaction were all mediated by the perceived negative long-term impact of adolescent bullying victimization. Additionally, the open-ended questions provided a better understanding of the perceived negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization. The present study offers insights into the importance of considering subjective perceptions of the overall impact of being bullied to understand long-term bullying victimization outcomes. Implications and limitations are discussed, including the need for longitudinal data-for instance, a three-wave panel study-to establish the temporal order of effects.

In this introduction, the definition of cyberbullying will be discussed, instruments to measure cyberbullying will be described, and the state of the art of research on cyberbullying will presented. To date, most studies of cyberbullying investigate demographic factors such as the prevalence of bullying and being victimized, gender, age, and negative outcomes. Some studies investigate responses to cyberbullying, but most of them are limited to technological solutions and informing adults. Hardly any attention is paid to the underlying social psychological mechanisms in relation to antisocial behaviour in online communities and to the role of peer groups. Moreover, most studies are cross-sectional self-reports. The present special issue aims to fill these gaps by presenting studies which are focused on alternative topics using alternative methodologies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This study investigated the relationship between the use of coping strategies to deal with daily stressors in general (n = 325) and the use of coping strategies to deal with cyberbullying in particular (n = 88) among children aged 11 and 12 years. Additionally, it investigated the impact of coping strategies on depression and health in victims of cyberbullying (n = 88). The results showed that victims differed significantly from bully-victims (i.e. victims that also bully) and from children not involved in cyberbullying, in that they use certain emotion-focused coping strategies for daily stressors in general more than others. Additionally, this study investigated among victims of cyberbullying the relation between coping strategies in daily life, cyberspecific coping, depressive feelings and health complaints. Coping through emotional expression, avoidance and depressive coping in daily life will lead to more cyberspecific depressive coping when confronted with cyberbullying. This in turn will lead to more depressive feelings and/or health complaints for victims of cyberbullying. These results stress the importance of teaching children how to stand up for themselves and employ effective coping strategies to deal with stress in daily life in general and to deal with cyberbullying in particular. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en