Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background & Objectives: Aggressive behavior is one of the most common problems of children worldwide. Cyber–harassment is any behavior repeatedly perpetrated by individuals or groups through electronic or digital media with hostile or aggressive messages causing harm or inconvenience to others. Aggression is a very complex concept in which genetic and biological factors play a significant role. One of the psychological factors is the feeling of failure, which has been defined as a sense of failed struggle and the loss and decline of social status. In general, if aggression is not diagnosed and treated early, it can result in more serious problems and other forms of mental illness during adolescence and adulthood, and eventually major social and financial burdens. Because of the adverse consequences of current and future aggression and the lack of research in this regard, it is necessary to investigate the effective factors related to aggression and take appropriate measures to prevent this socially disturbing phenomenon. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the role of cyberspace harassment and defeat in the aggression of the sixth–grade elementary school students in Birjand City, Iran.
Methods: The research method was descriptive correlational. The statistical population comprised all male and female students in the sixth grade of the elementary schools in Birjand in the academic year 2019–2020. Of them, a sample of 336 students was selected based on Krejcie & Morgan's table (1970) by cluster sampling. The inclusion criteria were as follows: being in the sixth grade of elementary school, the consent of the students, their parents, and school officials. The exclusion criteria were as follows: having a debilitating physical and mental disorder based on the students' health records and the dissatisfaction of the students, parents and school officials. Students completed the Revised Cyber Bullying Inventory (Topcu & Erdur–Baker, 2010), Defeat Scale (Gilbert & Allen, 1998), and Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992). To analyze the data, descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multiple linear regression analysis and the Pearson correlation coefficient test) were used at a significance level of α=0.01 in SPSS version 24.
Results: The results showed the direct and significant relationship between cyberspace harassment (verbal harassment, identity concealment, and cyber forgery) and the feeling of defeat (feelings of stagnation, loss, and satisfaction) with aggression (p<0.01). The value of standardized regression coefficient (Beta) were as follows: verbal harassment (p<0.001, β=0.244), concealment of identity (p<0.001, β=0.171), cyber forgery (p<0.001, β=0.145), feeling of stagnation (p=0.025, β=0.105), feeling of loss (p=0.044, β=0.107), and feeling of satisfaction (β = 0.159, p<0.001). Also, cyberbullying and defeat (42.6%) had a significant ability to predict students' aggression (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, with the increase in cyber harassment and the feeling of failure in students, their aggression increases. Therefore, cyber–harassment and feeling of failure play a role in students' aggression as risk factors.