A Meta-Analytic Review of Big Five-personality Trait and Cyberbullying

Oct 15, 2026

The paper examines how Big Five personality traits relate to cyberbullying, motivated by the rapid expansion of internet and communication technologies and the growing global prevalence of cyberbullying. It synthesizes 12 studies using a meta-analysis approach to estimate effect sizes between personality dimensions and cyberbullying outcomes. Findings indicate the strongest negative associations for agreeableness and conscientiousness, a positive association for neuroticism, and negative associations for openness and extraversion, with results discussed in relation to prior literature.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Cyberbullying in the context of internet and communication technologies

Definitions, forms, and prevalence of cyberbullying

Psychological impacts and related factors

Links between cyberbullying and personality traits

A Meta-Analytic Review of Big Five-personality Trait and Cyberbullying Nezir EKİNCİ 1 Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University Abstract With the development of science and technology, the internet and communication technology are constantly expanding and affecting people's lives in many areas. The development of internet and communication technology benefits individuals and society in many ways. The ease of use and access to these technologies causes some problems. The most fundamental of these problems is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is becoming a major global problem affecting many people. Recent research examines the relationship between cyberbullying and the big five personality traits. Research findings indicate different results between personality traits and cyberbullying. In this context, the current research examines the relationship between the big five personality traits and cyberbullying. For this purpose, 12 studies were examined by meta-analysis method in the current study. As a result of the research, the effect sizes between the big five personality traits and cyberbullying were determined. As a result of the findings, it was seen that the personality traits with the strongest effect size with cyberbullying were agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits. Neuroticism personality trait was found to be positively related to cyberbullying, while openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits were found to be negatively related. The results obtained from the research were analyzed and discussed within the scope of the literature. Keywords: Cyberbullying, Big five personality traits, Meta-analysis. DOI: 10.29329/epasr.2023 .600.4 Submitted: 29 March 2023 Accepted: 21 July 2023 Published: 30 September 2023 1Dr., Faculty of Educat on, Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey Un vers ty, Karaman, Türk ye, ORCID: 0000-0002-2065-2992 Correspondence: [ekincinezir@gmail.com](ekincinezir@gmail.com) Introduction Today, with the rapid and effective developments in both science and technology, the speed and impact of internet technology is increasing in parallel. This widespread use affects almost all areas of life of today's people (Festl & Quandt, 2013; Zhao & Yu, 2021). According to We Are Social 2023 statistics, the number of global internet users reached 5.16 billion as of November 15, 2022. This means that 64.4 percent of the world's population is now online. These data show that the total number of global internet users increased by 1.9 percent in the last 12 months. The widespread use of communication technologies with the Internet provides many benefits to today's people in different fields. However, it is also becoming a suitable ground for cyberbullying, one of the cybercrimes that cause discomfort in online environments (Espinosa, 2018; Smith, 2019; Suciu, 2021) . Rapid and effective developments in communication technologies cause more bullying behaviors that are not only seen in social environments to be more common in online social communication networks, which people prefer more (Sánchez-Medina et al., 2020) . In addition, individuals who refrain from committing bullying acts while communicating in social environments can use the security vulnerabilities of online environments to commit cyberbullying acts (Wolke, 2017) . This situation leads to more cyberbullying behaviors in online environments (Zhu, Huang, Evans, & Zhang, 2021) . Cyberbullying is widespread today and is increasing year by year (Alonso & Romero, 2017; Kuadli, 2021) . Cyberbullying acts are mostly carried out by individuals or groups against individuals who have difficulty in self-defense in a repetitive manner at certain time intervals. The purpose of these aggressive actions is to consciously and willingly harm the person seen as the victim (Chan et al., 2021; Hinduja & Patchin, 2014; Smith, 2015) . Cyberbullying is different from face-to-face bullying in social settings. Cyberbullying ac

FAQs

What is the main focus of the meta-analysis review?

The review focuses on the relationship between Big Five personality traits and cyberbullying, synthesizing evidence across multiple studies.

How many studies were included in the meta-analysis?

The meta-analysis included 12 studies.

Which Big Five traits showed the strongest relationship with cyberbullying?

Agreeableness and conscientiousness showed the strongest effect sizes with cyberbullying, while neuroticism was positively related and several other traits were negatively related.

Oct 15, 2026

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