Date of Award

12-14-2015

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Amanda Fairchild

Abstract

With electronic technology becoming increasingly important in all aspects of modern life, traditional forms of relating with others have crossed into the cyber realm. Within that context, both positive and negative aspects of relational behavior have advanced in ways still largely underexplored in the research literature. One such area, termed “cyberaggression,” has recently gained momentum as a research focus. Given the numerous mental health sequelae from being involved in cyberaggression, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, there is a clear and compelling need for more research in this area. To date, however, there remains little consensus on the conceptualization and measurement of cyberaggression; in the absence of sound instrumentation for the construct, substantive investigations in this domain are hindered. Therefore, the primary purpose of this research study was to explore construct validity for the Cyber – Peer Experiences Questionnaire (C-PEQ), a promising new measure that assesses experiences of cyberaggression and cybervictimization via electronic communication. Confirmatory factor analysis of the data did not provide support for the hypothesized two-factor model solution of the instrument (MLM 2=433.79, RMSEA = .06, CFl = .88, SRMR = .06). However, the C-PEQ displayed evidence for internal consistency reliability (C-PEQ: α = .88; cyberaggression subscale: α = .75; cybervictimization subscale: α = .84). Evidence for convergent validity with theoretically similar constructs was mixed. Specific areas of model misspecification as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.

Rights

© 2015, Kendall Moore

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