Relationship between Childhood Emotional Abuse, Parental Care and Cyber Aggression among undergraduates

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between childhood emotional abuse, parental care, and cyber aggression. One hundred and fifty-three (153) undergraduates participated in the study. They included 95 males and 58 females whose ages ranged from 18-31 years (mean age: 22.28; std: 2.91). A mixed sampling design involving simple random and incidental samplings was used to select the departments and undergraduates that participated in the study. Three instruments (cyber aggression typology questionnaire, parental care sub-scale of parental bonding and childhood emotional abuse subscale of childhood trauma questionnaire) were used to collect data for the study. The study adopted a correlational design and simple linear regression statistics for data analysis. The result of the first finding showed that childhood emotional abuse positively and significantly correlated with cyber aggression (r = .68**, P< .01). The result further showed that childhood emotional abuse positively and significantly predicted cyber-aggression (β= 1.39**, p<.01). The second finding revealed that parental care negatively and significantly correlated with cyber aggression (r = -.28**, P< .01). The result further showed that parental Care negatively and significantly predicted cyber-aggression (β = -.37*, p<.05).This indicated that childhood emotional abuse and parental care could contribute to the increase and reduction of cyber aggression. The results may instigate understanding, planning and designing programmess for the prevention of cyber-aggressive behaviours.