Trapped Online: Cyberbullying Victimization, Emotional Regulation, and Psychological Entrapment Among Young Adults in Pakistan

Abstract

The modern youth are more likely to be spending a greater portion of their lives online, and they are particularly at risk from a unique kind of harassment cyberbullying. Drawing on the defeat entrapment model and Gross's process model of emotion regulation, the present study examined the relationships among cyberbullying victimization, two emotion-regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), and psychological entrapment among Pakistani university students, and tested whether entrapment mediates the association between victimization and emotion regulation. The Cyberbullying Inventory for University Students, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and Entrapment Scale were administered on students aged 18-25 (N = 241) at public and private educational institutions. The results found that there was a positive correlation between cyberbullying victimization and entrapment and a negative correlation between cyberbullying victimization and expressive suppression. The results of partial least squares structural equation modeling revealed that entrapment had a significant and partial mediation effect on the relationship between victimization and both cognitive reappraisal (negatively) and expressive suppression (positively). The findings extend the defeat entrapment model to the digital sphere and highlight the possibility of psychological entrapment as an intervening mechanism that can be targeted in interventions with cyberbullied young adults, especially other non-Western cultures like Pakistan where there is limited research.