The relationships among dark triad trait, moral disengagement, and cyberbullying: Personality-coping-outcome theory as a framework

This study aims to use personality-coping-outcome theory as a framework to examine the mechanism that associates dark triad traits, moral disengagement, and cyberbullying. It is expected that all three dark triad traits indirectly affect cyberbullying through moral disengagement, but only psychopath has a direct effect on cyberbullying. A purposive sampling method was used to recruit 103 undergraduates to complete an online survey. The results reveal an indirect-only mediating effect that psychopath only affects cyberbullying through moral disengagement. No similar mediating effect was found in Machiavellianism and narcissism. The results indicate that psychopath is more likely to use moral disengagement to cyberbully others as the online context enables them to use their preferred way of exploiting others