Bullying and cyberbullying: its relationship with social skills in students from Mexico City

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to identify and to determine the relationship among the behaviors of bullying, cyberbullying and social skills presented by a sample of students in elementary, secondary and high school education. A two-phase study was carried out; in the first phase, the Bullying and Social Skills Scale (Chavez and Aragon, 2014) was applied to 416 students and in the second phase, the Modified Scale was applied to 449. The results show that bullying behaviors are in the range from 12% to 44% and cyberbullying behaviors from 9% to 25.8%. Students who have greater social skills have lower bullying and cyberbullying behaviors, while students who refer more covert anger behaviors and those who have greater difficulty in expressing their feelings and emotions show more bullying and cyberbullying behaviors.