Deviant Behavior
ISSN: 0163-9625 (Print) 1521-0456 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/udbh20
Cyberbullying Victimization among High School
and University Students in Ghana
David L. Sam, Delphine Bruce, Collins B. Agyemang, Benjamin Amponsah &
Helen Arkorful
To cite this article: David L. Sam, Delphine Bruce, Collins B. Agyemang, Benjamin Amponsah &
Helen Arkorful (2018): Cyberbullying Victimization among High School and University Students in
Ghana, Deviant Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2018.1493369
To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2018.1493369
Published online: 10 Aug 2018.
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DEVIANT BEHAVIOR
https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2018.1493369
Cyberbullying Victimization among High School and University
Students in Ghana
David L. Sam, Delphine Bruce, Collins B. Agyemang, Benjamin Amponsah,
and Helen Arkorful
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY
This study sought to establish the extent of cyberbullying among students Received 28 March 2017
in Ghana, its consequences on the victims, and the characteristics of the Accepted 7 June 2017
victims. The study found that nearly all participants had experienced one KEYWORDS
form of cyberbullying before. Victims of cyberbullying were not very differ- Ghana; cyberbullying;
ent from non-victims in psychological wellbeing. The effect of cyberbullying personality; religion; values
on psychological wellbeing was small, and no clear profile characterizing
victims emerged. The present findings should be an eye-opener for
Ghanaian parents, educators and health professionals and set the stage
for further studies to understand the Ghanaian situation.
Introduction
Bullying among young people is no new phenomenon, and Ghanaian adolescents are no
exception. Whereas systematic studies of the phenomenon have been going on for about
50 years in Western countries (Hymel and Swearer 2015; Olweus 2013), studies in Africa, with
few exceptions (e.g., Herring, Siziya, Pasupulati, Rudatsikira, Adamson, and Muula 2013) are
rare. Ghanaian studies, albeit with some notable exceptions (e.g., Owusu et al. 2011) are even
harder to find. Many of the African studies, including that of Owusu et al. (2011) however, form
a minor part of a larger research project, such as the Global-school-based student health survey
(see CDC 2016). African studies devoted entirely to bullying are uncommon. Anecdotally, and in
the case of Ghana, one reason for the lack of research into bullying may be due to its perception
within the society. Bullying in Ghanaian schools is perceived as a rites de passage into life in a
boarding school. This is particularly the case for adolescents when they enter into high school.
Much of the bully is viewed as some form of entertainment for the amusement of the older
students (Antiri 2016).
Notwithstanding the perceived role of bullying in Ghana, it deserves research attention
especially as researchers seek to understand cross-cultural similarities and differences in
human behavior (Berry et al. 2011). Ghana may be one cultural society to undertake such a
study, particularly as bullying takes on a new form globally (i.e., cyberbullying), and is becoming
more insidious. Bulling is major public health problem, but the health implications in Ghana are
yet to be explored. This study examines the extent of cyberbullying among young people in
Ghana, and the consequences of being a victim of cyberbullying. Although bullying in Ghana is
noted mostly among high school students, we extend this study to include university students.
This is in response to the general lack of cyberbullying studies on young adults (Rafferty and
Vander Ven 2014). Considering the socio-cultural context of Ghana, a society where religiosity
and values of embeddedness are central to the everyday lives of the people, will the extent of
cyberbullying be different from that reported elsewhere? To what extent will cyberbullying leave
CONTACT David L. Sam david.sam@uib.no Department of Psychosocial Science & Center for International Health,
University of Bergen, Christiesgate 12, Bergen, N-5015, Norway
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 D. L. SAM ET AL.
psychological scars on its victims in view of the ubiquity of physical punishment and verbal
abuse in children’s socialization?
Young people of today are utilizing the technologies of our day to expand the reach and harm
associated with bullying. Cyberbullying has become one of the “side–effects” of the information
technological developments of this century (Holt and Bossler 2014; Pelfrey and Weber 2013).
Cyberbullying is an individual’s willful and repeated harm inflicted on another individual through
the use of computers, cellphones, and other electronic devices (Hinduja and Patchin 2015). It is
characterized by offensive e-mails or text messages; insults through chatrooms or instant messaging;
photos or videos on mobile or on the web; exclusion from social networks or appropriation of
others’ credentials and identity information (Menesini and Spiel 2012).
Traditional bullying (also known as school bullying, or simply as bullying) is more common than
cyberbullying (Lenhart 2007), however, much as the two have a lot in common, they also differ in
several ways (Pelfrey and Weber 2013; Smith et al. 2008). At the core of bullying are acts of aggression
designed to cause psychological harm to an individual or individuals, and both forms of bullying are
interested in causing (repeated) pain and suffering on their victims. There is power imbalance between
bully-perpetrator and a bully-victim, in which the balance of power invariably favors the bully-
perpetrator (Hinduja and Patchin 2015). A distinctive feature of cyberbullying is the degree of
anonymity it affords the perpetrators, making it potentially more harmful than traditional bullying.
Not knowing who is behind their harassment makes it difficult for cyberbully victims to cope with the
harassment. Sadly, the anonymity the internet offers cyberbullies emboldens them to continue
antagonizing their victims. This tendency may be exacerbated by the fact that the victim and the
perpetrator may be separated in time and space depriving bullies from witnessing the consequences of
their actions. In such situations, the perpetrators are spared of guilt-feelings from their actions. The
absence of guilt often pushes cyberbullies to be even more aggressive (GALE 2013).
A review of studies on cyberbullying suggests that one out of every four teens in the West has
experienced cyberbullying, and about one out of every six teens has done it to others. Adolescent
girls are just as likely, if not more likely than boys to be involved in cyberbullying (either as a victim
and/or an offender) (Hinduja and Patchin 2007; Schneider, O’Donnell, Stueve, and Coulter 2012).
Females are more likely to be cyberbullies rather than a traditional bully because females are less
confrontational in normal every day encounters, but can be more assertive when they are online
(Ybarra and Mitchell 2004). Li (2006, 2007)) nevertheless found more females victims of cyberbully-
ing than males. Almost 60% of the cyber victims are females, while over 52% of cyber-bully
perpetrators are males. Majority of the cyber-bully victims and bystanders did not report the
incidents to an adult.
The effects of cyberbullying can be long lasting and have been shown to have traumatic effects on
the victims including serious psychological damage, such as anxiety, depression, and other serious
stress and emotional-related disorders (Hinduja and Patchin 2012, 2015; Olweus 2013). Cyberbullying
has been found to be related to low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, anger, frustration, and a variety of
other emotional and psychological problems (Brighi et al. 2012; Hinduja and Patchin 2010; Patchin
and Hinduja 2010). It has been suggested that cyberbullying quite often is related to other issues in the
‘real world’, including school problems, anti-social behavior, substance use, delinquency, and low self-
control (Hinduja and Patchin 2007; Kowalski and Limber 2013; Li et al. 2016).
Although Owusu et al. (2011) found that bullying in Ghana was associated with a number of
psychological problems, including depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations, it is also reasonable to
question these findings, on the grounds that the psychological measures used in this study consisted of
single items with unknown psychometric properties. The general abusive nature of child socialization in
Ghana, from a Western point of view, and the positive perception of punishment among Ghanaian
children possibly make them less vulnerable to the negative effects of bullying. For instance, Imoh (2013)
found that Ghanaian children welcome parental punishment, and this was viewed by the children as a
way of ensuring that they grow up into well-behaved and responsible adults. Ghanaian children are also
known to punish and abuse younger siblings when called upon to take care of younger siblings. Imoh
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 3
(2013) speculates that children punishing younger siblings are done for the same reasons as their
parents’, namely, disobedience, disrespect, and misbehavior should be punished to instill good behavior
in younger siblings. The “abusive” nature of child socialization in Ghana is different from that found in
most Western societies (see e.g., Durrant and Ensom 2012; Sossou and Yogtiba 2008), where author-
itative child upbringing is preferred. Is it possible that in environments where child upbringing is
characterized by physical punishment and verbal abuse as is in Ghana, the expected negative conse-
quences of punishment are lower, especially when the punishment is not viewed as rejection (Rohner,
Bourque, and Elordi 1996)?
Theoretical explanations for bullying abound, and this is perhaps not surprising considering the
complexity of the phenomenon. Bullying is an aggressive act that takes different forms and serves
different purposes (Hymel and Swearer 2015). The phenomenon has a complex set of promoting,
sustaining, and suppressing factors (e.g., Olweus 2001; Rodkin and Hodges 2003), making it difficult to
fully differentiate the roles of perpetrators and victims across situations and over time. Adolescents have
been found to move from one role to another (from being a bystander, to being victim, or a perpetrator);
and also across settings/contexts with time (see Barker et al. 2008; Ryoo, Wang, and Swearer 2014).
Researchers, such as Sekol and Farrington (2010) identify four different groups of adolescents when it
comes to bullying: pure bullies (i.e., bully-perpetrators); pure victims (i.e., bully-victims); bully/victims
(i.e., those who are victims at some time, and bully others themselves); and the non-involved individuals.
Moreover, these two researchers also point out that there may be as many bully-victims as bullies. Thus,
while this paper is primarily interested in profiling victims of cyberbullying, it does so by delving into the
literature on the perpetrators as well. Indeed, research suggests that bullies and their victims share
personality traits that are more typically attributed to the perpetrators (Mishna et al. 2012). Victims have
been found to possess bully-typifying traits, such as disagreeableness, dominance, and aggression
(Archer, Ireland, and Power 2007; Glasø et al. 2007; Olweus 1993). Bullies and victims appear to share
personality traits because many individuals are both perpetrators and victims of negative acts (see Lee
and Brotheridge 2006). Moreover, a number of researchers (e.g., Andersson and Pearson 1999;
Matthiesen and Einarsen 2007; Olweus 1993) have found that some individuals have provocative
personality traits (e.g., aggressiveness, annoying, or socially undesirable behaviors) that make them
targets for bullying. While bully-typifying trait, such as verbal aggression may be directly associated
with bullying of others (Parkins, Fishbein, and Neal Ritchey 2006), it has been associated with argu-
mentativeness (Diamond, Wang, and Buffington-Vollum 2005), a possible “annoying” factor that may
provoke others to bully those who score highly on the trait.
As the above discussion may suggest, the intersection between the personalities of bullies and
bully-victims are not always easy to make, and for that reason, we decided to broadly examine the
extent to which the different Big-5 personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeable-
ness, and conscientiousness may be related to cyberbully victims in Ghana. Bollmer, Harris, and
Milich (2006) posit that the role of personality on bullying and victimization is through the way
individuals respond cognitively during peer conflict situations. Stated in another way, individual
differences in personality determine how individuals interpret, respond and subsequently become
either a bully or a victim.
Young people high on extraversion may be viewed by some of their peers as too outgoing and
may incur the displeasure of their mates, and victimize them by way of putting a check on them.
While Mynard and Joseph (1997) found bully-victims to be low on extraversion, Connolly and
O’Moore (2003) together with Tani et al. (2003) found extraversion to be positively associated with
bullying. Adolescents high on agreeableness and/or conscientiousness may invite displeasure to
themselves from their peers who see them as very popular, caring, hardworking and/or law-abiding,
and become victims of bully. Bollmer, Harris, and Milich (2006), and Tani et al. (2003) found
agreeableness to be negatively related to bully, namely that individuals high on agreeableness are less
likely to be bully-perpetrators. Tani et al. (2003) also found that victimization was negatively related
to conscientiousness. In a mediational analysis, Bollmer, Harris, and Milich (2006) found that
children low on conscientiousness and high on neuroticism were more likely to experience negative
4 D. L. SAM ET AL.
affect during peer conflict, and the negative affect made them vulnerable to victimization. Both Slee
and Rigby (1993) and Mynard and Joseph (1997) found bully-victims to be low on neuroticism. In
their review of the Big-5 and bullying, Sekol and Farrington (2016) could not find any association
between openness and bullying.
According to Win-Gallup International (2012), Ghana is the most religious country in the world,
out of 57 countries in their survey. The survey found that 96% of Ghanaians identified themselves as
religious, with only 2% describing themselves as non-religious. Gyekye (1996) notes that religion
permeates the entire Ghanaian society and impacts on the daily lives of Ghanaians. Gyasi-Gyamerah
(2014) also notes that religious beliefs in Ghana are not just an individual private matter. In Ghana,
religious beliefs and practices can be witnessed in several public activities, including politics, the
economy, health, and education, to the extent that many public events begin with a prayer. The
names of many private businesses in Ghana have a Christian name, such as “Thank U Jesus
Chemical Shop” in their names (Dzokoto and Okazaki 2006). Indeed, religiosity in Ghana is a
way of life, and individuals’ religious beliefs serve as a moral compass in their daily life. Considering
the ubiquity of religion in Ghana, a study on bullying without exploring its role on the behavior will
be incomplete.
Closely linked to religiosity andmorality is the notion of personal values. Values are ‘‘concepts or beliefs
about desirable end states or behaviors that transcend specific situations, guide selection or evaluation of
behavior and events, and are ordered by relative importance’’ (Schwartz and Bilsky 1987: 551). Values may
influence how individuals perceive their environment, and the behavioral choices they make, and are likely
to influence people’s decisions (Bardi and Schwartz 2003) to bully others or not.
Schwartz’s value theory organizes values into 10 motivationally distinct domains, namely Power,
Achievement, Hedonism, Stimulation, Self-Direction, Universalism, Benevolence, Tradition, Conformity
and Security. The model also posits that the 10-value types are organized in a circular structure of value
relations, where adjacent values share common goals, and opposite values have divergent goals. The circular
structure is further conceptualized into two orthogonal dimensions: self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence,
and openness-to-change vs. conservation. The former dimension – self-enhancement – is composed of power
and achievement on the one hand, and universalism and benevolence on the other hand, the latter
representing self-transcendence. This dimension represents values that motivate people to enhance their
own personal interests (self-enhancement) in contrast to values that transcend selfish concerns and seek to
promote thewelfare of others (self-transcendence) (Schwartz andBoehnke 2004). The “openness-to-change
vs. conservation” dimension is composed of self-direction and stimulation on the one hand, and is in
opposition to the values of security, conformity, and tradition. This dimension represents the extent towhich
people aremotivated to follow their own emotional and intellectual interests in unpredictable and uncertain
directions (openness-to-change) in contrast to preserving the status-quo and the certainty it provides
(conservation). Hedonism shares elements of both openness and self-enhancement (Schwartz and
Boehnke 2004).
Research question and hypotheses
The study set out to answer the following: (a) what is the extent of cyberbullying among high school
and university students in Ghana? (b) What are the characteristics of the Ghanaian cyberbully
victim? And (c) to what extent does cyberbullying affect the psychological wellbeing of the victims?
Based on previous studies and general observations in Ghana, we expected that:
(i) Cyberbullying will be highest among senior high students (SHS), and lowest among junior
high students (JHS).
(ii) More females will be victims of cyberbullying than males.
(iii) Compared with non-victims, cyber-bully victims will report lower self-esteem and higher
psychological symptoms of anxiety, somatic complaints, and depressive symptoms.
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 5
However, because of the welcoming nature of punishment among Ghanaian children, the
effect of cyberbullying on psychological wellbeing will be small.
(iv) The odds of being a victim of cyberbullying will be higher for individuals high on neuroti-
cism and conscientiousness, low on extraversion and agreeableness. No prediction is made
for openness.
(v) Religiosity will not be a significant predictor of cyberbully victimization because of the
pervasiveness of religion in Ghana.
(vi) Victims of cyberbullying will be low on self-enhancement and openness-to-change. This is
because individuals with these values may not be interested in “controlling” others by means
of electronic devices in other to attain power over them (Menesini, Nocentini, and
Camodeca 2013). Smith et al. (2008) regard the virtual context of cyberbullying to be an
arena with unlimited opportunities for novelty, stimulation, excitement, and for entertain-
ment and amusement. In this virtual reality, individuals valuing openness may find it
thrilling to harass others. Individuals low on openness-to-change may easily be seen as
targets for victimization.
Method
Participants
Eight-hundred-and seventy-eight students took part in this study, of which 844 reported that they are
Ghanaians. As we were primarily interested in Ghanaians, we excluded 34 participants who were of
other nationality, such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast. The 844 Ghanaians were made up of 140 JHS; 224
SHS and 476 University students. Four students did not indicate their level of education. There was
uneven sex distribution (57.1% being male). The major sex imbalance was with the SHS, where 82.6% of
them were males. There was a 52.9% vs. 47.1% sex spit in favor of males in JHS, and 53.6% females
among the university students. The mean age of the participants was 18.63 (sd = 4.09) years. There was
a significant age difference in the sample (F (2, 837) = 177.19; p < .001; η
2 = .42). The three groups differed
among themselves with the university students being the oldest (M = 20.37, sd = 4.14); and the JHS as
the youngest (M = 14.41, sd = 1.70). The mean age of the SHS was 17.58 (sd = 2.42) years.
Although the sample for the study was drawn for the Greater Accra region of Ghana, there were
participants from all the 10 regions of the country. The sample sizes from the different regions varied
greatly, with the largest single sample drawn from the Volta region (n = 171) and the smallest sample
group (n = 9) from Upper West. Nearly all the participants (99.8%) reported that they belonged to a
religion. The majority of the participants (n = 387–45.9%) described themselves as Christians, in
addition 262 (31.0%) and 143 (16.9%) respectively described themselves are Charismatic and
Orthodox Christians. Only 49 (5.8%) of the participants described themselves as Muslim.
Measures
A questionnaire containing a battery of scales was developed for the study. Scales were drawn and
adapted from previous studies on cyberbullying and other related studies on values, and psycholo-
gical well-being. Scales used included the following.
Cyber-bullying victims was assessed using a scale adapted from Menesini, Nocentini, and Calussi
(2011). Participants were to report how frequently they had experienced seven different behaviors in
the course of the past 6 months. The behaviors they were to respond to included “Received a nasty
text message from someone without knowing who sent it”; “Received a nasty email from someone
without knowing who sent it”; and “being insulted by someone in the chat room”. Response
categories ranged from “Never” coded 1 to “Most of the time” coded 5.
6 D. L. SAM ET AL.
Religiosity was assessed using the 10-item Spiritual Perspective Scale (Reed 1987), an instrument
that addresses various dimensions, such as spirituality, public and private religious practices, and
religious coping. The Scale assesses participants’ perceptions of the extent to which they hold certain
spiritual views and engage in spiritually-related interactions, such as “In talking with family and
friends, how often do you mention spiritual matters Responses were scored on a 5-point Likert-type
scale that was anchored at “Strongly disagree” (coded 1) and “Strongly agree” (coded 5).
Personality: The 60-item NEO-FFI (Costa and McCrae 1992) was used to assess the five person-
ality traits of Neuroticism (e.g., I am not a worrier – Reversed coded); Extraversion (e.g., I like to
have a lot of people around me); Agreeableness (e.g., I try to be courteous to everyone I meet);
Openness (e.g., I don’t like to waste my time daydreaming – Reversed coded); and Conscientiousness
(e.g., I often get into arguments with my family and friends. Items were rated on a 5-point scale
ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).
Values: the 40-item Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ) by Schwartz (1992) was used to assess
individual personal values. Each of the 40-PVQ-item describes the person’s goals, aspirations, or
wishes, and points to the importance of a single broad value, such as Hedonism – “Enjoying life’s
pleasures is important to him. He likes to ‘spoil’ himself”; Power – “He always wants to be the one
who makes the decisions. He likes to be the leader” and Achievement – “It’s very important to him
to show his abilities. He wants people to admire what he does”. On a 6-point scale, the response
categories were: “very much like me”; “like me”; “somewhat like me”; “a little like me”; “not like me”
and “not like me at all”. On the basis of the two orthogonal dimensions, self-enhancement vs. self-
transcendence and openness to change vs. conservation, four summated scores were computed in
line with Schwartz’s recommendation (Schwartz 2009)
Self-esteem was measured using Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item self-esteem inventory. A sample item
is “On the whole I am satisfied with myself.”, and was responded to on a 5-point Likert type scale
“strongly agree” to “strongly disagreed”
Psychological wellbeing was assessed using a 15-item scale taken from a study on the psycholo-
gical wellbeing of young people (Berry et al. 2006). The scale included five items each assessing
depressive symptoms (e.g., I lose interest and pleasure in things which I usually enjoy); anxiety
reactions (e.g., I am worried about something bad happening to me)” and psychosomatic symptoms
(e.g., “I feel weak all over”). Respondents were to indicate the extent to which they had experienced
any of the described symptom in the course of the last 6 months. The response categories ranged
from I (never) to 5 (very often).
Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on all the different scales, and sub-scales to
ascertain whether the items loaded uni-factorially. The PVQ was excluded from the PCA as Schwartz
(2009) recommends against it. For lack of space, the factor loadings from the PCA have not been
included in this paper. These can be obtained from the first author by request. Except for the Big-5
sub-scales, all the scales showed very good uni-factorial loadings, including the symptoms scale. The
poor factor loadings on the Big-5, was also reflected in the reliability of the scales. Indeed, only one
sub-scale of the Big-5 showed good internal consistency. Other than that, all the scales showed good
internal consistencies for both the entire sample, and for the different student sub-groups (i.e., JHS,
SHS and University). See Table 1 for the Cronbach alphas of the scales.
Procedure
Participants were recruited from two Junior High Schools (1 private), three public Senior High
Schools, and three universities (two public). All the institutions are based in the Greater-Accra
region of Ghana. Research assistants visited these institutions and secured the appropriate permis-
sions to undertake the data collections with the use of a questionnaire. Data collection was
administered in groups (in lecture rooms/classrooms). Instructions on the first page of the
questionnaire assured participants of the confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. They
were also informed that their participation was voluntary, and that they could withdraw from the
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 7
Table 1. Means, SD, and Reliability (alpha) of the scales.
Entire group Junior High Sch. Senior High Sch.. University
Mean SD α Mean SD α Mean SD α Mean SD α
Cyberbullying 1.88 .68 .76 1.56 .67 .78 1.56 .67 .81 1.96 .74 .71
Religiosity 4.27 .81 .88 3.85 .96 .85 3.85 .96 .88 4.36 .73 .88
Self-esteem 3.91 .75 .79 3.55 .77 .67 3.55 .73 .82 4.05 .73 .79
Symptoms 2.28 .59 .88 2.36 .61 .82 2.37 .61 .89 2.23 .58 .89
Somatic symptoms 2.21 .59 .63 2.30 .69 .63 2.30 .69 .53 2.11 .47 .68
Anxiety 2.35 .76 .80 2.40 .77 .66 2.40 .77 .85 2.34 .78 .93
Depression 2.29 .79 .83 2.40 .89 .79 2.40 .89 .86 2.24 .79 .83
Neuroticism 33.82 7.66 .70 32.76 8.30 .69 32.76 8.39 .75 34.09 8.08 .69
Extraversion 26.18 4.99 .16 26.93 5.43 .22 26.93 5.43 .26 26.40 5.20 .09
Openness 26.35 5.65 .38 26.59 5.74 .37 26.59 5.74 .41 25.53 5.51 .38
Agreeableness 23.09 6.67 .48 24.90 7.44 .56 24.90 7.44 .46 23.03 6.52 .45
Conscientious 23.71 5.41 .31 24.52 6.26 .48 24.52 6.26 .34 23.63 5.52 .23
Self-enhancement 4.32 .90 .74 3.97 1.06 .70 4.38 .80 .71 4.39 .87 .77
Self-transcendence 4.88 .71 .72 4.59 .91 .75 4.96 .64 .71 4.92 .84 .69
Openness to change 4.44 .66 .62 4.15 .87 .70 4.58 .62 .60 4.46 .57 .55
Conservation 4.80 .67 .80 4.56 .88 .85 4.92 .62 .83 4.81 .61 .75
study at any time without any repercussions. Answering the questionnaire took between 15 minutes
(at universities) to about 30 minutes (at the JHS institutions). The overall response rate to the
study was almost 80%.
The ethical committee for humanities of the University of Ghana reviewed and approved the
study, and before data collection was undertaken, a pilot study was undertaken to ensure that the
questions were clear enough.
Results
Extent of cyberbullying
To determine the extent of cyberbullying, we first looked at participants’ responses to the
individual items constituting the cyberbullying scale. Here the focus was on the percentage of
the participants who had encountered the situation at least once. Subsequently, we looked at the
scale as an index. As can be seen in Table 2, the most common form of cyberbullying is
“receiving a nasty text message”. Over two-thirds (73.2%) of all the participants had received
such a message at least one in the course of the last 6 months, with as many as 83% of the
university students having experienced it at least once. The least common form of cyberbullying
is nasty emails; about one out of three (31.3%) of the students has experienced it at least once in
the course of 6 months. The relative low occurrence of sending “nasty email” is because of the
“cumbersome” nature of emailing compared with texting.
Because of the skewness of the of the cyberbullying index (skewness = .94; kurtosis = 1.60), for the
rest of the analyses in the paper, the index was dichotomized into “Never before” vs. “at least once”.
Using this as our dependent variable, a cross-tabulation of cyberbullying by educational level
indicated that 69.3% of the JHS, 92.0% of SHS and 93.3% of University students had encountered
cyberbullying at least once.; and this was more than a chance occurrence (χ2 (2) = 70.85; p < .001;
Cramer’s V = .29). As to whether being a cyberbully victim is related to gender, cross-tabulation
indicated that for the entire sample, there is no difference between the genders (χ2 (1) = 2.10; p > .05).
However, splitting the sample to educational level, a border line significant difference was found
between males and female university students (χ2 (1) = 3.64; p = .056). Because there was no gender
difference, gender was not controlled for in subsequent analyses.
8 D. L. SAM ET AL.
Table 2. Percentage of participants who have experienced the different cyberbullying at least once in the course of the last
6 months.
All participants Junior High Senior High University
_____________ _____________ _____________ _____________
N % N % N % N %
Nasty text message 618 73.2 48 43.3 172 76.8 395 83.0
Nasty Email 267 31.6 24 17.1 82 36.6 160 33.6
Being insulted online 317 37.6 51 36.4 84 37.5 181 38.0
Nasty Instant message 357 42.3 33 23.6 106 47.3 217 45.6
Nasty test without knowing who sent it 380 45.0 40 28.6 110 49.1 228 47.9
Prank call 487 57.7 54 38.6 135 60.3 297 62.4
Excluded from group (eg., Facebook) 357 42.3 37 26.4 108 48.2 211 44.3
Consequences of cyberbullying
To examine effect of being a victim of cyberbullying on psychological wellbeing, we compared victims
and non-victims on self-esteem, somatic complaints, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, in addition to
the composite score of somatic complaints, anxiety, and depressive symptoms (as psychological
symptoms). We compared the entire sample on these outcomes, and also separately for the three
educational levels. As can be seen in Table 3, the general trend is that students who had been victims of
cyberbullying generally did not differ from their counterparts who had never been victims on the
examined psychological wellbeing indicators. The general lack of difference was particularly so among
the JHS. Among university students, however, there was a significant difference between victims and
non-victims on the overall psychological symptoms scale [M = 2.30 (sd = .59) vs.M = 1.99 (sd = .52), t
(474) = 2.74, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .56] and on the somatic complaints subscale [M = 2.25 (sd = .59) vs.
M = 1.86 (sd = .55), t (474) = 3.41 p < .01, Cohen’s d = .68], and in both cases, the victims reported more
problems. The effect sizes are also medium. Looking at all the students as a group, significant
differences could be found between victims and non-victims on the overall psychological symptoms
scale [M = 2.30 (sd = .59) vs. 2.15 (sd = .64), t (841) = 2.22, p < .05, Cohen’s d = .24], on somatic
complaints [M = 2.22 (sd = .57) vs.M = 2.08 (sd = .68), t (841) = 2.16, p < .05, Cohen’s d = .22], and on
anxiety [M = 2.37 (.76) vs. M = 2.17 (sd = .72), t (841) = 2.37, p < .05. Cohen’s d = .27). In all three
instances, victims reported more problems than their non-victimized peers. The effect of cyberbullying
on the psychological wellbeing was generally small.
Table 3. Cross-tabulation of extent of cyberbullying by educational level and gender.
Never At least once
__________ ___________
N (%) N (%) Statistics♣
Educational level
Junior High 43 (30.7) 97 (69.3) χ2 = 70.85; df = 2
Senior High 18 (8.0) 206 (92.0) p < .001: Effect size
University 29 (6.1) 447 (93.9) Cramer’s V = .29
Gender
Male 45 (9.3) 437 (90.7) χ2 = 2.10; df = 1
Female 46 (12.7) 316 (87.3) P > .06
Gender and Educational level
Junior High School
Male 20 (27.0) 54 (73.0) χ2 = .669; df = 1;
Female 23 (34.8) 43 (65.2) P > .05
Senior High School
Male 16 (8,6) 169 (91.4) χ2 = .169; df = 1
Female 2 (3.1) 37 (94.9) P > .05
University
Male 8 (3.6) 213 (96.4) χ2 = 3.638; p = .06
Female 21 (8.2) 234 (91.8) df = 1
Note: ♣ In the 2 × 2 contingency table, the Yates Correction for Continuity is reported.
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 9
Table 4. Cyberbullying and its consequences: Victims vs. non-victims on psychological outcomes.
Psychological symptoms Somatic complaints Anxiety Depressive symptoms Self-esteem
Mean (sd) Mean (sd) Mean (sd) Mean (sd) Mean (sd)
Junior High school students
Victim 2.40 (.58) 2.30 (.66) 2.45 (.74) 2.46 (.85) 3.52 (.76)
Non-victim 2.27 (.68) 2.29 (.77) 2.28 (.81) 2.26 (.96) 3.58 (.68)
t-test 1.12 .07 1.23 1.21 .42
df/p 137/P > .05 137/p > .05 137/p > 05 137/p > .05 138/P > .05
Senior High school students
Victim 2.24 (.58) 2.13 (.47) 2.36 (.78) 2.24 (.77) 4.04 (.73)
Non-victim 2.12 (.68) 1.96 (.50) 2.09 (.68) 2.33 (1.02) 4.07 (.71)
t-test .81 1.47 1.45 .48 .16
df/p 222/p > .05 222/p > .05 222/p > .05 222/p > .05 222/p > .05
University students
Victim 2.30 (.59) 2.25 (.59) 2.36 (.76) 2.29 (.77) 3.96 (.73)
Non-victim 1.99 (.53) 1.86 (.55) 2.08 (.61) 2.03 (.66) 3.90 (.84)
t-test 2.74 3.41 1.93 1.81 .42
df/p 474/p < .01 474/p < .01 474/p = .053 474/p > .05 474/p > .05
All participants
Victim 2.30 (.59) 2.22 (.57) 2.37 (.76) 2.30 (.78) 3.92 (.75)
Non-victim 2.15 (.64) 2.08 (.68) 2.17 (.72) 2.20 (.68) 3.79 (.75)
t-test 2.22 2.16 2.37 1.14 1.60
df/p 841/p < .05 841/p < .05 841/p < .05 841/> .05 842/p > .05
Characteristics of cyber-bullied victim
To characterize victims of cyberbullying, logistic regression was used to predict the likelihood of
being a victim vs. being a non-victim. The following variables were used as predictors: religios-
ity, neuroticism, and the four personal values of Self-enhancement, Self-transcendence,
Openness-to-change and Conservation. In the area of personality, only neuroticism was used.
We did not control for sex in our analysis, because no sex differences were observed. Once
again, we ran separate analysis for the three sub-groups of students, and also for the entire
student sample.
Generally, the individual predictors made very little significant contribution to the prediction of
being a victim or being a non-victim. A (See Table 4) test of the full model against a constant only
model was statistically significant, in the JHS and the university samples. Furthermore, for the entire
study sample, a significant full model was obtained. These significant models indicated that in the case
of the JHS sample, the predictors could reliably distinguish between cyberbully-victims and non-
victims (χ2(6) = 13.67, p < .05; Nagelkerke’s R
2 = 13). The overall prediction success was 74.8% (26.2%
for non-victims and 95.9%% for victims). Wald statistics indicated that only Self-enhancement made a
significant contribution to the prediction (p < .01). The other predictors made no significant con-
tribution. The Exp (B) of 1.8, suggests that a unit increase in self-enhancement increased the odds of a
JHS by 80% to be a victim of cyberbullying compared with being a non-victim.
Among university students, the predictors could distinguish between the two groups (χ2(6) = 19.87,
p< .01;Nagelkerke’sR2 = 11). The overall prediction successwas 93.9% (0% for non-victims and 100%% for
victims).Here too, only one of the predictors–Openness-to-change –made a significant contribution to the
prediction (p < .01). The other predictorsmade no significant contribution. A unit increase inOpenness-to-
change increased the odds ratio by 4.18 times, suggesting thatOpenness-to-changemade individuals 4 times
likely to be a victim of cyberbullying compared to being non-victim.
In the prediction of being a victim of cyberbullying, for the entire sample, a hierarchical model
was used, where educational level was entered in step 1, as a control variable. In this model,
university students were the reference group. This model was significant [χ2(2) = 53.47, p < .001;
Nagelkerke’s R2 = 13]. The Odds ratio of being a victim of cyberbullying in JHS compared to being a
University student was reduced substantially (B = −.1.90; Wald = 50.87, p < .001, Exp (B) = .15).
10 D. L. SAM ET AL.
Statistics (not shown in Table 5) indicated that JHS had 85% decrease in the odds of being a victim.
There was no such effect comparing SHS with university students. For the overall model, χ2
(8) = 69.64, p < .01; Nagelkerke’s R
2 = .16. The overall prediction success was 90.2% (7.9% for
non-victims and 100% for victims). Other than the educational level between JHS and university
student, where there was a significant contribution, Openness-to-change was the only significant
contributor to the model, where a unit increase in Openness-to-change increased the Odds of being
a cyber bully victim by over 60%, [Exp (B) = 1.66].
Discussion
This study sought to answer three questions regarding cyberbullying in Ghana: the extent of the
phenomenon, the consequences of cyberbullying on the victims and the profile of the victims. A
number of hypotheses were put forward with respect to the questions. Whereas answers to the broad
questions are somewhat clear, these answers to a large extent did not support the hypotheses
formulated. Many of the hypotheses were either rejected, or partially supported.
The large majority of Ghanaian high school and university students have experienced some
form of cyberbullying on at least one occasion in the course of the last 6 months. The extent of
the cyberbullying is much higher in Ghana than what has been reported in studies carried out in
the UK and in the US (see Smith et al. 2013; O’Moore 2012). Although Ghana is highly ranked
among African countries when it comes to access to, and the use of the internet (Sam et al.
Forthcoming), it is relatively low when compared with many western countries. It is therefore
surprising that cyberbullying should be much more widespread in Ghana than in Western
countries. We believe this is both unique and should be of concern to Ghanaian health
professionals, educators and parents alike. It will be good to examine the extent of cyberbullying
Table 5. Logistic regression in the prediction likelihood of being a cyber victim.
Predictor variable B Wald Exp (B)/Odds ratio
Junior High School Students
Religiosity .05 .06 1.05
Neuroticism −.02 .88 .98
Self-enhancement .61 6.87** 1.84
Self-transcendence −.18 .25 .84
Conservation .10 .07 1.1
Openness to change .18 .32 1.20
Senior High School Students
Religiosity .17 .19 1.19
Neuroticism .01 .06 1.01
Self-enhancement .21 .34 1.23
Self-transcendence −.41 .59 .67
Conservation .05 .6o 1.05
Openness to change −.53 .86 .59
University Students
Religiosity −.61 2.01 .55
Neuroticism −.05 2.39 95
Self-enhancement −.20 .81 .82
Self-transcendence −.56 1.56 .57
Conservation .78 2.84 2.19
Openness to change 1.43 8.42** 4.18
All the participants
Educ. I JSS −1.74 37.57*** .17
Educ. II SHS −.37 1.30 .69
Religiosity −.07 2.16 .98
Neuroticism −.02 2.16 .14
Self-enhancement .22 2.43 1.25
Self-transcendence −.26 1.23 .77
Conservation .17 .53 1.20
Openness to change .49 4.69* 1.63
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 11
in other African countries taking into consideration the accessibility of the internet and mobile
devices in these countries. Answers to these questions will help shed light on whether cyberbul-
lying is unique in Ghana or not.
The fact that the largest majority of the participants are cyberbullying victims does not mean that
the perpetrators constitute a minority few. While we do not have information on the perpetrators, we
speculate that what we are observing in this Ghanaian sample is that the children are both victims and
perpetrators, as has been suggested to be the case in studies from the West (Sekol and Farrington
2010b).
The hypothesis that cyberbullying would be highest among senior high school students was not
supported, although it was higher among the older students (senior high and university students)
than the younger group of students. This partial support is probably not surprising because students
in Ghanaian junior and senior high schools have limited access to mobile phones and to the internet.
Indeed, the Ghana education service regulations forbid the possession and use of mobile phones in
school (Agyemang 2014). However, because junior high schools in Ghana are predominantly non-
residential, cyberbullying among the JHS students take place off school premises. Ghanaian parents
who can afford to give their JHS-children mobile phone most likely also supervise its use, and very
likely also explains the low prevalence of this problem among the children. A high proportion of SHS
in Ghana are enrolled in boarding schools; supervision quite often is less stringent in the evenings
after classes and in the dormitories. This offers SHS students ample opportunity to use their mobile
devices, and the possibility of bullying others.
No difference was found between the senior high and the university students. It is nevertheless
possible that were there no restrictions at the junior and senior high schools, students in SHS in
particular would probably report more cyberbullying than their university counterparts. Traditional
bullying in Ghanaian high schools is transient, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it is most
common in boarding schools, in SHS, and during the first two years of the three-year cycle. To assert
seniority and power or dominance, 2nd year students in SHS bully the 1st years. Some 1st years may
bully other 1st years, but hardly do 1st years bully 2nd years. Final year students at SHS rarely engage
in bullying. Thus, our expectation was that bullying would have stopped by the time the students
entered university. Students at the university level are seen as adults, have more freedom, and mature
enough to not resort to punitive corrective action for misdeeds. Of course, we do not rule out the
possibility that cyberbullying may be a new form of bullying and does not follow the transient
pattern of traditional bullying.
No sex differences were found in this study: boys were equally likely to be a victim as girls. Previous
research suggested that females were more likely to be victims of cyberbullying victims (see Li 2007; Ybarra
and Mitchell 2004). Some studies have also suggested that females are also likely to engage in more
cyberbullying than males. Barlett and Coyne (2014) have for instance suggested that females as more
cyberbullying perpetrators depends on the nature of the cyberbullying: girls tend to gossip more as part of
their cyberbullying, and boys are more likely to engage in provocative and taunting behavior during
cyberbullying. In a meta-analysis, Barlett and Coyne (2014) concluded that boys are slightly more likely
to cyberbully than females. However, they also found an age effect where females are more likely to
cyberbully during early and mid-adolescence than boys; boys on the other hand cyberbully more in late
adolescence. In our study, the items used to ascertain cyberbullying were gender neutral and possibly
accounts for the lack of gender differences in the study.
The ubiquity of cyberbullying among Ghanaian students may seem to suggest that this may be an
acceptable everyday behavior. This view may be underscored by the fact that the victims of
cyberbullying on the whole did not differ very much from their non-victim counterparts on
psychological wellbeing. In the few instances where differences were noted, the effects were small
to moderate. While these findings in a way support our expectation, they are in stark contrast to the
studies from Western countries (see Fahy et al. 2016; Hinduja and Patchin 2007, 2015). We believe
that the general lack of association between cyberbullying and psychological wellbeing can be
attributed to the perceived normality of the behavior. On the one hand, Ghanaian children accept
12 D. L. SAM ET AL.
physical punishment (such as the use of the cane, or the pulling of the ear) as a corrective measure,
and it is possible that when older adolescents (cyber) bully younger adolescents, the victims view it as
correcting them of their “bad” behavior. Similarly, many Ghanaian females (both adults and the
youth) fail to react negatively when sexual and lewd comments are directed at them in daily social
interactions (see Wage Indicator 2016). It is possible that children find these derogatory remarks and
physical abuse as a normal part of everyday interaction and conversation. These forms of abuse have
very likely toughened the kids against any psychological distress these may bring. When asked (as
part of this study) what they did when cyberbullied, a large majority of the participants (ca. 75%), did
not report it, but rather retaliated and regarded the behavior as normal.
None of the hypotheses put forward to help profile the victim of cyber bullying in Ghana was
supported. The profiling consisted of three sets of indicators: personality, values, and religiosity.
Only one of the Big-5 personality traits, neuroticism was used in this study because of the poor
internal consistency of the four other traits. However, this personality trait was not a significant
predictor of being a victim. In this study, we could not find support to studies, such as those of
Bollmer, Harris, and Milich (2006), and Mynard and Joseph (1997) that neuroticism is related to
cyberbullying. One reason why this personality trait, and possibly the other predictors, such as
religiosity did not make a significant effect on victimization is that the large majority of the study’s
participants have been victimized before. With very few non-victims in our sample, we probably
lacked the statistical power to distinguish between the two groups – victims and non-victims. As out
logistics regression analyses indicated, the classification on the non-victims was generally very poor.
Similarly, religiosity did not come out as a significant predictor of cyber-victimization. We
expected highly religious students to be victimized, but this was not the case. One possible reason
is that Ghanaians are highly religious, and this resulted in low variability on the variable, and
subsequently as a poor predictor.
Values on the whole also turned out to be poor predictor of victimization. Two of the four higher level
values examined showed some significant effect. These two values however also did not show systematic
effect in the different examinations performed here. Moreover, these significant effects were also contrary
to what we hypothesized. Among JHS, individuals high on self-enhancement were more likely to be
cyberbullied. This finding is similar to the findings among university students, where students high on
openness-to-change were more likely to become victims of cyberbullying. These findings generally
suggest that assertive Ghanaian students who may be interested in exciting are more likely to be bullied.
According to Schwartz (2006), at the cultural level, Ghanaians are high on embeddedness as opposed to
autonomy. This cultural level characterization of Ghanaians suggests that Ghanaians see themselves and
each other as parts of the larger collective. It also suggests that good and harmonious social relationships
are very important to Ghanaians, and there is an emphasis on restraining actions that may disrupt in-
group solidarity or the social order (Bye et al. 2011). It is therefore reasonable to assume that individuals
high on self-enhancement and also high on openness-to-change were victimized as a way of bringing
them back into, or keeping them in, the fold. If this assumption is correct, then, cyberbullying in Ghana
may be nothing more than an extension of “punishing” erring and disobedient individuals in order to
correct their blundering ways. This may add further credence to the finding that cyberbullied students in
Ghana did not differ from their non-bullied peers on the psychological wellbeing indicators examined.
We are fully aware that such a conclusion may be a hasty one considering that this is just a single study.
From a methodological point of view, this study is not without its limitations. One methodolo-
gical issue is not using the term “cyberbullying” in the study. Other than in the application for ethical
clearance, the term “cyberbullying” was not used anywhere in the study. Did our failure to do so
affect our results, by way of inflating the extent of cyberbullying in Ghana? Cyberbullying is not a
new concept in Ghana, but to date has received very little media and research. While this study
clearly demonstrates cyberbullying exists in Ghana, we believe many Ghanaians lack an under-
standing of what constitutes cyberbullying, plus traditional social orientation makes it difficult to
distinguish between acts of cyberbullying, traditional bullying, and normal play. Back to our
methodological concern, what is uncertain from this study is whether participants would have
DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 13
responded differently had they been told what cyberbullying is, and be given a definition. Future
studies in Ghana would do well to inform participants of what the study is about etc.
Collecting data from different high schools and universities should normally be included in the
statistical models in order to control for any level 2 effects. Unfortunately, the data-entry
performed by the research assistants did not give room for the possibility of performing these
control checks.
The poor reliability of four of the Big-5 personality traits raises question about the culturally
appropriateness of the instrument for use among the study’s sample. Previous studies in Ghana
where the Big-5 personality traits have been assessed (see e.g., Erica., Agyemang, and Afful 2014;
Sarfo 2015), used a shortened version of the scale. The internal consistencies of most of the sub-
scales were below 0.60 in these studies. In our opinion, the 60-item scale included a number of
idiomatic expressions that the younger group of students probably did not understand. Moreover,
the contents of the statements were culturally alien to the Ghanaian school pupils. Future studies will
do well to validate this instrument for the Ghanaian context.
The majority of the participants are themselves victims of cyberbullying, making it making it
difficult to clearly distinguish between victims and non-victims with a small sample. Future studies
will do well to get large sample of non-victims, as well as individuals who are both victims and
bullies profile the three groups.
These notwithstanding, the present study present one of the most positive attempts to study
cyberbullying among Ghanaian participants. The cyberbullying is widespread, but it does not appear
to affect the victims’ psychological wellbeing. This makes us to speculate that cyberbullying, just like
traditional bullying, is seen as a normal behavior among Ghanaian youth, and as a way of
disciplining errant behaviors of younger peers, or for the amusement of older youth. It is unclear
what characterizes the victims of cyberbullying in Ghana. More studies are needed in order to get
clear answers to several questions this study raises.
Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful for invaluable statistical advice from Nora Wiium, University of Bergen, Norway. Funds
for this study were provided by the University of Bergen, and the Meltzer-fund.
Funding
Funds for this study were provided by the University of Bergen, and the Meltzer-fund.
Notes on contributors
David L. Sam is a professor of cross-cultural psychology at the University of Bergen, Bergen Norway, and was a
Carnegie Diasporan Fellow at the University of Ghana in 2016 when the present study was carried out.
Delphine Bruce is a PhD student of the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Legon. Her research interest
includes neuropsychology rehabilitation, Mental health, acculturation and intercultural research.
Collins B. Agyemang is a trained and licensed Industrial and Organizational Psychologist and Management Consultant
based in Ghana and serves as an Executive Board Member and National Secretary of Ghana Psychological Association.
He lectures at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana, in Management and Psychology based courses.
Benjamin Amponsah is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Ghana, Ghana. He has on two different
periods served as the head of the Department of Psychology at the same university.
Helen Arkorful is currently the Dean of Evening School at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana. Prior
to this, she served as the Dean of International Affairs, Head of Business Administration Department, and Coordinator
for the Diploma in Business Studies all at the same university.
14 D. L. SAM ET AL.
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