The Longitudinal Relations Between Cyber Defending Behavior and Mental Health: Enhancement or Depletion?

The role of cyber defending behavior in mitigating the consequences of cyberbullying has led to increased encouragement for bystanders to actively engage in cyber defending. However, the psychological impact of such behavior on the defenders themselves remains unclear. The present research explored the long-term associations between cyber defending behavior and mental health, taking into account core self-evaluation as a potential mediator. The sample consisted of 3,982 Chinese adolescents (Mage at baseline = 15.86, SD = 0.79; 52.9% girls). Participants completed measures of cyber defending behavior, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and core self-evaluation at three time points, each spaced one semester apart. The sample size decreased to 3,460 at T2 (attrition rate = 13.1%) and 2,831 at T3 (attrition rate = 28.9%). At baseline, cyber defending behavior was positively associated with life satisfaction and negatively associated with depressive symptoms. However, RI-CLPMs indicated that cyber defending behavior did not significantly predict later within-person changes in mental health indicators (i.e., life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and anxiety), nor with core self-evaluation. In contrast, core self-evaluation consistently predicted subsequent mental health outcomes. Reciprocal associations were observed between core self-evaluation and depressive symptoms, but not anxiety. These findings indicate that while cyber defending behavior is associated with better mental health at baseline, it does not predict subsequent improvements in life satisfaction and does not constitute a mental health risk for defenders over time.