Strain, Negative Emotion, and Cyber Violence among South Korean Juveniles: A Mediation Analysis

While there has been moderate support for General Strain Theory (GST), the extant body of literature has been criticized for its lack of diversity (i.e., not sufficiently considering cross-cultural differences) as well as for its lack of stringency in testing mediators between strain and criminal behavior. As such, the current study investigated the intervening effect of the negative emotion of anger between school strain, as well as family strain, and cyber violence among South Korean youth. Also, it focused on their strains, which due to their traditional roots in Confucian culture, may be qualitatively and quantitatively different than those experienced by youth in Western societies. By using a manifest mediation analysis and a bias-corrected bootstrap method, this study found that the reason they committed cyber violence was not so much due to getting stressed out from the toxic relationship with their teacher as due to anger’s mediating role in the relationship between the strain and cyber violence. Results from the present study provided full support for GST’s application to a Confucian-based country. Theoretical and policy implications were discussed.