Adolescent Psychosocial Profiles and Early Cyberbullying Histories: Longitudinal Associations and Patterns of Change Across Development
Taliah Prince, Amanda Boyes, Maddison Crethar, Christina Driver, Lia Mills, Daniel F. HermensABSTRACT
Introduction
Cyberbullying is highly prevalent during adolescence and is consistently associated with poor mental health outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether these difficulties develop into distinct psychosocial profiles, limiting understanding of how early cyberbullying relates to longitudinal patterns of psychological distress and wellbeing in adolescence. This study aimed to identify profiles of functioning, examine associations with earlier cyberbullying involvement, and characterize developmental patterns across adolescence.
Methods
Data were drawn from the Australian Longitudinal Adolescent Brain Study ( N = 86; 52.3% female, 48% male). Ward's hierarchical cluster analysis identified psychosocial profiles (i.e., clusters) based on psychological distress, body dissatisfaction, social connectedness, psychological wellbeing, and quality of life in mid‐adolescence (time‐points 9–15). Earlier cyberbullying involvement was examined using data from time‐points 1–8 ( Mage = 13.8 years), utilizing generalized additive mixed models to characterize psychosocial trajectories according to derived cluster membership.
Results
Three profiles emerged: (i) flourishing , (ii) broad impairment , and (iii) appearance‐specific . Early cyberbullying involvement was associated with membership in the broad impairment cluster but not the appearance‐specific cluster. Longitudinal modeling indicated that the flourishing group showed stable functioning, the broad impairment group showed significant change across domains, and the appearance‐specific group showed change in social connectedness. Eating disorder symptoms were most prevalent in the appearance‐specific profile, present in the broad impairment profile, and absent in the flourishing profile.
Conclusions
Cyberbullying was associated with widespread psychosocial impairment, whereas body dissatisfaction may reflect a more domain‐specific vulnerability pathway. Differences in developmental trajectories across profiles support person‐centered, longitudinal approaches for targeted prevention.