Problematic internet use, aggression and prosocial behavior among adolescents: Moral disangagement as a mediator

The aim of this study is to examine the relations between problematic internet use, aggression and prosocial tendencies among adolescents, and to investigate the role of moral disengagement as a mediator. In addition, whether differences occur in problematic internet use, aggression, prosocial tendencies and moral disengagement according to certain variables such as duration and purposes of internet use as well as demographic variables is aimed to be examined. Participants were 479 students from seven different types of preselected high schools that reside in three districts of Konya. Participants filled a battery of questionnaires including demographic information form, Online Cognitions Scale, Buss-Perry Agression Questionnaire and Prosocial Tendencies Measure. Analyses were conducted using SPSS Statistics 23 and Amos 21 software packages. Path analysis as a subset of Structural Equation Modeling was utilized while testing basic hypotheses of the study. Problematic internet use was found to predict increases in moral disengagement, aggression, verbal aggression, physical aggression, anger and hostility. Moral disengagement was found to mediate this relationship, fully or partially. Problematic internet use was found to predict increases in public prosocial tendencies and decreases in altruistic, compliant and anonymous prosocial tendencies. Moral disengagement partially or fully mediated the relationships. In addition, problematic internet use, aggression, prosocial tendencies and moral disengagement were found to differ significantly in relation to other variables such as duration and purposes of internet use as well as demographic variables. Findings were discussed within the context of literature. Keywords: problematic internet use, moral disengagement, aggression, prosocial behavior, adolescent