Recalling unpresented hostile words: false memories predictors of traditional and cyberbullying

This study investigated the relationship between hostile false memories (violent and verbal/aggressive) and engagement in traditional and cyberbullying, controlling for their co-occurrence. Two hundred eleven adolescents completed measures of traditional and cyberbullying and performed a modified version of the ‘‘DRM paradigm’’, a false memory task for lists of associated words. Five lists were used: one of ambiguously violent words, one of insults and three lists of neutral words used as controls. For each list a free recall task was performed. A path analysis showed that both violent false memories for ambiguously hostile words and verbal/aggressive false memories for insults were positively associated with cyberbullying and, in males, also with traditional bullying. These data indicate a contribution of hostile memory distortions to bullying behaviours in adolescents. Findings are discussed according to the general aggression model.