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This research focuses on the factors associated with young adults being perpetrators of anti-social behaviour when using social media.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n                    <jats:title>Method<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Based on an online survey of university students in Canada (n = 359), we used PLS-SEM to create a model and test the associations between four factors (online disinhibition, motivations for cyber-aggression, self-esteem, and empathy) and the likelihood of being a perpetrator of online anti-social behaviour.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The model shows positive associations between two appetitive motives for cyber-aggression (namely recreation and reward) and being a perpetrator. This finding indicates that young adults engage in online anti-social behaviour for fun and social approval. The model also shows a negative association between cognitive empathy and being a perpetrator, which indicates that perpetrators may be engaging in online anti-social behaviour because they do not understand how their targets feel.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0284374","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,24]],"date-time":"2023-05-24T13:23:06Z","timestamp":1684934586000},"page":"e0284374","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":24,"title":["To troll or not to troll: Young adults\u2019 anti-social behaviour on social media"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4850-9255","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Felipe Bonow","family":"Soares","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2366-5163","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Anatoliy","family":"Gruzd","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1371-1077","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jenna","family":"Jacobson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jaigris","family":"Hodson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0284374.ref001","unstructured":"Vogels EA. 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