Despite recent years showing a substantial rise in cyberbullying awareness, its causes have not been widely studied. In general, most cyberbullying research focuses on the impact the practice has on victims of online harassment. Although this is, of course, extremely important, it leaves a significant gap in our understanding of how and why cyberbullying begins in the first place. This research hopes to shed some light on how cyberbullying begins in order to gain a better understanding of how it can be prevented. Many existing papers and research articles investigating cyberbullying perpetration were carefully examined throughout the course of this project to summarize our existing knowledge of the topic. Several main themes on cyberbullying motivations were discovered during the investigation, including aggression, lack of empathy, lack of online monitoring, revenge, dark triad personality traits, and low self-esteem. Further research is required to fully understand how these causes relate to each other; however, the project has provided a strong start towards that goal so far.
