Post on 26-Mar-2015
Consequences of school bullying and violence
Christina Salmivalli
University of Turku, Finland
• It is evident that children exposed to systematic victimization by their peers suffer from adjustment problems– Victimization is concurrently associated with depression, anxiety,
low global and social self-concept, suicidal ideation, school avoidance (Card, 2003; Hawker & Boulton, 2000)…
– Strongest effect sizes for internalizing problems, BUT victimization is also associated with externalizing problems
– Victimization is even related to health problems (Rigby, 2001)– Several interpersonal correlates such as rejection, low number of
friends and low friendship quality
• The bullies, and especially bully-victims, suffer from adjustment problems as well
• Are the associations between victimization and maladjustment only concurrent, or does victimization longitudinally predict adjustment problems?
• OVERALL:
• Studies investigating the consequences of victimization while controlling for intitial levels in the variables of interest are still surprisingly rare
• Many of the concurrent correlates of victimization seem to be both antecedents and consequences of it – A vicious cycle by which children get trapped in the role
of continued victimization
• HOWEVER:– Internalizing problems, such as depression, seem to
increase as a result of victimization rather than precede it – Low self-esteem, on the other hand, is clearly an
antecedent of victimization, whereas evidence of longitudinal changes in (global) self-esteem resulting from victimization is more mixed
(e.g., Card, 2003)
Prospective relations between victimization, rejection, friendlessness and children’s self-
and peer-perceptions
Christina Salmivalli
University of Turku, Finland
(unpublished data)
self(1)
peer(1)
chronicvic (1-2) vic(3)
rej(3)
fri3
self(3)
peer(3)
Figure 2. The final model (chi-square (23)=30.16, p=.14; CFI=.99; RMSEA=.04).
Grade 5/6 Grade 6/7
.41
.31
-.25
-.13
-.14
-.21
-.17
.44
.63
.14
.29
.23
chronic rej (1-2)
chronic fri (1-2)
• In the short term, victimization seems to influence children’s generalized perception of peers, rather than their view of themselves
• A negative self-perception is clearly a risk factor for victimization (but also for other peer relationship adversities, such as rejection and friendlessness)
What about the long run?
• Follow-up studies examining the long-term consequences of victimization are, to date, almost nonexistent – As an exception, Olweus (1994) followed up 87 men
who had been assessed in grade 9 (and, most of them, also in grade 6) up to 23 years of age.
– The former victims were relatively well-adjusted in many respects. However, they had a lower self-esteem and they suffered from depression more often than their non-victimized age-mates.
Long-term influences of victimization: a follow-up from adolescence to young
adulthood
Christina Salmivalli
University of Turku, Finland
(unpublished data)
Participants of the study
• 274 young adults (145 male and 129 female), who had been involved in a research on school bullying in grade 8 (1996), were approached by mailed questionnaires eight years later (2004)– measures of: depression, self-perception, perception of
other people, and interpersonal goals
• 52.4% of men and 78.3% of women responded– overall response rate = 64.6%
depression
self
others
Victimization in grade 8 (1996) assessed with - two self-report items: my classmates make fun of me; people pick on me -peer-nominations from same-sex and opposite-sex classmates
Depression: BDI, α = .91Self-perception: Rosenberg SE items, with the instruction to report ”the way you feel about yourself when interacting with people of your own age”, α = .86Perception of other people: 13 items describing positive and negative qualities of other people (age-mates), such as "they can really be relied on", "they are hostile", or "they really care about what happens to me" α=.88
vic
same-sexnoms
self-repopp-sex noms
1996 2004
depression
self
others
1996 2004
.15
-.17
-.22
opp-sex noms
same-sexnoms
vic
self-rep
depression
self
others
1996 2004
opp-sex noms
same-sexnoms
vic
”happiness and satisfaction”
-.14
.18
.35
”Happiness and satisfaction” scale: I am a happy person; I like being the way I am; I wish I were different; I am unhappy; I am cheerful; I am a lucky person, α=.72
self-rep
.16
depression
self
others
1996 2004
opp-sex noms
same-sexnoms
vic
”happiness and satisfaction”
-.20
.13
.16
self-rep
.15
.33
depression
self
others
1996 2004
opp-sex noms
same-sexnoms
vic
”happiness and satisfaction”
.16
-.16
.16
perceived popularity
self-rep
.44
perceived family support
Perceived family support: 6 items(e.g., Nobody cares for me at home; my parents like me)
.60
.16
.32
χ2(5)=9.09, p=.11, CFI=.97, RMSEA=.07
Perceived popularity: 11 items (e.g., I am not very popular; I have many friends).
• Victimization in adolescence (grade 8, age 14-15) was predictive of young adults’ (age 22-23) depression and their perception of other people
• These influences were significant even controlling for scores on ”happiness and satisfaction” measure in grade 8
• Unlike victimization, perceived popularity and/or perceived family support did not predict variance in any of the outcome variables eight years later
Consequences for the group?
• Bukowski and Sippola (2001): "victimization not only damages the individual, but damages the group itself as well as the individuals who constitute the group”
• How does victimization damage the group?
Experienced and observed victimization and school satisfaction
• With multilevel modeling, it is possible to disentangle the variance in school satisfaction between individual students, from variance between different school classes
operationalization of school satisfaction:MARK THE FACE THAT BEST DESCRIBES YOU WHEN AT SCHOOL
. . . .. .. . . . . .. .
____ ____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____x
A study with 48 classrooms (grades 4 to 6)- some initial findings:
• Classrooms differ from each other in the overall degree of victimization – differences in experienced victimization are between individual
children, rather than between classrooms: significant differences in observed victimization can be detected between classrooms, however
– there are also significant differences between classrooms in school satisfaction
• At the individual level, experienced victimization is related to lowered level of school satisfaction
• At the classroom level, the overall degree of victimization in the classroom is related to lowered level of school satisfaction
shool enjoyment / satisfaction
experiencedvictimization
experiencedvictimization
observed victimization
BETWEEN-LEVEL:(explaining variation between classrooms)
WITHIN-LEVEL:(explaining variation between students)
observed victimization
degree of victimizationin the classroom
experiencedvictimization
observed victimization
.72 1.00
-.31
-.14
.611.00 1.00
gender
.16
-.06 (n.s.)
Research on consequences of victimization: some future challenges
• More prospective studies controlling for adjustment variables at time 1 are needed, to avoid confounding antecedents of victimization from their consequences
• Need to identify mechanisms of influence
• Need to identify moderators– protective factors ?
• Group-level consequences (as well as antecedents) of victimization/aggression are not yet well-known
• And what about group-level protective factors?