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Anti-Bullying Collection
Can research help us prevent bullying?
Special article collection for National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month – free access
In 1999, two students at Columbine High School in the US murdered 12 students and one teacher, and injured 24 people before committing suicide in what became one of several high-profile school massacres. There is evidence to suggest the two shooters had planned and executed the complex attack as a result of years of bullying; a year later, US Secret Service officials analyzed 37 similar premeditated school shootings and found that bullying “played a major role in more than two-thirds of the attacks.”
A study by researchers at Yale University in the US suggests bullying victims are two to nine times more likely than non-bullied children to report suicidal thoughts – and the bullies also showed a higher incidence of these thoughts.
Add to that the ubiquitous access to the internet, social media and group messaging services like WhatsApp, children and teenagers are in a vulnerable position. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide rates for boys aged 15 to 19 have increased more than 30 percent, and suicide rates for teenage girls are the highest they have been in 40 years. Some believe cyberbullying is at least partly to blame.
Despite this, bullying is common, both online and offline – according to international studies, anywhere between 9 and 54 percent of children are bullied. And it’s not just children at risk; bullying happens at university and in the workplace too. Researchers around the world are working to understand the psychology of bullying and victimization, the risk factors and consequences, and to develop ways of preventing bullying. A recent Special Issue of the Journal of Adolescence explores many themes in bullying research.
This month, people across the US have worn blue shirts to highlight the importance of preventing bullying and cyberbullying, and to start National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month.
To mark the month, we have collected some of the latest research from across Elsevier’s psychology journals, which you can read free for six months.
Cyberbullying on the rise?
More and more children and teenagers have access to the internet and social media sites through mobile devices – an estimated 92 percent of adolescents go online every day. Although there are benefits, such as learning support, the negative effects like addiction and cyberbullying are becoming increasingly concerning. But what is the impact of online victimization compared to face-to-face bullying?
In her article in Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Dr. Michelle Wright describes two studies involving 462 adolescents that explored participants’ reactions to hypothetical social situations that occurred face-to-face and online and their links with later aggression. She found that feelings of sadness and anger resulted more often from face-to-face victimization than cyber victimization, and that adolescents were more likely to blame themselves than the aggressors in face-to-face victimization, possibly because of the ambiguity in online interactions.
In many other studies, there has been an emphasis on cyberbullying, in some cases leading to “inconsistent findings and exaggerated claims about prevalence, development over time, and effects,” according to a review in Current Opinion in Psychology. The authors say we need to agree on a definition of the phenomenon as a scientific concept in order to build a useful and coherent body of knowledge. They say: “We tentatively recommend that cyberbullying should be regarded as a subcategory or specific form of bullying, in line with other forms such as verbal, physical, and indirect/relational.”
Sharing solutions
Research can also play a role in understanding how and why people defend the victims of bullying, to help develop ways of preventing it. Although schools consider defense important in reducing bullying, it does not happen frequently.
Writing in the Journal of School Psychology, researchers from the Netherlands and Finland described a study in which they explored the outcomes of defensive behavior to understand why children defend victims of bullying. In a study of 4209 students from 210 classes in 38 schools, they found that children who empathize emotionally with the victims (affective empathy) rather than consciously taking their perspective (cognitive empathy) were more likely to defend.
The team hypothesized that defenders would be more popular as a result, but that defenders who were also victims themselves would enjoy less popularity. Yet the results showed no difference, revealing that defending resulted in popularity regardless of the child.
Read the collection
Understanding the causes and consequences of bullying, and the reasons for defending victims, can help develop ways to prevent it. In this collection, we feature studies on a range of topics, including how to improve bullying research, experiences of bullying in different countries and the impact of bullying at work on the psychological contract. You can read the collection free for six months:
- Aggression and Violent Behavior
So you want to study bullying? Recommendations to enhance the validity, transparency, and compatibility of bullying research - Child Abuse & Neglect
Young men’s suicidal behavior, depression, crime, and substance use risks linked to childhood teasing - Children and Youth Services Review
Comparing children’s experiences of schools-based bullying across countries - Computers in Human Behavior
Comparing electronic and traditional bullying in embarrassment and exclusion scenarios - Current Opinion in Psychology
Some problems with cyberbullying research - Eating Behaviors
Body image flexibility mediates the effect of body image-related victimization experiences and shame on binge eating and weight - European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation
Embedded relational mindfulness (ERM)© in child and adolescent treatment: A sensorimotor psychotherapy perspective - Journal of Adolescence
Peer victimization in adolescence: The nature, progression, and consequences of being bullied within a developmental context - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Adolescents’ emotional distress and attributions for face-to-face and cyber victimization: Longitudinal linkages to later aggression - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Adolescents’ explicit and implicit evaluations of hypothetical and actual peers with different bullying participant roles - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
On thwarted goals and displaced aggression: A compensatory competence model - Journal of Research In Personality
Bidirectional pathways between relational aggression and temperament from late childhood to adolescence - Journal of School Psychology
Defending victims: What does it take to intervene in bullying and how is it rewarded by peers? - Journal of Vocational Behavior
That wasn’t our deal: A psychological contract perspective on employee responses to bullying - Personality and Individual Differences
Exploring the relationship between personality and bullying; an investigation of parental perceptions - Research in Developmental Disabilities
Relationships of bullying involvement with intelligence, attention, and executive function in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
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3 thoughts on “Anti-Bullying Collection”
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Researchers and clinicians in psychology work across a vast array of sub-disciplines, including applied psychology, addictions, cognitive psychology, developmental and educational psychology, experimental physiological psychology, forensic psychology, neuropsychology, and behavioral and cognitive therapy. For these professionals, and students as well, cross-disciplinary study is a given. For more than 75 years, Elsevier has cultivated portfolios of psychology books, eBooks, and journals covering current and critical issues in all of these areas. This vital content provides a sound basis of understanding for all those involved in this multi-faceted field.
I notice that there is nothing about bullying and the psychopathy (callous and unemotional traits in the case of child bullies) of the bully here and yet bullying and psychopathy have always been associated in the psychopathy literature. Workplace bullying has been found to correlate highly with the presence of corporate psychopaths, with reports of severe bullying up to and including death threats.
A good (but underscored) share of the problem of youth violence, including bullying, is exposure to media violence, and above all violent videogames, used mainly by adolescents.
Unfortunately, with the excuse of “personal freedom” and with the support of obsolete freudian theories, this fact is not adequately acknowledged. To the maximum profits of violent videogame producers and traders!
But the science is unequivocal: violent videogames increase aggression in youth both at long and short term.
My own cousin bullied me when his wife decided not to invite me to a family function they were hosting, he being older than me agreed; and then my dumb older sister had to tell me why I was not invited; and then proceeded to attend the function; and after the function late at night, showed up at my home to tell me all about the stupid do.