comparisons at every victimization frequency level were significant.In other words, each increase in bullying frequency (e.g., severaltimes/week to daily) was associated with increased odds of emo-tional distress and suicide attempts.Conclusions: Even infrequent bullying involvementmay pose risksto adolescent adjustment; thus clinicians and school personnelshould address isolated instances of bullying behavior. Researchersshould reexamine the use of cutpoints in bullying research in order tomore fully understand the nature of bullying in adolescence. Devel-opmentally, these results suggest that different frequency cutpointsmay be required, depending on the age of the adolescent. Studyfindings support the use of school-wide bullying prevention pro-grams, particularly those that target the diverse internalizing andexternalizing problems associated with bullying involvement.Sources of Support: HRSA# T32HP22239.

70.

THE NATURE OF CYBER-BULLYING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTSRajitha Kota, BS, Megan A. Moreno, MD, MPH.

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Purpose: Bullying is a serious public health problem that can hap-pen atmany stages in the life course- from childhood, to adolescence,even to emerging adulthood. Although traditional bullying still existsand remains an important problem, some of this behavior has mi-grated to an online platform. Through the Internet, children, adoles-cents, and young adults can use electronicmedia inways that harass,humiliate, and even threaten their peers. While much attention hasbeen paid to cyberbullying among younger teens and adolescents,less is known about older adolescents and college students. Thepurpose of this study was to explore the phenomenon of cyberbully-ing among diverse groups of college students.Methods: Participants were recruited through purposeful samplingduring the 2011-2012 academic year from a large Midwestern uni-versity. Eligible participants were current undergraduate studentsbetween the ages of 18 and 22 years; purposeful sampling was usedto seek diverse participants froma variety of student organizations. Atrained facilitator conducted semi-structured focus groups. Focusgroup questions were designed to explore students’ views and expe-riences with cyberbullying in college. All data was transcribed andanalyzed manually. All transcripts were read separately by threeresearchers and analyzed for common themes and concepts using theconstant comparative method.Results: A total of 29 students participated in 4 focus groups. Thesample was 69% female, 90% white, the average age was 19.48 years,and participants came from a wide range of majors and extracurric-ular activities. A primary andpervasive themewas that cyberbullyingwas underestimated in college students, often related to varyingperceptions of its definition. One frequentlymentioned perception ofcyberbullying was a sense of peer pressure related to alcohol use. Atthe start of nearly every focus group, college students began thediscussion indicating that they consider cyberbullying to be largelyrestricted to middle and high school students. Once prompted withexamples based on the definition of cyberbullying, however, stu-dents indicated that these behaviors do occur in college. The mostcommonly reported examples included hacking into others’ onlineprofiles, uploading embarrassing pictureswithout consent, andwrit-ing hurtful comments on social networking sites. Another themewasthat cyberbullying can be considered humorous, not harmful. Finally,students frequently voiced opposition to university involvement inhandling cyberbullying incidents.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that college students underes-timate the concept of “cyberbullying” as a problem in college. How-ever, further prompting from the facilitator indicated that manyproblematic behaviors still occur within this population. Some stu-dents also expressed disinterest in involving school or law enforce-ment officials in cyberbullying situations. These findings imply thatwhile college students engage in these harmful behaviors, many donot believe that their actions can be considered to be serious orpunishable. Future work should focus on exploring the prevalence ofcyberbullying in the college student population, avenues for preven-tion, and how it may differ from bullying in younger populations.Sources of Support: This study was supported by funding fromNIH grant 1R01DA031580-01.

71.

EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUTUREORIENTATION AND BULLYING AND AGGRESSION IN EARLYADOLESCENCESarah A. Stoddard, PhD, Leah Comment, BS, Marc Zimmerman, PhD.

University of Michigan

Purpose: Hope for the future has been linked to positive health anddevelopmental outcomes such a school achievement, high-self es-teem, and overall psychological well-being in adolescence. The asso-ciation between future orientation and bullying/aggressive behavior,however, has received less attention. We examined the relationshipbetween future orientation and bullying/aggression during early ad-olescence, as measured by adolescents’ attitudes towards aggressionand reported aggressive behaviors.Methods: A sample of 7th grade students were recruited to partic-ipate in a paper-pencil survey during their health class (mean age �

13 years; N � 196; 60% female; 60% African American). Participantsresponded to socio-demographic questions and scales examining fu-ture orientation and expectations, attitudes towards aggression, andpast30-dayaggression (i.e., physical fighting, non-physical aggressionand relational aggression).We usedmultivariate regression to exam-ine the relationship between future orientation, attitudes towardaggression and self-reported aggression. A stepwise regression ap-proachwasused to assessmediation effects. The Sobel-Goodman testand 95% asymmetric confidence limits for indirect effects were com-peted to test for mediation.Results: Among the 196 youth, 40% reported being involved in aphysical fighting, 88% reported acts of relational aggression, and 36%reported acts of non-physical aggression in the past month. Higherlevels of future orientation were associated with lower levels ofphysical fighting (b � -1.23, p � .05), non-physical aggression (b �

-1.11, p � .01), and relational aggression (b � -5.58, p � .01). Futureorientationwas negatively associatedwith attitudes towards the useof aggression (b � -.30, p � .01). Positive attitudes toward the use ofviolence was associated with higher levels of physical fighting (b �

1.52, p � .01), non-physical aggression (b � 1.37, p � .01), andrelational aggression (b � 4.35, p � .01). Attitudes towards violencemediated the relationship between future orientation and physicalfighting, non-physical aggression and relational aggression.Conclusions:While youth with a positive orientation to the futurereported fewer positive attitudes about the use of violence and lowerlevels of physical fighting, and relational and physical aggression,attitudes about violence had a strong influence on aggression. Ourfindings suggest that future orientation can play a role in reducingattitudes towards the use of aggression and aggressive behaviorsamong youth. Interventions that help support the development of

S55Poster Abstracts / 52 (2013) S21–S113