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(unpublished data)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?