Social Anxiety and Bullying Victimization in Children and Early Adolescents: The Role of Developmental Period and Immigrant Status.

Research reveals that social anxiety may be predictive of bullying victimization, but it is not clear whether this relation stands for different groups of youth. The present study examines this association by employing a longitudinal design over 1 year and including the moderating role of developmental period (childhood vs. early adolescence) and students' immigrant status (native vs. non-native). T1 sample included 506 children (46.44% girls, mean age M = 8.55 years, SD = 0.55) and 310 early adolescents (50% girls, mean age = 12.54 years, SD = 0.59) recruited in schools in Northern Italy. Due to missing cases and drop-outs from T1 to T2, the final sample comprised 443 and 203 students from primary and middle school, respectively. Social anxiety and peer victimization were assessed through self-reported questionnaires. Results indicated that victimization at T2 was predicted by a 3-way interaction between T1 social anxiety, immigrant status, and developmental period. In particular, socially anxious early adolescents with an immigrant background were the most victimized. The results are discussed in terms of group dynamics and intergroup processes. The findings highlight the importance of personal variables in the cumulation of risks: social anxiety is more predictive of bullying victimization for immigrant early adolescents than for children or native early adolescents.

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Dysregulation Profile Teacher-Report: Psychometric Properties and Associations with Aspects of School Experience.

Emotional, cognitive, and behavioral dysregulation is a risk factor for severe outcomes, calling for reliable measures to assess it, including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Dysregulation Profile (SDQ-DP) defined by 5 or 15 items. This study explored for the first time the factor structure, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the SDQ-DPs teacher-report in a sample of Italian children (N = 1000; age 7-12 years). The gender invariance of the SDQ-DPs, construct validity, and associations with school variables were also evaluated. A first-order model for the SDQ-DP 5-item and a bifactor model for the SDQ-DP 15-item best fitted the data. Full measurement invariance across gender was confirmed only for the 15-item scale. Internal and test-retest reliabilities were weaker for the 5-item scale. Both SDQ-DPs were similarly associated with a measure of emotion regulation skills and some school variables. This study provides indications for a more conscious use of the two scales.

Longitudinal Associations Between Bullying and Emotions in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adolescents.

In hearing adolescents, emotions play important roles in the development of bullying and victimization. Yet, it is unclear whether this also applies to adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). The present study examines the longitudinal associations of anger, fear, guilt, and shame with bullying/victimization in DHH adolescents. Overall, 80 DHH and 227 hearing adolescents (Mage = 11.7; 103 males) completed self-reports on two occasions with a 9-month interval. Outcomes show that DHH adolescents reported fewer bullying behaviors, but more victimization compared to hearing adolescents. Longitudinal relations between emotions and bullying/victimization did not differ between DHH and hearing adolescents. More anger and less guilt predicted increased bullying, and more bullying predicted increased anger and decreased guilt. Higher levels of anger, fear, and shame predicted increased victimization, and more victimization predicted increased anger, fear, and shame. These findings emphasize that emotions are involved in both the emergence and maintenance of bullying and victimization. These outcomes have clinical implications for the prevention of bullying.

Bullying in preschool: The associations between participant roles, social competence, and social preference.

The different roles of bullying participation (bully, follower, victim, defender of the victim, and outsider) have not been investigated in preschool children. The aims of this study were to use a peer-report measure to assess these roles and to investigate their associations with social competence among pre-schoolers. We also explored whether status among peers, indicated by being socially preferred, mediates the relationship between social competence and bullying roles. Three hundred twenty 3- to 6-year-old children participated in the study. Bullying roles and social preference were assessed by means of peer reports, whereas social competence was investigated with a Q-Sort methodology, based on observations in classrooms. Bullying was also assessed by means of teacher reports. The results showed quite a clear distinction among roles and a correspondence between peer and teacher assessments, except for the role of outsider. The role of defender was positively associated with social competence, whereas the other roles were negatively associated. In a subsample, social preference statistically predicted the role of bully and mediated between social competence and bullying. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of assessing bullying and its correlates at a very young age, although roles may further develop when children grow up.

Morality, values, traditional bullying, and cyberbullying in adolescence.

The aim of the present study was to investigate moral aspects and human values in traditional bullying and cyberbullying, in order to detect differences between the two types of bullying and to test the role of immoral and disengaged behaviours in mediating the relationships between personal values and involvement in bullying. Sample comprised 390 adolescents aged 14-18, balanced for gender, attending different high schools. Traditional and cyberbullying were detected by means of two self-report measures, while the Portrait Values Questionnaire was used to assess 10 values in four dimensions according to the value system model by Schwartz (1992): self-trascendence, self-enhancement, openness to change, and conservation. Finally, immoral and disengaged behaviours were assessed by means of five items about behavioural and personal aspects salient for morality. Results showed that, irrespective of gender, self-enhancement and self-trascendence moderately predicted cyber and traditional bullying, respectively, while immoral and disengaged behaviours predicted both. Indirect effects showed that self-enhancement and openness to change predicted both forms of bullying through immoral behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of similarities and differences between cyber and traditional bullying and with attention to the central role of morality in explaining bullying nature.

The Contribution of Bullying Involvement and Alexithymia to Somatic Complaints in Preadolescents.

Somatic complaints during preadolescence are connected to individual and contextual factors, and extant research highlights the relevance of alexithymia and bullying involvement. In this cross-sectional study, we explored the joint and unique influence of bullying involvement-as perpetrators, victims, or outsiders-and alexithymia on somatic complaints in a sample of 179 Italian middle-school students (aged 11-15). Findings revealed an indirect association between bullying perpetration and victimization complaints through alexithymia. We also found a significant direct association between victimization and somatic complaints. No significant association between outsider behavior and somatization was found. Our results revealed that bullying perpetration and victimization could increase youths' risk for somatic complaints and clarify one of the processes underlying this association. The current findings further emphasize the relevance of emotional awareness for youths' well-being and propose that implementing social-emotional skills might prevent some of the adverse consequences of being involved in bullying episodes.

The Long-Term Effects of Bullying, Victimization, and Bystander Behavior on Emotion Regulation and Its Physiological Correlates.

Bullying at school is a serious social problem that influences the wellbeing of everyone involved, that is, victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. Among the many health and psychological problems that these individuals may develop, emotion dysregulation appears to be a common marker. To date, however, it remains unclear whether bullying experienced during the school years is associated with emotion dysregulation also in adulthood. In this study, by adopting a retrospective approach, we investigated whether involvement in bullying at school-either as a bully, victim, or bystander-could put these individuals at risk of presenting deficits in emotion regulation in adulthood, as assessed with behavioral (explicit) and physiological (implicit) indexes (i.e., skin conductance), and whether the association between the involvement in bullying and emotion regulation was direct or mediated by other factors, such as somatic complaints and sensation seeking. A total of 58 young adults were asked to control their emotional reactions in front of images with strong emotional content, and to explicitly evaluate them with ratings, while their arousal was measured through skin conductance. They also responded to questionnaires about retrospective involvement in bullying, somatic complaints, and sensation seeking. Results revealed that victimization and bystander behavior were directly and negatively associated with emotion regulation as assessed with skin conductance, whereas bullying was positively associated with implicit emotion regulation through the mediation of sensation seeking. Interestingly, emotion regulation as assessed with explicit ratings was not associated with any of the characteristics of the participants. Our study suggests that being directly (as victim) but also indirectly (as bystander) involved in bullying at school time is associated with difficulties in emotional wellbeing in adulthood. Furthermore, it reveals that behavioral and physiological indexes associated with emotion regulation dissociate, suggesting that subtle physiological changes may remain hidden from explicit behavior.

Prejudice and Ethnic Bullying Among Children: The Role of Moral Disengagement and Student-Teacher Relationship.

The identification of factors associated with ethnic bullying within multiethnic schools is a timely social issue. Up to now, ethnic prejudice has been found to facilitate aggression triggered by schoolmates' cultural background. Yet, there is still a dearth of research about the mechanisms underlying this relation among children. In order to fill this gap, by adopting a social-cognitive developmental perspective on prejudice and morality, this paper investigated the mediating role of moral disengagement in the association between ethnic prejudice and ethnic bullying, as well as the moderating role of closeness with the teacher. A mediation model and a moderated mediation model were applied to data collected from 552 primary school children aged 8-10years. Ethnic prejudice, ethnic bullying, and moral disengagement were assessed through self-reported questionnaires, whereas a questionnaire was administered to teachers to assess the level of closeness with their pupils. Results indicated that ethnic prejudice was directly and positively related to ethnic bullying and that moral disengagement partially mediated this association. This indirect link was particularly strong for children with low levels of closeness with their teachers, whereas it resulted not significant for pupils with high levels of closeness, suggesting that closeness with the teacher might restrain morally disengaged children from enacting ethnic bullying. Implications for research and practice aimed at reducing prejudice and moral disengagement, as well as at promoting positive relationships among children and between pupils and teachers, are discussed.

Bullying among siblings: the role of personality and relational variables.

This study aimed to investigate: (1) the influence of gender, sibling age, and sibling gender on sibling bullying and victimization; (2) the links between personality characteristics, quality of the sibling relationship, and sibling bullying/victimization; (3) the association between sibling and school bullying/victimization, and the direct and indirect associations between personality variables and school bullying/victimization. The sample comprised 195 children (98 boys and 97 girls, aged 10-12 years). Instruments included: a self-report questionnaire for bullying and victimization, the Big Five Questionnaire for Children and the Sibling Inventory of Behaviour. Results highlighted that the presence of an older brother is a risk factor for the emergence of sibling victimization. For both boys and girls, high levels of conflict in the dyad and low levels of empathy were significantly related to sibling bullying and sibling victimization. For males, energy was associated with sibling bullying and indirectly to school bullying; friendliness and high emotional instability were directly associated with school bullying. School victimization was directly associated with emotional instability for both males and females. Finally, both sibling bullying and sibling victimization were associated with bullying and victimization at school. The discussion highlights the role of a multi-contextual approach to understand and prevent bullying.

Empathy in adolescence: Relations with emotion awareness and social roles.

In this study, we aimed at gaining a better understanding of the individual differences contributing to feelings of empathy in adolescents. Therefore, we examined the extent to which emotion awareness (e.g., recognizing and appreciating one's own and the emotions of others) and a tendency for certain social roles (e.g., helping or teasing peers when being bullied) are related to adolescents' levels of empathy. The sample was comprised of 182 adolescents aged between 11 and 16. Empathy and emotion awareness were assessed using self-report measures. Peer reports were used to indicate adolescents' different social roles: Bullying, defending the victim, and outsider behaviour. Outcomes demonstrated that evaluating one's own and the emotions of others, and more defending nominations were associated with both affective and cognitive empathy, whereas aspects of emotion awareness which are linked with internalizing symptoms were related to empathic distress, suggesting maladaptive emotion appraisal. Furthermore, outsider behaviour was associated with empathic distress, emphasizing a self-focused orientation. In contrast, more bullying was negatively associated with cognitive empathy. Overall, these outcomes demonstrate that, besides social roles, emotion awareness is an important factor for adaptive empathic reactions, whereas emotion dysregulation might cause distress when witnessing the negative feelings of others.

Aggression, social cognitions, anger and sadness in bullies and victims.

BACKGROUND: The present study aimed to investigate children's social information processing (SIP) and emotions in the bullying situation, taking into account reactive and proactive aggression. More specifically, we investigated the way in which children interpret social information, which goals they select, how they evaluate their responses and which emotions they express in hypothetical situations. METHOD: The participants comprised 242 Dutch children (120 girls and 122 boys; mean age: 117.2 months), who were assigned by means of peer nominations (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, et al., 1996) to one of the following roles: bully (n=21), follower of the bully (n=38), victim (n=35), defender of the victim (n=48), outsider (n=52) and not involved (n=32). Sixteen children (including 3 bully/victims) were not given any role. The reactive and proactive aggression scale (Dodge, & Coie, 1987) was filled out by teachers in order to test the association between these types of aggression and involvement in bullying. Children were presented with ambiguous scenarios and responded to questions about attribution of intent, goal selection and emotions (anger and sadness). In addition, two questionnaires were administered to children: one assessed perceived self-efficacy in performing aggression, inhibiting aggression and using verbal persuasion skills, and the other assessed expected outcomes from behaving aggressively or prosocially. RESULTS: Results showed that while reactive aggression was common in bullies and victims, proactive aggression was only characteristic of bullies. Both bullies and victims, compared to the other children, scored higher on hostile interpretation, anger, retaliation and ease of aggression. Bullies and followers claimed that it was easy for them to use verbal persuasion, while victims turned out to be the saddest group. All children, irrespective of their role in the peer group, thought that aggressive as well as prosocial behavior was more likely to produce desired results from a friendly peer than from an aggressive one. CONCLUSIONS: Bullies and victims seem to be similar in reactive aggression, SIP, and in the expression of anger, but the motivations which lead to their behavior may be different, as well as the final outcomes of their acts.