Exploring the Link Between Being Bullied and Adolescent Substance Use

Abstract

Although research suggests that bullied adolescents may respond to victimization with substance use, much of this prior work has been cross-sectional. Using longitudinal data from a community-based sample, we examine the impact of early bullying victimization on the initiation of substance use in adolescence after considering the potential influence of selection effects using propensity score matching. After matching, there were moderate differences between victims of bullying and control students for cigarette smoking and alcohol use, which was limited to those exposed to higher levels of bullying. Being bullied in childhood appears to have only minor effects on the onset of adolescent substance use in this sample.

Keywords:

• bullying
• longitudinal data
• propensity score matching
• substance use
• victimization

Notes

1. Although our focus is on the consequences of early bullying victimization on adolescent substance use, we are mindful that bullying perpetration is also an important research area (see Espelage & Swearer, 2003; Olweus, 1993; Piquero, Connell, Piquero, Farrington, & Jennings, 2013).

2. Importantly as well, there are several theoretical frameworks that could help explain the link between bullying victimization and subsequent problem behavior such as substance use. One in particular is Agnew’s (1992) General Strain Theory, which focuses on the consequences of stressful life experiences, such as victimization, and the manner of and extent to which victims cope with such experiences through criminal and noncriminal actions. Some studies, for example, have explored the link between bullying victimization and adolescent self-harm (Hay & Meldrum, 2010) as well as bullying and delinquent involvement and substance use (Cullen, Unnever, Hartman, Turner, & Agnew, 2008), but such studies are limited for reasons we articulate below and are able to address in the current study.

3. At the time of data collection, the original research team received approval for the project from the Institutional Review Board at the sponsoring university. The current research was conducted through the use of secondary data analysis, which was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the authors’ university.

4. The use of a latent multi-item measure of bullying victimization was done primarily to account for potential measurement error in reports of victimization from a single source. The latent variable (i.e., principal components analysis) approach accounts for such possible measurement error and allows for those indicators contributing more correlation to the set of indicators to influence the measure more so than indicators contributing less.

5. Students were not given a qualifying statement to determine which individuals were picking on them; it was left to the discretion of the student to report based on experience. It is possible, therefore, that students were reporting bullying that happened in other contexts, such as in the home. The strong factor loadings, however, lead us to believe this is most likely minimal. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to our attention.