Risk and Protective Factors for Patterns of Bullying Involvement in Middle School Students

ABSTRACT

Research has identified at least three patterns of direct involvement in bullying and victimization: bullying, bullying-victimized, and predominantly victimized. However, little is known about risk and protective factors for these patterns. As such, the goals of the present study were to establish these patterns and examine risk and protective factors. Participants were 775 middle school students in grades 5–8. Latent profile analysis revealed three groups: a bullying-victimized group (5.2%), a predominantly victimized group (8.9%), and an uninvolved group (85.9%). Emotion dysregulation and beliefs in support of aggression conferred risk for membership in the bullying-victimized group, whereas internalizing problems conferred risk for membership in the predominantly victimized group. One aspect of school culture – willingness to seek help – buffered risk for membership only in the bullying-victimized group. Given these differential patterns, researchers and practitioners may wish to further consider the utility of targeted interventions and treatments.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying
• victimization
• risk/protective factors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We refer to them as bullying, bullying-victimized and predominantly victimized youth because groups are identified based on patterns of behavior rather than types of individual.

2. Many researchers have documented the existence of similar groups using measures of aggression, and thus refer to them as aggressors, aggressive-victims, and predominant victims. Thus, the terms “aggressing,” “aggressing-victimized” and “predominantly victimized” will be used when describing studies that used measures of aggression, and “aggression-involvement” will be used to refer to membership in one of those groups. Aggression is harassing behavior that is directed at someone else but is not necessarily repeated and may not involve a power differential.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Graduate Student Research Fund, Ohio University.

Notes on contributors

W. John Monopoli

W. John Monopoli is an assistant professor of psychology at Susquehanna University. His research focuses on risk and resilience processes in adolescence.

Steven W. Evans

Steven W. Evans is a distinguished professor of psychology at Ohio University and co-director of the Center for Intervention Research in Schools. His work focuses on treatment development and evaluation research for adolescents with ADHD and related disorders.

Lina K. Himawan

Lina K. Himawan is a biostatistician in the Department of Psychology at Ohio University. She assists faculty members and graduate students in the department with writing grant proposals, conducting power analyses, selecting research designs, conducting data analyses, and presenting results of analyses for publication.