Long Term Effects of School Bullying

School Bullying is Nothing New, But Psychologists Identify New Ways to Prevent It

Systematic international research has shown school bullying to be a frequent and serious public health problem. But psychologists are using this research to develop bullying prevention programs that are being implemented in schools around the world.

How Authoritarian Parents Influence Children's Behavior at School

To analyze how school bullies are "created", Elizabeth Sweeney, a University of Cincinnati master's degree student in sociology, reviewed research from England, Germany, Norway, Japan, South Africa, and the United States. Sweeney studied children's behavior at school, focusing on kids from age nine to 16 years old.

The School Bully - Does It Run In The Family?

"Children who experience hostility, abuse, physical discipline and other aggressive behaviors by their parents are more likely to model that behavior in their peer relationships," she writes. "Children learn from their parents how to behave and interact with others," Sweeney says. "So if they're learning about aggression and angry words at home, they will tend to use these behaviors as coping mechanisms when they interact with their peers." Her review also found that children from middle-income families were less likely to bully than children from the high and low ends of the family income scale.

Bullying as a social process: The role of group membership in students' perception of inter-group aggression at school

Bullying is a widespread social phenomenon involving both individual and group variables. The present study was aimed at analyzing how students' perception of a bullying episode might be influenced by group and context variables. A convenience sample of 455 adolescents read a short story, in which the in-group role (bully vs. victim) and level of teacher likeability (high vs. low) were manipulated. Participants were asked to evaluate their own group and an out-group, in terms of four dependent variables: liking, right to use the basketball court, attribution of blame, and attribution of punishment. Data showed a strong participant in-group bias and a generalized tendency to favor the in-group, especially when it was the victimized group. Conversely, the manipulation of teacher likeability did not affect students' perception of bullying, except for girls' attribution of punishment. Lastly, a clear gender effect emerged, in that boys accepted physical bullying more readily than girls did. Results are discussed in terms of group dynamics and pre-adolescent social identity concerns.

Association of common health symptoms with bullying in primary school children

Many children report having frequent headaches or tummy aches, that they sleep poorly, wet the bed, or feel sad. Children who report these symptoms also report being bullied substantially more often than do their peers. Although it is not clear whether the association is causal, health professionals seeing such children should ask about bullying.

Nearly 3 in 4 teenagers say they were bullied online at least once during a recent 12-month period, and only 1 in 10 reported such cyber-bullying to parents or other adults, according to a new study by UCLA psychologists.

Of those who were bullied online, 85 percent also have been bullied at school, the psychologists found. The probability of getting bullied online was substantially higher for those who have been the victims of school bullying.

In a study of 210 college students, UF researchers discovered a link between what psychologists call relational victimization in adolescence and depression and anxiety in early adulthood, according to findings published online this month in the journal Psychology in the Schools.

Rather than threatening a child with physical violence, these bullies target a child's social status and relationships by shunning them, excluding them from social activities or spreading rumors, said Allison Dempsey, a doctoral student in the UF College of Education and the study's lead author.

Bullying Among Sixth Graders a Daily Occurrence, UCLA Study Finds

Nearly half the sixth graders in two Los Angeles-area public schools say they were bullied by classmates during a five-day period, UCLA researchers report in the first study to examine daily school harassment and the first to examine the effects of witnessing other students being bullied.