bullying 2 Flashcards
cyberbullying - different forms
· Cyber bullying and traditional bullying share the key components of bullying, i.e., a victim-aggressor power imbalance, intention to harm, strategic and repeated
○ Direct or indirect
○ Anonymous (imbalance of power?)
○ Speed and spread much greater than face-to-face bullying à third parties forward the messages (repeated)
○ More sexual in content? (e.g., revenge porn)
○ Much less adult supervision of cyber-space
○ Less energy and courage needed
○ Can bully 24/7; at home and at school
prevalence of cyberbullying
· Broad range in estimates of cyberbullying prevalence - ranging from 3-4% to 40%.
· Some studies even reported that as many as 50% of young people were cyberbullied (Olweus & Limber, 2018)
- Different time scales
- Different cut-off points
- Different threshold values
· But also - cyber bullying is studied in isolation from traditional bullying
traditional vs cyber-bullying
Halliday et al, 2022:
- n = 9019
- age = 10 - 13 years
- frequency cut off = at least once a month
Olweus and Limber, 2018:
- n = 447000
- frequency cut off = 2-3 times/month
overlap with traditional bullying?
· Overlap between experiencing traditional and cyber-bullying is very high
- Across different studies typically between 50-90% of those students who had experienced cyberbullying also experienced ‘traditional’ bullying (Olweus and Limber, 2018)
- In a study of 2745 adolescents between 11 and 16 years, 29% of students reported experiencing bullying only 1% were purely cyber-bullied (Wolke et al, 2017).
friendship
· Dyadic relationship between children - mutually reciprocated
· Voluntary
· Intimate - shared interests, affectionate
· Stable
· Differ from other dyadic relationships, e.g., parent-child
consequences of poor peer relationships
· Consensus that peer relationships and friendships are important for later mental health and wellbeing
· Children with a reciprocated best friend are more adjusted and socially competent than children without friends
· For children who may be victimized, friendships buffer against the negative impact victimization has on wellbeing
· Friendship and peer acceptance (i.e., sociometric status) as predictive of children’s academic achievement at school
· Gifford-Smith & Brownell, 2003
· Wentzel & Caldwell, 1992
but not all peer relationships are equally beneficial … the case of aggressive children
· Deviancy Training: “A pattern of interactions between ‘deviant’ peers in which discussion of rule breaking is contingently reinforced (e.g., with laughter and approving verbalisations)”
- Patterson et al (1967) observed interactions between boys in preschool playgrounds & showed that success of aggressive responses to peer conflict predicted future aggression with peers (Similar findings for girls, Hanish et al., 2005)
- Snyder et al (1997): aggressive preschoolers also prefer one another in play, and such play leads to later increases in aggressive behavior
· Together, research suggests that aggressive children aggregate into increasingly aggressive groups (i.e., deviant friendships)
· Aggressive children are also more likely to be rejected from the peer group
- This peer experience maintains and exacerbates children’s aggressive behaviour
- Limits opportunities for the acquisition of social skills, and positive peer interactions
· Peer rejection at 5 independently predicts conduct disorders at 10
deviancy training - adolescence
· Increases in weapon carrying over the course of a year linked to associating with friends who carry weapons (Dijkstra et al., 2010)
· Drifting into a deviant peer group was a core component for cascading progression from antisocial behaviour to serious violence (Dodge et al (2008, 2010)
· Friendships characterized by deviant stories, endorsements of deviant attitudes, norm- violating behaviour etc. predicted growth in delinquency, drug use & violent behaviour (Dishion et al., 1995; 1996; 1997)
deviant talk and antisocial behaviour
Piehler and Dishion, 2007:
- n = 120 16-17 year olds
- coded deviant talk an mutuality during 45 minute conversation
findings:
- content of conversation reflected behavioural profile of adolescents
- Dyads high in both mutuality and deviant talk were also especially likely to demonstrate high levels of antisocial behaviour
- 172 9th graders (dispersed over 47 schools)
- each given phone that captured all text messages sent or received over 4 days
deviant talk and antisocial behaviour
· Talk about antisocial activities was common & predicted increases in:
- parent, teacher & self-reports of adolescents’ rule-breaking behaviour
- teacher & self-reports of adolescents’ aggressive behaviour.
· Similar results for boys and girls
- No link with total number of texts (content is what mattered)
peer contagion
· Peer contagion - mutual influence process that occurs between an individual and a peer, including behaviours that undermine development and cause harm
· Implicated in:
- Antisocial behaviour
- Obesity and unhealthy body image
- Depression
peer contagion - body image
· Appearance-based teasing
- Teasing from friends predicts increases in body dissatisfaction
- School-level rates of appearance-based teasing predict individual body dissatisfaction
· Modelling of peer behaviour
- Body dissatisfaction and dieting is clustered in particular friendship groups
· Fat talk
- Self depreciating comments about appearance are common, particularly between female friends
- These are associated with increased body dissatisfaction
peer contagion - depression
· Adolescents’ own depressive symptoms are associated with that of their friend over time, especially in the context of a best friend (Stevens & Prinstein, 2005)
· Potential mechanisms include
- co-rumination – repeated discussion on interpersonal ambiguities
- excessive reassurance seeking
- negative feedback seeking
· Prinstein (2007) found gender specific mechanisms:
- For boys, depressive contagion occurred when the quality of the friendship was low or the peer was popular.
- For girls, only those high in social anxiety were influenced by their peer’s level of depressive symptoms
what moderates peer contagion effects?
- Target characteristics e.g., social anxiety, self-regulation
- Peer characteristics e.g., status
- Relationship characteristics e.g., quality, closeness
* In some studies, high-quality relationships are the most influential (Piehler and Dishion 2007, Stevens and Prinstein 2005), but in others (Prinstein 2007), adolescents appear more influenced by:
- Those with whom they want to develop a closer relationship e.g., unreciprocated friendships
- By friendships with low levels of positive friendship quality
in defence of peer influence
· Laursen & Veenstra (2023)
· Peer influence is an adaptive strategy – conformity helps:
- establish belonging in a group
- sustains close relationships
- reduces conflict
- support group stability
- academic engagement and achievement
· Peers are clearly a powerful socialising force in childhood and adolescence
- Need more research on how we can harness the importance of peers for positive social behaviour rather than negative social behaviour.
