Association Among Internal Assets, Bullying, and Emotional Distress in Eighth Grade Students

Abstract

BACKGROUND Adolescents are in a unique developmental stage, ideal for initiating healthy behaviors and benefiting from health promotion interventions. In this study, we used positive youth development and resilience frameworks, to investigate the role of internal assets as a protective factor for bullying and emotional distress among early adolescents, with attention to whether those associations vary by sex. METHODS This is a secondary analysis of the 2013 Minnesota Student Survey, a cross‐sectional, population‐based survey of Minnesota youth. Participating eighth grade students (N = 42,841) reported on internal assets, physical, relational and cyberbullying involvement, and emotional distress. RESULTS Logistic regression analyses, stratified by sex and controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, revealed that students with higher internal assets had lower odds of all forms of bullying victimization and perpetration than those with lower internal assets. Higher levels of internal assets were also associated with lower odds of emotional distress. All associations were significant for boys and girls, but appeared stronger for girls. CONCLUSIONS Findings indicate that internal assets may buffer young teens from bullying and from the emotional distress that may result from bullying involvement. Approaches bolstering internal assets may be beneficial for combating bullying and emotional distress during early adolescence.

Contextual and Individual Predictors of Bullying and Victimization in Slovenia: Positive Youth Development Perspective

“…As it was previously stated, students who possess multiple internal and external developmental assets, are less involved in the bullying perpetration or victimization (Benson & Scales, 2009;Fredkove et al, 2019). Thus, development assets can complement the overall strategy for preventing bullying in the school context.…”

“…And as far as the 5Cs are concerned, studies confirm that the presence of the 5Cs leads to the contribution of adolescents to the contexts to which they belong (e.g., family, school, peer group) (Lerner et al, 2005;Lewin-Bizan et al, 2010) and are negatively associated with risky behaviour, such as aggression and bullying, and emotional problems (Jelicic, Bobek, Phelps, Lerner, & Lerner, 2007;Murry, Berkel, Simons, Simons, & Gibbons, 2014). The research mainly examined the link between developmental assets of PYD and bullying (Benson & Scales, 2009;Fredkove, Gower, & Sieving, 2019) or individual indicators of positive youth development (i.e., the 5 Cs), such as character (Hilliard et al, 2014). In spite the fact that individual predictors of bullying are of the greatest importance (Saarento et al, 2013), it is necessarily to consider all the factors that may influence the individual's behaviour, thoughts, and emotions about bullying and victimization, which can be achieved through incorporating the PYD into the context of bullying and victimization.…”

Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: medsebojni vpliv raziskovanja in prakse

“…Paradigma pozitivnega razvoja mladih je v raziskavah med izide v manjši meri vključevala medvrstniško nasilje, čeprav je medvrstniško nasilje eno izmed nezaželenih vedenj oziroma izidov. Večinoma so tovrstne raziskave vključevale zgolj razvojne vire (Fredkove et al, 2019) ali posamezne kazalnike pozitivnega razvoja mladih, kot je karakter (Hilliard et al, 2014). Če se osredinimo na kazalnike pozitivnega razvoja mladih, je mogoče ugotoviti, da ti zajemajo veliko že do sedaj raziskanih varovalnih dejavnikov medvrstniškega nasilja.…”

Positive Youth Development in Contexts

“…The studies that have considered bullying in the PYD framework have shown that students reporting higher levels of internal and external assets also reported lower levels of both bullying perpetration and victimisation Fredkove et al, 2019), indicating that developmental assets could work as protective factors for bullying involvement. In addition, the protective role of some internal (e.g.…”