Attachment, Social Value Orientation, Sensation Seeking, and Bullying in Early Adolescence

Abstract

In this study, bullying is examined in light of the “prosocial security hypothesis”— i.e., the hypothesis that insecure attachment, with temperamental dispositions such as sensation seeking, may foster individualistic, competitive value orientations and problem behaviors. A group of 375 Italian students (53% female; Mean age = 12.58, SD = 1.08) completed anonymous questionnaires regarding attachment security, social values, sensation seeking, and bullying behaviors. Path analysis showed that attachment to mother was negatively associated with bullying of others, both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values, while attachment to father was directly associated with victimization. Sensation seeking predicted bullying of others and victimization both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values. Adolescents’ gender affected how attachment moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and problem behavior.

Sensation Seeking and Gambling Behavior in Adolescence: Can Externalizing Problems Moderate this Relationship?

“…Furthermore, results highlight significant gender differences, confirming that externalizing behaviors constitute a problematic aspect especially for males. In fact, in accordance with the existing literature, we found that males reported higher levels of sensation seeking [52][53][54], of externalizing problems [55][56][57], and of gambling [3,10,21,[58][59][60] than females.…”

Children’s Social Integration and Low Perception of Negative Relationships as Protectors Against Bullying and Cyberbullying

“…However this relationship was not strong. Regarding gender, mixed results were found based on bullying type (see Robers et al, 2014; Donoghue and Raia-Hawrylak, 2015; Innamorati et al, 2018). However, this gender difference depended on age, country or survey, as indicated by a recent review (Smith et al, 2018).…”

La conducta prosocial como factor protector de los problemas de adicción al juego en universitarios

“…Los valores sociales están directamente relacionados con sus manifestaciones en forma de conductas (Cornelissen, Dewitte & Warlop, 2011). Los valores y habilidades sociales de cooperación se manifiestan con conductas prosociales hacia los demás (Rodriguez et al, 2019), mientras que los valores más individualistas se relacionan con comportamientos menos prosociales (Innamorati et al, 2018).…”

“…En el polo opuesto a las conductas prosociales, se encuentran las antisociales. Este tipo de conductas antisociales correlacionan inversamente con el apoyo social recibido por las personas (Innamorati et al, 2018). El apoyo social recibido actúa como predictor de las conductas prosociales de forma positiva (Simpson, Harrell, Melamed, Heiserman & Negraia, 2018) y de las conductas antisociales de forma negativa (Stanger, Backhouse, Jennings & McKenna, 2018).…”