Investigating factors associated with bullying utilizing latent class analysis among adolescents

Abstract

Few studies have been conducted to investigate typologies of perpetration and victimization of traditional and cyber bullying together to develop a risk profile by considering factors from different contexts. National data from the 2009–2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study in the United States was utilized for these purposes. Four latent classes were identified: severe bully-victims, moderate bullies, moderate victims and those not involved. Various individual, family, peer and school factors were found to be associated with bullying involvement. The risk profiles developed based on these factors can be used to provide a theoretical background for researchers and practical guides for schools to offer interventions to students, which will benefit adolescent development in the long run.

“Hurt people hurt people”: Relations between adverse experiences and patterns of cyber and in‐person aggression and victimization among urban adolescents

“…Notably, both bullies and bully/victims exhibited elevated (i.e., above the sample mean) levels of cyber‐bullying perpetration and victimization, but in‐person victimization was only elevated among bullies and victims. Liu et al (2021) similarly found support for four subgroups among a representative sample of 12,642 adolescents in the United States: (a) “severe bully‐victims” (7%), (b) “moderate bullies” (7%), (c) “moderate victims” (27%), and (d) “not involved” (59%). Severe bully‐victims had the highest probability of endorsing cyber‐bullying and cyber‐victimization, whereas all other subgroups had a relatively low probability of endorsing these indicators.…”

“…We identified only two studies that used a person‐centered approach to identify subgroups with distinct patterns of in‐person and cyber forms of aggression and victimization (i.e., Antoniadou et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2021). Both studies focused on bullying, a severe form of aggression that involves repeated and intentional acts of aggression and a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim (Olweus, 1993).…”

“…This is consistent with evidence that cyber and in‐person aggression and victimization are two distinct (yet correlated) forms of aggression (e.g., Farrell et al, 2020; Mehari & Farrell, 2018). Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether these findings can be generalized to racial and ethnic minority adolescents residing in high‐burden urban communities, which may be particularly important given Liu et al (2021) finding that severe bully‐victims had lower family SES levels and included a higher proportion of African American youth than in the non‐involved subgroup.…”

“…Using latent class analysis (LCA), we identified patterns of in‐person and cyber aggression and victimization in a sample of primarily African American adolescents living in three under‐resourced urban communities. The only prior studies to our knowledge that examined patterns of in‐person and cyber aggression perpetration and victimization focused on European adolescents (Antoniadou et al, 2019) or a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States (Liu et al, 2021) and the extent to which the patterns that were identified can be generalized to other socio‐demographic groups remains unclear. Based on existing research and theory (e.g., Antoniadou et al, 2019; Schwartz et al, 2001), we hypothesized four subgroups of adolescents characterized by (a) predominant aggressors, (b) predominant victims, (c) aggressive‐victims, and (d) limited involvement.…”

“…It was difficult to make specific hypotheses about the function of cyber and in‐person aggression perpetration and victimization due to limited prior studies and, more specifically, the lack of prior studies among ethnic minority youth in urban contexts. However, we did expect engagement in cyber and in‐person forms to function as distinct constructs such that they may vary within and across subgroups (Antoniadou et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2021).…”