Peer Support as a Mediator between Bullying Victimization and Depression

Abstract

Bullying has been one of the most common forms of school violence in the world. Many studies have shown that victims of bullying suffer from serious psychological issues. In the current study, the relationships between three variables: bullied victim, peer support, and depression symptom were assessed, using published data from the 2009-2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Survey (N = 12,642). The data was collected from 314 public, Catholic, and other private schools in the United States that enrolled students from grades 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 or their equivalent in 50 states and the District of Columbia. The results indicated: (1) bullied victim was positively associated with depression symptom, with higher victimization score reporting higher depression symptoms; (2) bullied victim was negatively associated with peer support, with higher victimization score reporting lower peer support; (3) peer support was negatively related to depression symptoms; and (4) peer support partially mediates the relationship between victimization and depression symptoms among bullied students. This empirical study underscores the important role of peer support in mitigating the negative effects of bullying on the victim's depression symptoms, which also provide empirical support for intervention programs based on the peer support system.

Do social support and eating family meals together play a role in promoting resilience to bullying and cyberbullying in Scottish school children?

“…Additionally, classmate support explains the relationship between traditional bullying (but not cyberbullying) and wellbeing. Both of these results are consistent with the idea that cyberbullying and traditional bullying are carried out in different contexts, and this is also consistent with the results of Du et al’s (2018) study. This is perhaps not surprising given that the traditional bullying measure used in HBSC is specific to school-based bullying while the cyberbullying measure may encompass a much wider social context.…”

“…Focusing on whether traditional bullying and cyberbullying have independent relationships with wellbeing in models adjusting for sociodemographic variables, the indicators of support were omitted as they could at least partially mediate the relationships between the bullying measures and wellbeing (Du, DeGuisto, Albright, & Alrehaili, 2018). We found not only evidence of independent relationships between the bullying measures and wellbeing (see appendix Table 2), but also evidence of an interaction between the bullying measures for both boys (p = .0243) and girls (p = .0302) as shown in Fig.…”

Cyberbullying and Bullying: Impact on Psychological Symptoms and Well-Being

“…Several studies report that bullies and bullying victims, both in traditional and cyberbullying, have significant differences in age (Inchley et al 2016), psychological symptoms (Cosma et al 2017), friendship relationships (Erginoz et al 2015), depressive symptoms (Du et al 2018), and alcohol consumption (Peleg-Oren et al 2010). Other studies report that offenders and bullies are older boys (Inchley et al 2016), taller (AUTHORS 2017b), substances users (Gaete et al 2017), prone to violent behaviours (Nixon 2014) or other conduct or prosocial problems (Skrzypiec et al 2012) and also better accepted and with a larger involvement and security feelings at school and more facilitated peer relationships (AUTHORS 2017a).…”

Doživljanje nasilja v mladostništvu: vloga odnosov z vrstniki, odnosov z učitelji ter čustvenih in socialnih kompetenc

“…Pri tem so pomembne tudi lastnosti prijatelja in kakovost prijateljstva (Bollmer, Milich, Harris in Maras, 2005;Sainio, Veenstra, Huitsing in Salmivalli, 2011), saj imeti prijatelja, ki je prav tako deležen nasilja, predstavlja dejavnik tveganja za nastanek viktimizacije (Sentse, Dijkstra, Salmivalli in Cillessen, 2013). Pri viktimizaciji še posebej veliko vlogo igrajo tudi preostali vrstniki, in sicer z vidika socialne opore, ki jo nudijo učencu (Du, DeGuisto, Albright in Alrehaili, 2018), prav tako pa so preostali vrstniki, ki v nasilje niso vključeni, opazovalci nasilja, ki lahko bodisi spodbujajo nasilneža bodisi branijo žrtev in s tem pomembno vplivajo na nadaljnjo pojavnost viktimizacije (Caravita, Di Blasio in Salmivalli, 2009). Na splošno je torej mogoče trditi, da pozitivna plat odnosov z vrstniki učence na nek način ščiti pred pojavom viktimizacije.…”