Socioeconomic Strain, Bullying Perpetration, and Negative Emotions: A Re-specification of GST

Abstract

Traditional bullying and cyberbullying are common problems faced by today’s youth. Research seeking to explain bullying perpetration has often invoked Agnew’s general strain theory (GST). However, research to date has often explored within a given study only a single emotion at a time that can result from strain. Further, prior research has tended to take the causal ordering arguments of GST at face value. The current study seeks to focus on the correlation of strains related to socioeconomics with traditional and cyberbullying perpetration and negative emotions. Utilizing the Add Health data and path modeling in Mplus, results suggest that socioeconomic strain positively correlates with bullying perpetration and recent negative emotions. However, results suggest a potential causal chain that is the opposite of an expectation of GST, with bullying perpetration potentially affecting negative emotions, and not the other way around. Implications of the results for theory and policy are discussed.

Applying GST to Understand and Contextualize Bullying: A Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations

“…Previous studies have examined the role that economic status plays in bullying perpetration and demonstrate that it is not a strong determinant (see Álvarez-García et al, 2015;Choi & Dulisse, 2021). Recently, however, Strohacker et al (2022) examination of bullying perpetration through the lens of GST used survey data from 2009 to 2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study and found that socioeconomic strain is correlated with bullying perpetration. Although no studies have examined the impact of homelessness on bullying, very few studies noted the association between parental/ caretaker incarceration and bullying behaviors (J. M. Lee et al, 2019;Myers et al, 2013).…”

Secure Base Script Knowledge and Friendship Quality as Protective Factors for Bullying and Victimisation in Elementary School

“…The effects of school bullying do not only affect the victims -the bullies are just as susceptible. Being a bully was associated with a higher risk of substance use and negative emotions (Lee et al, 2018;Strohacker et al, 2022), and was significantly related to later violence (McVie, 2014). Adding a layer of complication is how the effects of bullying and victimisation may be difficult to tease apart for some children, given the positive correlation between bullying and victimisation in both directions, where students who have been bullied were likely to bully others over time, and vice versa (Walters, 2021).…”

The impact of strain, constraints, and morality on different cyberbullying roles: A partial test of Agnew’s general strain theory

“…According to GST, both externalizing responses (i.e., acts that harm others either via violence) and internalizing responses (i.e., acts committed against themselves, such as substance use and deliberate self-harm) were found to be associated with various forms of strain ( Guo, 2021 ). In the previous studies, the associations between strain and traditional bullying have been well studied (e.g., Moon and Jang, 2014 ; Espino et al, 2022 ; Strohacker et al, 2022 ). For example, Agnew (2011) found that individual with high levels of strain is more likely to engage in the traditional bullying behavior; Ganem (2010) stated that negative emotionality affects the relationship between strain and offending; Cochran (2015) have used self-domain, family domain, school domain, peer domain, and deviant motivations as main variables in testing strain and traditional bullying; Wooten (2021) investigated that strain leads to anger, which in turn leads to delinquency.…”