Psychosocial Influences on Physical, Verbal, and Indirect Bullying Among Japanese Early Adolescents

Abstract

Although bullying among Japanese youth is a current major concern, psychosocial influences on bullying are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to identify the psychosocial factors associated with physical, verbal, and indirect bullying among Japanese adolescents. Junior high school students between seventh and ninth grade (N = 2,923) completed a self-reported questionnaire. Involvement in bullying and psychosocial factors were investigated. Deviant peer influence, less serious attitude in school, poor self-control of aggressiveness and impulsiveness, poor self-assertive efficacy against bullying, and euphemistic thinking were commonly associated with physical, verbal, and indirect bullying. Experiences of victimization by physical and verbal bullying were associated with both physical and verbal bullying, whereas experiences of victimization by indirect bullying were associated with indirect bullying. Psychosocial factors associated with different types of bullying substantially overlapped. Therefore, interventions focused on these modifiable common factors could be effective in the prevention of adolescent bullying.

Self-Esteem and Tendency of Bullying among Primary School Children

“…As expected, bullying behaviours in schools always involve physical and verbal bullying (Ando et al, 2005). The typical behaviours of physical bullying include kicking, hitting, beating, throwing paper, and stealing personal belonging, whereas the typical practices of verbal bullying include using abusive language, mocking, and teasing.…”

“…Bullying behaviours are categorized into three broad domains: physical bullying, verbal bullying, and relational bullying (Ando, Asakura, & Simons Morton, 2005;Wang et al, 2009). Physical bullying refers to an overt act of inflicting physical harm upon a person (e.g., kicking and fighting); verbal bullying refers to a direct attempt of verbally attack someone (e.g., teasing and insulting); relational bullying is a type of covert aggression in which bullying is caused by social exclusion.…”

Moral disengagement among children and youth: A meta‐analytic review of links to aggressive behavior

“…A short version (14 items) of his moral disengagement scale has been adapted for use with elementary school children, a 24-item version has been developed for adolescents, and a longer scale consisting of 32 items is used with adults (Caprara et al, 1995). The scale has also been adapted to specific populations (i.e., American minority youth; Pelton, Gound, Forehand, & Brody, 2004) and it is sometimes used in revised versions including subsets of the original items (e.g., Ando, Asakura, & Simons-Morton, 2005;Barchia & Bussey, 2011). The scale has shown good reliability (a ¼ .81; Bandura et al, 1996), and is by far the most commonly used measure of MD across countries.…”

School engagement, risky peers, and student–teacher relationships as mediators of school violence in Taiwanese vocational versus academically oriented high schools

“…Few Asian studies report risk factors of school violence, such as negative personal traits, victimization, poor school engagement, involvement with at-risk peers (Ando, Asakura & Simons-Morton, 2005;Chen & Astor, 2010;Hu & Lin, 2001), a low level of parental monitoring, and poor student-teacher relationships (Chen & Astor, 2010;Hu & Lin, 2001;Ma, Shek, Cheung, & Tam, 2002;Yoneyama & Naito, 2003;Wong, 2004). Most of these studies were conducted using nonrepresentative samples in junior high school contexts, so it is not clear how generalizable these Western findings are for Asian high school students.…”