Thinking patterns, victimisation and bullying among adolescents in a South Australian metropolitan secondary school

Abstract

Responding to staff concerns about anti-social behaviour among students (n ¼ 311, 50.5% boys, age range 13 -16 years) at a low socio-economic Adelaide metropolitan school, we investigated victimisation and bullying and associated patterns of thinking. Two instruments were administered: the How I Think Questionnaire, which measures self-serving cognitive distortions; and the Bullying Experiences Questionnaire, which requires students to rate victimisation and bullying. The study revealed that: levels of distorted thinking were high; the most frequent forms of victimisation and bullying were verbal, indirect and physical; there were low levels of more extreme forms of victimisation and bullying; and there were higher levels of cognitive distortions among bullies and bully-victims. The research confirms the role of distorted thinking in the enactment of anti-social and bullying behaviours and provides a contemporary update of the types of victimisation/bullying in an Australian secondary school in 2011. Implications for interventions using social-cognitive approaches are addressed.

Pathways Linking Exposure to Community Violence, Self-serving Cognitive Distortions and School Bullying Perpetration: A Three-Wave Study

“…Despite an increasing number of researchers [18,19,51] having found a link between self-serving CDs and externalizing behaviors, only one study [22], carried out with Australian adolescents, has examined the association between CDs and bullying at school. The authors found that bullies and bully-victims showed a higher tendency than victims and not-involved persons in assuming the worst, exhibiting minimizing-mislabeling and self-centered CDs, whereas only bullies were higher in blaming others.…”

“…Given that age-and gender-based differences have been observed in violence exposure, cognitive distortions and bullying behavior in previous research, we controlled the results for school grade and gender. Overall, prior studies have consistently found that males and older children are at greater risk for community violence exposure (e.g., [70]) and bullying perpetration (e.g., [71]); and males typically also self-report more cognitive distortions than females [22,72]. Parental socioeconomic status (SES) was also used as control variable, given its potential confounding effect on violence exposure [38] and bullying perpetration [73].…”

“…While there is a strong evidence that both exposure to community violence (e.g., [15][16][17]) and self-serving CDs [18,19] are associated with externalizing behaviors (i.e., aggression, conduct problems, delinquency), only a few studies (e.g., [20,21]), to our knowledge, have systematically examined how bullying behavior (as a specific subtype of aggression) is influenced by experiences of community violence exposure. Moreover, only one study [22] has investigated the associations of CDs, according to the Gibbs' model, with the involvement in bullying behavior.…”

Indirect effects of parental and peer attachment on bullying and victimization among adolescents: The role of negative automatic thoughts

“…Distorted cognitions, in turn, have been emphasized as a risk factor for social and behavioral maladjustment, such as bullying perpetration and victimization (Cook et al, ; Marsh, Parada, Yeung, & Healey, ; Owens, Skrzypiec, & Wadham, ). Beck () proposed that distorted thoughts organize according to distinct areas of cognitive content such as threat and loss/failure, others and self.…”

“…Cognitive distorsions relevant for bullying involvement are characterized by a diversity of themes or contents, concerning both self and others (Cook et al, ). For instance, bullies and bullies‐victims endorse higher levels of self‐serving cognitive distortions than uninvolved peers, whereas negative self‐views have been shown to be a risk factor for peer victimization (Egan & Perry, ; Owens et al, ). Furthermore, in a longitudinal study, Marsh et al () have documented the role of negative self‐concept and evaluations of oneself as a worthless person in predicting involvement in both bullying perpetration and victimization.…”