The Emotional Impact on Victims of Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying
A Study of Spanish Adolescents
Abstract
We examine the emotional impact caused to victims of bullying in its traditional form, both directly and indirectly, as well as bullying inflicted by use of new technologies such as mobile phones and the Internet. A sample of 1,671 adolescents and young people responded to a questionnaire which asked if they had been victims of various forms of bullying, as well as the emotions this caused. The results show that although traditional bullying affected significantly more young people than cyberbullying, the latter affected one in ten adolescents. Analysis of the emotions caused showed that traditional bullying produced a wide variety of impacts, with the victims being divided into five different emotional categories, while indirect bullying and cyberbullying presented a narrower variety of results with the victims being classifiable into just two groups: Those who said that they had not been emotionally affected and those who simultaneously suffered from a wide variety of negative emotions. The influence of age, gender, and severity on each emotional category is also analyzed.
References
2008). A review of the extent, nature, characteristics and effects of bullying behaviour in school. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 35, 151–158.
(2000). Sex differences in emotional awareness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1027–1035.
(2008). Las TIC y la convivencia Un estudio sobre formas de acoso en el ciberespacio. Investigación en la Escuela, 64, 93–103.
(2000). Youth aggression and violence: risk, resilience, and prevention. Council for Exceptional Children. (ERIC EC Digest #E602. Retrieved September 20, 2008, from http://www.cec.sped.org/AMT/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=3560&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm).
(2006). Violencia escolar: el maltrato entre iguales en la educación secundaria obligatoria. 1999–2006. Madrid: Publicaciones de la Oficina del Defensor del Pueblo.
. (2007). Bullying experiences of child and adolescent mental health service-users: A pilot survey. Child Care in Practice, 13, 351–365.
(2003). Procesamiento emocional. In , Emoción y motivación: La adaptación humana (Vol. 1, pp. 47–93). Madrid: Centro de Estudios Ramón Areces.
(2007). The roles of behavioral adjustment and conceptions of peer and emotions in preschool children’s peer victimization. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 57–71.
(2009). Prevalence and forms of cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescents. Manuscript submitted for publication.
(2001). An attributional approach to peer victimization. In , Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized (pp. 49–72). New York: Guilford.
(2006). The influence of emotional reaction on help seeking by victims of school bullying. Educational Psychology, 26, 813–826.
(2008). Violent victimization in the community and children’s subsequent peer rejection: The mediating role of emotion dysregulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 36, 175–185.
(2004). Peer victimization: The role of emotions in adaptive and maladaptive coping. Social Development, 13, 329–349.
(2001). Variations in peer victimization: Relation to children’s maladjustment. In , Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized (pp. 25–48). New York: Guilford.
(2000). Toward better research on stress and coping. American Psychologist, 55, 665–673.
(2008). Comportamenti aggressivi nelle prime esperienze sentimentali in adolescenza. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 2, 407–434.
(2006). Emotional intelligence and social and academic adaptation to school. Psicothema, 18, 112–117.
(2007). The new forms of school bullying and violence. In , Acting against schoolbullying and violence. The role of media, local authorities and the Internet (pp. 7–34). Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik (Retrieved June 10, 2007, from http://www.bullying-in-school.info/uploads/media/e-book_-_Acting_against_school_bullying_and_violence.pdf).
(1999). Sweden. In , The nature of school bullying: A cross-national perspective (pp. 7–27). London: Routledge.
(2008). Cyberbullying. International Journal of Psychology and International Therapy, 8, 183–192.
(2009). Emociones de agresores y víctimas de cyberbullying: un estudio preliminar en estudiantes de Secundaria. Ansiedad y Estrés, 15, 151–165.
(2000). Violencia escolar. Mito o realidad. Sevilla: Mergablum.
(2008). Las redes de iguales y el fenómeno del acoso escolar: explorando el esquema dominio-sumisión. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 31, 515–528.
(2008). Violencia sexual entre compañeros y violencia en parejas adolescentes. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 1, 63–72.
(2008). Violencia y relaciones de cortejo adolescente. In , Convivencia e Igualdade: Dimensións e Retos Educativos (pp. 11–21). Santiago de Compostela: ICE.
(2001). The aggressive victim of bullying: Emotional and behavioural dysregulation as a pathway to victimization by peers. In , Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized (pp. 147–174). New York: Guilford.
(2008). Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying?. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 147–154.
(2008). Cyberbullying: Its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 376–385.
(2004). Bullying in schools: How successful can interventions be?. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
(2003). Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus bully/victim questionnaire. Aggressive Behavior, 29, 239–268.
(2008). Social networks, gender and friending: An analysis of MySpace member profiles. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59, 1321–1330.
(