Abstract
The present study was designed to examine the unique associations of parental behavioral control and psychological control with Chinese adolescents’ bullying victimization, as well as the moderating role of teacher support. Using a longitudinal design, two-wave data were obtained from 2,445 junior high school students (Mage = 12.98 years, SD = 0.60, 51.7% boys at baseline) from 47 to 7 classes in central China over 6 months. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to examine the predictive effects of within-class and between-class predictors on bullying victimization. The results showed that: (1) parental control significantly predicted bullying victimization, with psychological control playing a significant positive role and behavioral control playing a significant negative role; (2) teacher support significantly negatively predicted bullying victimization; and (3) teacher support significantly moderated the effect of parental psychological control on bullying victimization, with a relatively stronger effect in low teacher support classes than in high teacher support classes, which indicated high teacher support could alleviate the harmful effect of parental psychological control, and low teacher support would greatly exacerbate the harmful effect contrarily; however, teacher support did not moderate the association between parental behavioral control and bullying victimization, implying that parental behavioral control has a consistent impact on bullying victims regardless of the level of teacher support. The educational implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Banzon-Librojo, L., Garabiles, M. R., & Alampay, L. P. (2017). Relations between harsh discipline from teachers, perceived teacher support, and bullying victimization among high school students. Journal of Adolescence, 57, 18–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.03.001
Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67, 3296–3319. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131780
Barber, B. K., Stolz, H. E., & Olsen, J. A. (2005). Parental support, behavioral control, and psychological control: Assessing relevance across time, method, and culture. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 70(4), 1–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2005.00369.x
Bean, R. A., & Northrup, J. C. (2009). Parental psychological control, psychological autonomy, and acceptance as predictors of self-esteem in Latino adolescents. Journal of Family Issues, 30(11), 1486–1504. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X09339149
Berchiatti, M., Badenes-Ribera, L., Galiana, L., Ferrer, A., & Longobardi, C. (2021). Bullying in students who stutter: The role of the quality of the Student-Teacher relationship and Student’s social status in the peer group. Journal of School Violence, 20(1), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2020.1812077
Biemann, T., & Heidemeier, H. (2012). Does excluding some groups from research designs improve statistical power? Small Group Research, 43(4), 387–409. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496412443088
Bryson, C., & Hand, L. (2007). The role of engagement in inspiring teaching and learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(4), 349–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290701602748
Burke, M. J., Cohen, A., Doveh, E., & Smith-Crowe, K. (2018). Central tendency and matched difference approaches for assessing interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(11), 1198–1229. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000325
Chai, L., Xue, J., & Han, Z. (2020). School bullying victimization and self-rated health and life satisfaction: The mediating effect of relationships with parents, teachers, and peers. Children and Youth Services Review, 117, 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105281
Chen, X., Li, L., Lv, G., & Li, H. (2021). Parental Behavioral Control and Bullying and Victimization of Rural Adolescents in China: The Roles of Deviant Peer Affiliation and Gender. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9), 4816. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094816
Chorpita, B. F., & Barlow, D. H. (1998). The development of anxiety: The role of control in the early environment. Psychological Bulletin, 124(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.3
Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310
Costa, S., Soenens, B., Gugliandolo, M. C., Cuzzocrea, F., & Larcan, R. (2015). The mediating role of experiences of need satisfaction in associations between parental psychological control and internalizing problems: A study among Italian college students. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(4), 1106–1116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9919-2
Ding, Y., Li, D., Li, X., Xiao, J., Zhang, H., & Wang, Y. (2020). Profiles of adolescent traditional and cyber bullying and victimization: The role of demographic, individual, family, school, and peer factors. Computers in Human Behavior, 111, 13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106439
Eslea, M., & Rees, J. (2001). At what age are children most likely to be bullied at school? Aggressive Behavior, 27(6), 419–429. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.1027
Espelage, D., & Swearer, S. (2004). Introduction: a social-ecological framework of bullying among youth. In D. Espelage, & S. Swearer (Eds.), Bullying in American schools: a social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention (pp. 1–12). New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Feng, L. L. (2015). Parental psychological and behavioral control. China Journal of Health Psychology, 23(12), 1911–1914. https://doi.org/10.13342/j.cnki.cjhp.2015.12.041
Fergus, S., & Zimmerman, M. A. (2005). Adolescent resilience: A framework for understanding healthy development in the face of risk. Annual Review of Public Health, 26, 399–419. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144357
Grolnick, W. S., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2009). Issues and challenges in studying parental control: Toward a new conceptualization. Child Development Perspectives, 2, 165–171. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00099.x
Guo, J. Q., & Zhao, B. H. (2019). The effect of teachers’ support on the bullying of the 4th-9th graders: The mediating effect of school belonging. Chinese Journal of Special Education, (1), 72–76.
Hastings, P. D., Nuselovici, J. N., Rubin, K. H., & Cheah, C. S. L. (2010). Shyness, parenting, and parent–child relationships. In K. H. Rubin, & R. J. Coplan (Eds.), The development of shyness and social withdrawal: The development of shyness and social withdrawal (pp. 107–130). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Hawk, S. T., Hale, I. I. I., Raaijmakers, W. W., Q. A. W., & Meeus, W. (2008). Adolescents’ perceptions of privacy invasion in reaction to parental solicitation and control. Journal of Early Adolescence, 28(4), 583–608. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431608317611
Hendrickx, M. M. H. G., Mainhard, M. T., Boor-Klip, H., Cillessen, A. H. M., & Brekelmans, M. (2016). Social dynamics in the classroom: Teacher support and conflict and the peer ecology. Teaching and Teacher Education, 53, 30–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.10004
Hong, J. S., Kim, D. H., & Piquero, A. R. (2017). Assessing the links between punitive parenting, peer deviance, social isolation and bullying perpetration and victimization in South Korean adolescents. Child Abuse & Neglect, 73, 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.09.017
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Hughes, J. N., & Im, M. H. (2016). Teacher–student relationship and peer disliking and liking across grades 1–4. Child Development, 87(2), 593–611. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12477
Hughes, J. N., Luo, W., Kwok, O., & Loyd, L. K. (2008). Teacher-student support, effortful engagement, and achievement: A 3-year longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.100.1.1
Hyde, L. W., Gorka, A., Manuck, S. B., & Hariri, A. R. (2011). Perceived social support moderates the link between threat-related amygdala reactivity and trait anxiety. Neuropsychologia, 49(4), 651–656. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.08.025
Jia, Y., Way, N., Ling, G., Yoshikawa, H., Chen, X., Hughes, D., Ke, X., & Lu, Z. (2009). The influence of student perceptions of school climate on socioemotional and academic adjustment: A comparison of Chinese and American adolescents. Child Development, 80, 1514–1530. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01348.x
Keijsers, L., Branje, S., Hawk, S. T., Schwartz, S. J., Frijns, T., Koot, H. M., & Meeus, W. (2012). Forbidden friends as forbidden fruit: Parental supervision of friendships, contact with deviant peers, and adolescent delinquency. Child Development, 83(2), 651. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01701.x
Klein, K. J., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2000). From micro to meso: Steps in conceptualizing and conducting multilevel research. Organizational Research Methods, 3(3), 211–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810033001
Košir, K., & Tement, S. (2014). Teacher–student relationship and academic achievement: A cross-lagged longitudinal study on three different age groups. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29(3), 409–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-013-0205-2
Leung, J. T. Y., & Shek, D. T. L. (2020). Parental Control and Adolescent Wellbeing in Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong. Child Indicators Research, 13(2), 703–727. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-019-09642-6
Li, D., Zhang, W., & Wang, Y. (2015). Parental behavioral control, psychological control and Chinese adolescents’ peer victimization: The mediating role of self-control. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(3), 628–637. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9873-4
Li, X., Li, D., & Newman, J. (2013). Parental behavioral and psychological control and problematic Internet use among Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of self-control. Cyber Psychology Behavior and Social Networking, 16(6), 442–447. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0293
Li, X. Y., Han, X. Y., & Sun, J. (2020). The relationship between parental psychological control and college students’ interpersonal adaptation: The mediating role of emotion management. Chinese Journal of Special Education, (1), 84–89.
Lucas-Molina, B., Williamson, A. A., Pulido, R., & Pérez-Albéniz, A. (2015). Effects of teacher-student relationships on peer harassment: A multilevel study. Psychology in the Schools, 52(3), 298–315. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21822
McDonald, R. P., & Ho, M. R. (2002). Principles and practice in reporting structural equation analyses. Psychological Methods, 7(1), 64–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.7.1.64
Meehan, B. T., Hughes, J. N., & Cavell, T. A. (2003). Teacher–student relationships as compensatory resources for aggressive children. Child Development, 74(4), 1145. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00598
Oldenburg, B., Bosman, R., & Veenstra, R. (2016). Are elementary school teachers prepared to tackle bullying? A pilot study. School Psychology International, 37(1), 64–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034315623324
Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Özdemir, Y. (2012). Parental psychological control, parental warmth and subjective well-being of adolescents. Egitim Ve Bilim, 37(165), 21.
Peterson, R. A. (1994). A meta-analysis of Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(2), 381–391. https://doi.org/10.1086/209405
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879
Preacher, K. J., Curran, P. J., & Bauer, D. J. (2006). Computational tools for probing interactions in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31(3), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.3102/10769986031004437
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2002). Overview of self- determination theory: An organismic dialectic perspective. In E. L. Deci, & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 3–33). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
Schoeler, T., Duncan, L., Cecil, C. M., Ploubidis, G. B., & Pingault, J. (2018). Quasi-experimental evidence on short- and long-term consequences of bullying victimization: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(12), 1229–1246. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000171
Shek, D. T. L. (2007). Perceived parental control based on indigenous Chinese parental control concepts in adolescents in Hong Kong. American Journal of Family Therapy, 3, 123–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926180600553480
Shek, D. T. L., & Law, M. Y. M. (2015). Assessment of parent-child subsystem qualities in Chinese adolescents: Behavioral control, psychological control and parent-child relational qualities. International Journal of Child Health and Human Development, 8(2), 207–217.
Smith, P. K. (2016). Bullying: Definition, types, causes, consequences and intervention. Social & Personality Psychology Compass, 10(9), 519–532. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12266
Snijders, T. A. B., & Bosker, R. J. (2012). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and advanced multilevel modeling (2nd ed.). Sage Publishers.
Soenens, B., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2010). A theoretical upgrade of the concept of parental psychological control: Proposing new insights on the basis of self-determination theory. Developmental Review, 30, 74–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2009.11.001
Sun, L. P., Ju, J. W., Jiang, L. Q., & Bian, Y. F. (2018). The relationship between parental psychological control and adolescent anxiety: A cross-lagged study. Psychological Development and Education, 34(6), 758–768. https://doi.org/10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2018.06.15
Swearer, S. M., & Doll, B. (2001). Bullying in schools: An ecological framework. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2(2–3), 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1300/j135v02n02_02
Swearer, S. M., & Espelage, D. L. (2004). Introduction: A Social-Ecological Framework of Bullying Among Youth. In D. L. Espelage, & S. M. Swearer (Eds.), Bullying in American schools: A social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention (pp. 1–12). Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Tennant, J. E., Demaray, M. K., Malecki, C. K., Terry, M. N., Clary, M., & Elzinga, N. (2015). Students’ ratings of teacher support and academic and social-emotional well-being. School Psychology Quarterly, 30(4), 494. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000106
Ttofi, M. M., Farrington, D. P., Lösel, F., & Loeber, R. (2011). Do the victims of school bullies tend to become depressed later in life? A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Journal of Aggression Conflict and Peace Research, 3(2), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1108/17596591111132873
Tyler, K. A., & Johnson, K. A. (2006). A longitudinal study of the effects of early abuse on later victimization among high-risk adolescents. Violence and Victims, 21, 287–306. https://doi.org/10.1891/vivi.21.3.287
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Huitsing, G., Sainio, M., & Salmivalli, C. (2014). The role of teachers in bullying: The relation between antibullying attitudes, efficacy, and efforts to reduce bullying. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(4), 1135. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036110
Verschueren, K., & Koomen, H. M. Y. (2012). Teacher–child relationships from an attachment perspective. Attachment & Human Development, 14(3), 205–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2012.672260
Wang, Q., Pomerantz, E. M., & Chen, H. (2007). The role of parents’ control in early adolescents’ psychological functioning: A longitudinal investigation in the United States and China. Child Development, 78(5), 1592–1610. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01085.x
Wendy, T., & Jessica, K. (2001). Teacher–child relationship quality and children’s peer victimization and aggressive behavior in late childhood. Social Development, 20(3), 536–561. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00604.x
Yeung, R., & Leadbeater, B. (2010). Adults make a difference: The protective effects of parent and teacher emotional support on emotional and behavioral problems of peer-victimized adolescents. Journal of Community Psychology, 38(1), 80–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20353
You, J., Jiang, Y., Zhang, M., Du, C., Lin, M., & Leung, F. (2017). Perceived parental control, self-criticism, and non-suicidal self-injury among adolescents: Testing the reciprocal relationships by a three-wave cross-lag model. Archives of Suicide Research, 21(3), 379–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/13811118.2016.1199989
Zhang, W. X., & Wu, J. F. (1999). The Chinese adapted version of the Olweus bullying/victimization questionnaire. Psychological Development and Education, 15(2), 7–11.
Funding
This work was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Beijing (Grant number 18JYB012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed to this study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Ping Ren, Fang Luo, and Chuansheng Chen. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Liu Yang and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interests
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Ren, P., Yang, L., Chen, C. et al. Parental control and adolescents’ bullying victimization: the moderating role of teacher support. Curr Psychol 42, 27952–27964 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03864-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03864-8