Gianluca Gini

Association Between Bullying and Psychosomatic Problems: A Meta-analysis

CONTEXT. In the last few years, there has been an increasing amount of research showing the concurrent and long-term consequences of bullying and being bullied by peers. OBJECTIVE. We performed a meta-analysis to quantify the association between involvement in bullying and psychosomatic complaints in the school-aged population. METHODS. We searched online databases (Embase, Medline, PsychInfo, Scopus) up to March 2008, bibliographies of existing studies, and qualitative reviews for studies that examined the association between involvement in bullying and psychosomatic complaints in children and adolescents. The original search identified 19 studies, of which 11 satisfied prestated inclusion criteria. RESULTS. Three random-effects meta-analyses were performed for the following 3 groups of children aged between 7 and 16 years: victims, bullies, and bully-victims. Bully-victims, victims, and bullies had a significantly higher risk for psychosomatic problems compared with uninvolved peers. CONCLUSIONS. The association between involvement in bullying and psychosomatic problems was demonstrated. Given that school bullying is a widespread phenomenon in many countries around the world, the present results suggest that bullying be considered a significant international public health issue.

Bullied Children and Psychosomatic Problems: A Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: A previous meta-analysis showed that being bullied during childhood is related to psychosomatic problems, but many other studies have been published since then, including some longitudinal studies. We performed a new meta-analysis to quantify the association between peer victimization and psychosomatic complaints in the school-aged population. METHODS: We searched online databases up to April 2012, and bibliographies of retrieved studies and of narrative reviews, for studies that examined the association between being bullied and psychosomatic complaints in children and adolescents. The original search identified 119 nonduplicated studies, of which 30 satisfied the prestated inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Two separate random effects meta-analyses were performed on 6 longitudinal studies (odds ratio = 2.39, 95% confidence interval, 1.76 to 3.24) and 24 cross-sectional studies (odds ratio = 2.17, 95% confidence interval, 1.91 to 2.46), respectively. Results showed that bullied children and adolescents have a significantly higher risk for psychosomatic problems than non-bullied agemates. In the cross-sectional studies, the magnitude of effect size significantly decreased with the increase of the proportion of female participants in the study sample. No other moderators were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The association between being bullied and psychosomatic problems was confirmed. Given that school bullying is a widespread phenomenon in many countries around the world, the present results indicate that bullying should be considered a significant international public health problem.

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

A growing body of research has demonstrated consistent links between Banduras theory of moral disengagement and aggressive behavior in adults. The present meta-analysis was conducted to summarize the existing literature on the relation between moral disengagement and different types of aggressive behavior among school-age children and adolescents. Twenty-seven independent samples with a total of 17,776 participants (aged 8-18 years) were included in the meta-analysis. Results indicated a positive overall effect (r = .28, 95% CI [.23, .32]), supporting the hypothesis that moral disengagement is a significant correlate of aggressive behavior among children and youth. Analyses of a priori moderators revealed that effect sizes were larger for adolescents as compared to children, for studies that used a revised version of the original Bandura scale, and for studies with shared method variance. Effect sizes did not vary as a function of type of aggressive behavior, gender, or publication status. Results are discussed within the extant literature on moral disengagement and future directions are proposed.

Associations between bullying behaviour, psychosomatic complaints, emotional and behavioural problems.

Objective:  Bullying or being bullied have been demonstrated to be related to a broad spectrum of behavioural, emotional and social problems. The present study aimed at analysing psychosomatic, emotional and behavioural problems among Italian bullies, victims and bully victims.

The Role of Individual Correlates and Class Norms in Defending and Passive Bystanding Behavior in Bullying: A Multilevel Analysis

This study investigates possible individual and class correlates of defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying, in a sample of 1,825 Italian primary school (mean age=10 years 1 month) and middle school (mean age=13 years 2 months) students. The findings of a series of multilevel regression models show that both individual (e.g., provictim attitudes and perceived peer pressure for intervention) and class characteristics (e.g., class provictim attitudes, peer injunctive norms, and descriptive norms) help explain defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. These results significantly expand previous findings in this field, by demonstrating the need for a social-ecological approach to the study of the different aspects of bullying. Implications for antibullying programs are discussed.

Why Do Bystanders of Bullying Help or Not? A Multidimensional Model

The authors employed Latanè and Darley’s model about bystanders’ behavior to explain children’s active defending and passive bystanding behavior in school bullying. The three central steps of the model were operationalized by measuring provictim attitudes, personal responsibility for intervention, and coping strategies. Moreover, the role of perceived expectations from parents and peers was investigated. A total of 759 children and 995 early adolescents participated. The findings from structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed the hypothesized relationships and the impact of perceived peer and parent pressure on nearly all the study variables. The model was confirmed for both age groups, with only a few differences in the paths’ magnitudes, and the model demonstrated the importance of considering both strictly individual characteristics and contextual variables. These results substantially expand previous findings and have potential interest for both researchers and educators.

Bullying in Italian Schools: An Overview of Intervention Programmes

A very large body of international studies supports the world-wide concern with the issue of school bullying. Literature in this field is currently divided between analysis of the phenomenon‘s different characteristics and evaluation of various intervention programmes in schools. At the same time, teachers, parents and media are acquiring more and more awareness about the problem and this is leading to a growing request for more effective action. This article presents an overview of published intervention/ prevention programmes carried out in Italian schools in the last decade. For the sake of clarity, following an ecological approach, works have been distinguished according to the level at which they are focused on the school system. Success in reducing bullying and the limits of each intervention are critically considered.

Main and Moderated Effects of Moral Cognition and Status on Bullying and Defending

This study analyzed the relations of two dimensions of moral cognition (i.e., acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement) and two forms of status in the peer group (i.e., social preference and perceived popularity) with bullying and defending among 235 primary-school children and 305 middle-school early adolescents. Social status was tested as a moderator of the associations between moral cognition and bullying and defending. Participants completed self-reports assessing the two dimensions of moral cognition and peer nominations for status, bullying, and defending. Both acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement were associated to bullying among early adolescents only, whereas in childhood moral disengagement was linked to defending among girls. Social status moderated the associations between morality dimensions and bullying and defending. The moderating effects of status were discussed considering status as a magnifying lens for the relations between individual characteristics and social behavior. The results were also discussed with reference to age and gender differences in the associations.

Peer Victimization, Cyberbullying, and Suicide Risk in Children and Adolescents

Aggressive behavior involving a power imbalance, bullying is inflicted on an adolescent by another adolescent, or even by a group of youths, and it is highly likely to be repeated again and again. Bullying can cause physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.1 It can take the form of physical assaults, verbal harassment, and threatening behaviors, or it could involve psychological and social strategies (eg, exclusion, rumor spreading). Similarly, cyberbullying is defined as victimization perpetrated through information technologies (ie, cell phones, Internet). Prevalence figures of bullying appear to vary somewhat across countries. Large-scale cross-nationalstudieshaveestimatedthat 10%to20%ofyouthhave beenbulliedbypeersduringtheir schoolyears,while5%to15%have bullied others.2 Moreover, many children who are bullied experience repeated and sustained victimization across time. Bullying is no longer seen as conflictual interactions that help youth become tougher, and it no longer is viewed as inevitable or beneficial. In contrast, pediatric, psychiatric, and psychological research has documented—both concurrently and longitudinally— adverse consequences of being bullied at school and online in children’s and adolescents’ lives, including psychological problems (eg, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem)3 and physical health symptoms.4 Being repeatedly bullied by peers is also a risk factor for extremeconsequences, including suicide. In a recent JAMAPediatrics meta-analysis, vanGeel andcolleagues5 conducteda systematic literature review on the relation between peer victimization and suicide ideation and attempts. In the article, suicide ideation, which is usually seen as a precursor to suicide, was defined as thoughts or wishes to end one’s life, whereas suicide attemptswere referred to as nonfatal suicide attempts. Themeta-analysis included 34 cross-sectional studies that reported associations between peer victimization and suicide ideation among 284 375 participants aged 9 to 21 years. Results indicated that bullying victimization was significantly associated with suicide ideation (random-effectsmodel: odds ratio [OR], 2.23;95% CI, 2.10-2.37). This associationwas not affected by publication bias JAMAPEDIATRICS

Individual and Class Moral Disengagement in Bullying Among Elementary School Children

A cross-sectional study from a sample of 663 elementary school children assessed the four sets of moral disengagement mechanisms conceptualized by Bandura (i.e., cognitive restructuring, minimizing ones agentive role, disregarding/distorting the consequences, blaming/dehumanizing the victim) at both the individual and the class level. Additionally, an analysis of the relations of these mechanisms to pro-bullying behavior was conducted. Multilevel analysis showed a significant relationship between cognitive restructuring and individual pro-bullying behavior. Moreover, between-class variability of pro-bullying behavior was positively related to minimizing ones agentive role and blaming/dehumanizing the victim at the class level. Conversely, class disregarding/distorting the consequences was negatively associated with between-class variation in the outcome behavior. Implications for understanding the role of morality in childrens bullying are discussed.