Tiziana Pozzoli

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bullying victimization at school and headache: a meta-analysis of observational studies

Being bullied at school is a risk factor for a variety of negative consequences, including somatic problems. The purpose of this meta‐analysis is to determine the association between peer victimization and headache in the school‐age population.

Social support, peer victimisation, and somatic complaints: A mediational analysis

Aim:  This study investigated the associations among social support, peer victimisation and somatic problems in children and adolescents. Specifically, we tested a model that posited a mediational role of peer victimisation on the association between low social support and somatic symptoms in three age groups.

Unique and Interactive Effects of Moral Emotions and Moral Disengagement on Bullying and Defending among School Children

The first aim of the present study was to examine in a single model how moral disengagement and moral emotions were related to bullying and defending behavior among schoolchildren. The second aim was to test whether the two moral dimensions interacted with each other to explain behavior in bullying situations. Data were collected from 561 Swedish students. Moral disengagement was positively associated with bullying and negatively associated with defending, whereas moral emotions score was negatively associated with bullying and positively associated with defending. Moreover, students who scored high in moral emotions did not tend to bully other students, irrespective of their levels of moral disengagement, whereas when the moral emotions score was low bullying behavior increased with increasing levels of moral disengagement. In contrast, moral disengagement was negatively related to defending behavior at low levels of moral emotions, but not when moral emotions were high.