Bullying as a Stressor in Mid-Adolescent Girls and Boys–Associations with Perceived Stress, Recurrent Pain, and Salivary Cortisol

Viveca Östberg, Sara B. Låftman, Bitte Modin and Petra Lindfors
Additional contact information
Viveca Östberg: Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Sara B. Låftman: Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Bitte Modin: Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Petra Lindfors: Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-11

Abstract: Bullying involves repeated exposure to negative actions while also invoking a power asymmetry between the involved parties. From a stress perspective, being bullied can be seen as a severe and chronic stressor, and an everyday social-evaluative threat, coupled with a shortage of effective social resources for dealing with this particular stressor. The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposure to bullying among mid-adolescent girls and boys is associated with subjective and objective stress-related outcomes in terms of perceived stress, recurrent pain, and salivary cortisol. The data came from the School Stress and Support Study (TriSSS) including students in grades 8–9 in two schools in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2010 (study sample n = 392; cortisol subsample n = 198). Bullying was self-reported and measured by multiple items. The statistical analyses included binary logistic and linear (OLS) regression. Being bullied was associated with greater perceived stress and an increased risk of recurrent pain, among both boys and girls. Also, bullied students had lower cortisol output (AUC G ) and lower cortisol awakening response (CAR G ) as compared to those who were not bullied. Gender-stratified analyses demonstrated that these associations were statistically significant for boys but not for girls. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that being bullied was related to both subjective and objective stress markers among mid-adolescent girls and boys, pointing to the necessity of continuously working against bullying.

Keywords: adolescents; bullying; cortisol; stress; victimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/364/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/364/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:2:p:364-:d:132468

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().