The Influence of Bullying and Cyberbullying in the Psychological Adjustment of Victims and Aggressors in Adolescence

Estefanía Estévez, Jesús F. Estévez, Lucía Segura and Cristian Suárez
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Estefanía Estévez: Department of Health Psychology, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Elche, 03202 Alicante, Spain
Jesús F. Estévez: Department of Health Psychology, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Elche, 03202 Alicante, Spain
Lucía Segura: Department of Health Psychology, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Elche, 03202 Alicante, Spain
Cristian Suárez: Department of Education and Social Psychology, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, 41013 Sevilla, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: The objective of the present study was to analyze the extent to which violent peer behavior and victimization, both traditional and cybernetic, and predict certain indicators of psychological maladjustment in adolescents, such as self-concept, satisfaction with life, feeling of loneliness, depressive symptomatology, perceived stress, social anxiety, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Participants in the study were 1318 adolescents of both sexes, aged between 11 and 18 years and enrolled in Compulsory Secondary Education schools. The design of the study was cross-sectional. The results indicated that the victims generally present greater maladjustment than the aggressors. Both victims and cybervictims showed a greater decrease in all the dimensions of self-concept, compared with aggressors and cyberaggressors. However, the two types of aggressors showed a higher likelihood of presenting low levels of empathy. Feeling of loneliness, depressive symptomatology, perceived stress, and degree of life satisfaction was more probable to be present in all groups of aggressors and victims. Finally, with regard to emotional intelligence, victims had a higher probability of obtaining low scores in all the dimensions of this construct; this was the case for traditional aggressors only in the dimension of emotion regulation. These results contribute to our understanding of the consequences of harassment in the adaptation of the students involved, with relevant practical implications.

Keywords: adolescence; bullying; cyberbullying; victim; aggressor; psychological adjustment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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