The Influence Of Emotional Abuse And Neglect On The Dynamic Development Trajectory Of Adolescent Bullying Victimization And Its Internal Mechanism

Bullying victimization is a common problem among middle school students.A large number of studies have confirmed that persistent bullying victimization will lead to serious consequences such as suicide and crime.Therefore,detailed research is urgently needed to understand the developmental characteristics and risk and protective factors of adolescent bullying victimization,so as to provide guidance and suggestions for targeted adolescent bullying victimization intervention.Previous studies have suggested emotional abuse and neglect as important risk factors for bullying victimization among adolescents.However,in the context of Chinese culture,few researches have explored the relationship between emotional abuse and neglect and adolescent bullying victimization,especially longitudinal studies on the relationship between emotional abuse and neglect and bullying behavior.Therefore,this study attempts to adopt the method of variable centered(that is,the growing latent model),to explore the trajectory of bullying victimization,and time constant(T1: gender and left-behind or not)and time variables(emotional abuse and neglect)for adolescents affected by bullying victimization trajectories,and inspection groups within the presence of heterogeneity(research question 1).In addition,a large number of empirical studies abroad have found that there is heterogeneity in the development trajectory of bullying victimization.However,there are few studies on the developmental trajectory subgroup of bullying victimization among Chinese adolescents,and most of them use 0/1 score.Moreover,few studies have included multi-level influencing factors at the same time to explore the influencing factors of the subgroup of bullying victimization development trajectory.Therefore,this study adopted an individual-centered perspective(latent mixed growth model)to examine the subgroups of adolescent bullying victimization development trajectory and explore the predictors of bullying victimization subgroups.At the same time,whether gender,left-behind or not,emotional abuse and neglect,mother-child intimacy and depression have a risk or protective effect on the developmental trajectory of adolescent bullying victimization subgroup(research question 2)was investigated.Finally,previous studies have suggested that the influence factors of bullying victimization are affected by individual differences,that is,a predictor can predict bullying victimization for some adolescents.Warm parent-child relationships may be a protective factor for children against bullying victimization,and that depression is a likely risk factor.Therefore,this study once again attempted to further explore the internal mechanism of the relationship between emotional abuse and neglect and bullying behavior by taking variables as the center.Therefore,structural equation model was adopted to explore the internal mechanism of T2 mother-child intimacy and T2 depression between T1 emotional abuse and neglect and T3 bullying behavior,as well as the differences of gender and left-behind(research question 3).In the present study,620 teenagers from a middle school in Pingdingshan City of Henan Province were surveyed every six months,and the testing procedures were consistent each time.The students reported their bullying victimization,depression and other indicators through self-reported questionnaires,and SPSS.22 and Mplus8.0were used to construct a structural equation model to analyze the data.The findings:(1)The unconditional latent variable growth model shows that the development trajectory of adolescent bullying victimization shows a stable trend over time,and the intercept and slope of adolescent bullying victimization are significantly negatively correlated,that is,the higher the initial level of individual bullying victimization,the slower the development rate of adolescent bullying victimization.There were significant individual differences in initial level and he slope of change.There was no significant difference in the intercept and slope in gender,left-behind or not.At all three time points,individuals who scored high on emotional abuse and neglect were more likely to be bullied.(2)The developmental trajectory of adolescents’ bullying victimization was divided into three potential types using the latent mixed growth model,namely,C1 bullying victimization risk group(13.0%),whose bullying victimization showed a stable development trend over time;C2 bullying victimization mitigation group(83.1%),whose overall bullying victimization level decreased significantly over time;C3 bullying victimization aggravation group(3.9%),with a significant increase in overall bullying victimization levels over time.(3)Taking the bullying victimization mitigation group as the reference group,the subgroup of adolescent bullying development trajectory has a significant gender effect,and female students are more likely to be divided into the risk group;The subgroup classification of adolescent bullying victimization development trajectory was not significant.T1 the higher the scores of emotional abuse and neglect and depression,the more vulnerable to bullying victimization,namely,the more likely to be classified into the group of bullying victimization deterioration;Individuals with low levels of T1 mother-child intimacy were classified as being at higher risk for bullying victimization.(4)T2 depression and T2 mother-child intimacy played a serial mediating role in the relationship between T1 emotional abuse and neglect and T3 bullying victimization,while the separate mediating effect of T2 mother-child intimacy on T1 emotional abuse and neglect and T3 bullying victimization was not significant.Specifically,T1 emotional abuse and neglect predicted T3 bullying victimization through two pathways: 1)the independent mediating effect of T2 depression;The second is the serial mediating effect of T2 mother-child intimacy →T2 depression.In addition,gender differences in the mediation effect only appeared in the relationship between emotional abuse and neglect and the mother-child intimacy,and there was no significant difference in the mediation effect.