Involment In Bullying Among Junior Middle School Students, And Its Relationship With Depression、anxiety And Social Support

Abstract:Bullying is a common problem behavior in primary and middle school campus. So far, the researches on bullying have made some important results, including the basic characteristics, formation mechanism, physical and mental damage of bullying and so on. But, the existing researches still had many limitations; First, on the research methods, most of existing researches used cross-sectional design, dynamic tracking study was relatively limited, and integrate researches combining analytical ideas based on variable and based on individual were also scarce. Second, on the research content, some researches had ignored the difference between bullies、victims、bully-victims and the uninvolved students as to the developmental trajectories and its relationship with depression and anxiety; At the same time, the causal relationship between involvement in bullying and depression、anxiety, the mechanism of social support’s effect on the relationship between victimization and depression、anxiety and the probable gender differences also need more longitudinal studies to validate and prove. Third, about involvement in bullying and its relationship with depression or anxiety, there was no corresponding longitudinal study and in-depth mechanism research in our country. Therefore, in order to further understand about bullying and its dynamic interaction with other variables, and obtain the longitudinal research achievement about bullying in our culture, this research adopt ed longitudinal design, combining two analytical ideas based on variables and based on individuals, to the study the basic characteristics and development trend of involvement in bullying, the relationship between involvement in bullying and depression、anxiety and the effects of social support on the relationship between victimization and depression、anxiety.This paper included three studies, study1was designed to investigate the characteristics and development trend of involvement in bullying, contained two sub-studies, study1-a was to describe the basic characteristics of involvement of bullying, study1-b was to explore the heterogeneous subgroup trajectories and the stability and change of involvement in bullying by two analytical orientations based on variable and based on individual; Study2was designed to investigate the relationship between involvement in bullying and depression^anxiety, contained two sub-studies, study2-a was to explore the cross-lagged interactional relationship between involvement in bullying and depression、anxiety, study2-b was to explore the relations between subclasses and subgroup trajectories of involvement in bullying and depression、anxiety. Study3was designed to investigate the effects of social support on the relationship between victimization and depression、 anxiety, contained two sub-studies,study3-a was to examine the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between victimization and depression anxiety by the method of hierarchical regression analysis, study3-b was to explore the mediating effect of social support of on the relationship between victimization and depression、anxiety by the analytical method of SEM.The sample in this thesis come from four junior middle schools in Shaoyang city of Hunan province, Eventually773participants who completed the measurements of involvement of bullying, perceived social support, depression and anxiety in December2012(T1) and May2013(T2) were retained as the effective ones with average of13.11±0.88, including428boys (55.4%) and345girls (44.6%),4497th grade students and3248th students. Spss17.0and Mplus17.0software packages were used to analyze the data. The major findings were as follows:(1) Characteristics and development trend of involvement in bullyingAbout half of the students involved in bullying, the victims had the highest proportion (T1:25.5%, T2:25.5%), the bullies had the lowest ratio (T1:8.3%, T2:8.3%), the bully-victims’proportion centered (T1:17.9%, T2:17.9%) between victims and bullies;36.9%of victims were also bullies;68.3%of bullies were also victims; direct language victimization was the main form of victimization in middle school students; about40%of victims had been bullied by various forms; Boys were more involved in a variety of bullying behavior than girls;7th grade students more participated in a variety of bullying than8th grade.Bullying and victimization declined along with the growth of grade. Bullying (r=0.30) and victimization (r=0.40) both have moderate stability; The stability ratios for bullies, victims, bully-victims respectively are22%,36%and27%; The stability of verbal victimization among girls is higher than boys; The stability of bully-victims among boys is higher than girls; The escaping rates of girls involved in bullying (especially the bullies) is significantly higher than boys.(2) The relationship between involvement in bullying and depression、anxietyOverall, the cross-lagged analyses showed significantly positive longitudinal interaction between victimization and depression; however, there was only one significant path from victimization to anxiety, whereas no. Specifically, victimization(T1) significantly predicted depression\anxiety(T2) among males and females; Depression (T) significantly predicted victimization(T2)among boys. Overall, there were no interaction between bullying and depression、anxiety; But among boys, bullying significantly predicted depression(T2), anxiety (T1) significantly predicted bullying (T2).Different bully\bullied status (T1) had a significant main effect on the level of depression\anxiety (T2), victims、bullies and bully-victims(Tl) had more depression\anxiety (T2) than those not involved in bullying. The level of depression\anxiety (T2) among the bully-victims is the most serious, significantly higher than the bullies and victims. The bullies’ level of depression\anxiety (T2) did not differ significantly from the victims. The levels of depression\anxiety (T1) significantly predicted bully\bullied identity (T2). The participants with higher level of depression\anxiety (T1) may more be classified as the bully-victims and the victims, followed by the bullies.Deferent subgroup trajectories of involvement in bullying had significant main effect on the level of depression\anxiety (T2), the level of depression (T2) among stable bully-victims group is the most serious, followed by mixed transformation group, stable victims, stable bullies, and unstable group. The levels of depression\anxiety(Tl) significantly predicted different types of subgroup trajectories of involvement in bullying, The participants with higher level of depression (T1)may more be classified as the stable bully-victims and the stable bullies, followed by the mixing transform group, stable victims and unstable group. The participants with higher level of anxiety (T1) may more be classified as the stable bully-victims, followed by stable victims, mixing transform group and unstable group.(3)The moderating and mediating effect of social support for victimization and depression、anxietyIn general, social support (T1) significantly negatively predicted the level of depression\anxiety (T1); social support(T1) had significantly negative moderating effect on the relationship between victimization (T1)and anxiety (T1); Specially, the negative moderating effect of social support(T1) for victimization(T1) and depression\anxiety(Tl) is significant only among boys.Controlling for prior depression\anxiety (T1), social support (T1) couldn’t significantly predict depression\anxiety (T2), social support (T1) didn’t buffer the relationship between victimization (T1) and depression\anxiety (T2).Social support (T2), especially the friend support (T2) mediated the relationship between victimization (T1) and depression\anxiety (T2), the mediating effect of friends support (T2) is significant only among girls.The main conclusions are as follows:1. Bullying、victimization among Junior high school students had a high single incidence and comorbidity rate, and present a significant gender and grade differences;2. Bullying、victimization among Junior high school students showed significant downward trend with the grade growth and and present a moderate degree of relative stability; Different bully\victim identity of the participants all had the stability ratio about30%;3. The relationship between bullying、victimiation and depression、anxiety were interactional, and showed obvious gender differences;4. Bully\victim identity and depression、anxiety interacted with each other, and the bully-victims had the most closely relationship with depression, anxiety; 5. Social support had some main effect and regulating effect on involvement in bullying and depression、anxiety, and there was obvious gender difference on the effect of social support;6. Social support (especially friends social support) played a partial mediation effect between victimization and depression anxiety, and there was obvious gender difference on the partial mediation effect of social support.This paper obtained some valuable results, to a certain extent, it expanded and promoted the research in the field of bullying in China, injected some new contents for the development of children’s social behavior research and provided certain theoretical and practical basis for the intervention studies of bullying、depression and anxiety. In addition, some deficiencies and limitations of this thesis indicated a certain new direction for the future research in the field of bullying.