نقش حمایتی دوستان حمایتگر در برابر ارتکاب زورگویی و قربانی

Abstract A crossed-lagged regression model was tested to investigate relationships between friendship support, bullying involvement, and its consequences during adolescence. Students, 12–16 years (N = 880), were administered questionnaires twice, one year apart. Using structural equation modeling, a model was specified and higher levels of support from friends were related to lower levels of bullying and victimization one year later. Additionally, a bidirectional relationship between victimization and depression was found, and greater property crimes commission was related to higher levels of future bullying. These findings support the ‘friendship protection hypothesis’ and suggest the quality of support in friendships can protect against bullying victimization and perpetration. Prior research has shown that friendships can protect against victimization; however this is one of the few longitudinal studies to focus on the quality of friendship, rather than other characteristics of the friends. It is suggested that interventions should focus on increasing perceptions of support within existing friendships.

Results Descriptive statistics and overall model fit Descriptive statistics were obtained for each of the independent variables and bivariate correlations (see Table 2). As expected, the sample endorsed overall low levels of bullying, victimization, property crimes and depression, and high levels of support from friends. However, variation existed in responses for each variable examined. During the first wave of data collection, 35.9% of the sample reported engaging in some degree of bullying, 35.7% reported having been a victim of bullying, and 42.8% reported some property crimes. Throughout the next year 28.4% of the youths reporting some bullying, 27.4% reported some victimization, and 47.5% reporting some property crimes. Table 2. Summary statistics and intercorrelations for independent and dependent variables. Variable 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 M SD Mdn Mode n 1. Bullying (T1) .30*** .39*** .17*** −.08** −.03 .33*** .22*** .10** .10** 1.21 .35 1.00 1.00 846 2. Bullying (T2) .17*** .42*** −.14*** −.17*** .22*** .39*** .06 .15*** 1.22 .42 1.00 1.00 833 3. Victimization (T1) .32*** −.13*** −.10** .20*** .09** .35*** .29*** 1.23 .42 1.00 1.00 848 4. Victimization (T2) −.19*** −.21*** .15*** .30*** .17*** .28*** 1.18 .37 1.00 1.00 833 5. Friend Support (T1) .46*** −.11*** −.09** .08* .06 4.19 .73 4.42 5.00 836 6. Friend Support (T2) −.05 −.13*** −.06 −.01 4.20 .79 4.43 5.00 843 7. Property Crimes (T1) .38*** .18*** .09** 1.16 .27 1.00 1.00 862 8. Property Crimes (T2) .04 .15*** 1.25 .51 1.00 1.00 870 9. Depression (T1) .57*** 1.64 .60 1.44 1.00 866 10. Depression (T2) 1.77 .65 1.63 1.00 865 ***p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05. Table options To evaluate the overall model fit, we ran a two-wave cross-lagged panel design with the hypothesized paths included, as presented in Fig. 1. Except for stability and concurrent estimates, no additional paths or constraints were included in this model. The estimation of this hypothesized model yielded an excellent fit to the data, χ2(8, N = 880) = 5.67, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00 (90% CI = .00–.03). Stability and concurrent estimates Stability and within-time estimates are presented in Table 3. All stability estimates were significant. However, stability estimates were relatively low for bullying, victimization, and property crimes, indicating that the seventh and eighth graders who initially reported these behaviors were not necessarily the same people as those engaging in these behaviors the following year. All within-time estimates were significant for Time 1, and all but two were significant in Time 2 (with the exception of support with property crimes and support with depression). Table 3. Standardized stability and within-time estimates for the examined model. Path B SE p Stability estimates Property Crimes T1 → Property Crimes T2 .35 .05 <.001 Bullying T1 → Bullying T2 .23 .05 <.001 Friend Support T1 → Friend Support T2 .46 .04 <.001 Victimization T1 → Victimization T2 .24 .05 <.001 Depression T1 → Depression T2 .54 .03 <.001 Estimates within Time 1 Property Crimes T1 → Bullying T1 .33 .06 <.001 Property Crimes T1 → Friend Support T1 −.10 .05 .024 Property Crimes T1 → Victimization T1 .20 .06 .002 Property Crimes T1 → Depression T1 .18 .04 <.001 Bullying T1 → Friend Support T1 −.08 .04 .038 Bullying T1 → Victimization T1 .39 .07 <.001 Bullying T1 → Depression T1 .10 .04 .003 Friend Support T1 → Victimization T1 −.13 .04 <.001 Friend Support T1 → Depression T1 .08 .04 .046 Victimization T1 → Depression T1 .35 .04 <.001 Estimates within Time 2 Property Crimes T2 → Bullying T2 .32 .05 <.001 Property Crimes T2 → Friend Support T2 −.11 .07 .117 Property Crimes T2 → Victimization T2 .27 .08 <.001 Property Crimes T2 → Depression T2 .18 .05 .001 Bullying T2 → Friend Support T2 −.13 .05 .006 Bullying T2 → Victimization T2 .38 .05 <.001 Bullying T2 → Depression T2 .14 .04 .001 Friend Support T2 → Victimization T2 −.14 .05 .009 Friend Support T2 → Depression T2 −.06 .04 .15 Victimization T2 → Depression T2 .22 .05 <.001 Table options Cross-lagged estimates Next, we examined the cross-lagged relationships of interest over the two waves of data. Fig. 1 presents the model and all cross-lagged paths examined, and Table 4 shows estimates for these paths. Table 4. Standardized cross-path estimates for the examined model. Path B SE p Property Crimes T1 → Bullying T2 .13 .05 .015 Property Crimes T1 → Victimization T2 .07 .06 .222 Bullying T1 → Property Crimes T2 .11 .06 .082 Bullying T1 → Friend Support T2 .03 .04 .418 Bullying T1 → Depression T2 −.01 .03 .869 Friend Support T1 → Bullying T2 −.10 .04 .022 Friend Support T1 → Victimization T2 −.15 .04 <.001 Victimization T1 → Property Crimes T2 −.03 .04 .393 Victimization T1 → Friend Support T2 −.04 .04 .289 Victimization T1 → Depression T2 .10 .04 .005 Depression T1 → Bullying T2 .04 .03 .289 Depression T1 → Victimization T2 .09 .04 .013 Table options Primary research goal: support and bullying involvement It was hypothesized that higher support by friends would be related to lower levels of bullying and victimization. In support of this, significant, negative relationships were found between support of friends during the first wave of data collection and both bullying and victimization at Time 2. This suggests that increased perceived support of friends was related to decreases in both perpetration of, and victimization by, bullying one year later. Depression and property crimes as related to bullying involvement Victimization at Time 1 was significantly related to depression at Time 2, and vice versa, depression at Time 1 was significantly associated with victimization at Time 2. Bullying at Time 1 was not significantly related to any other variable at Time 2. A statistically significant association was found between property crimes at Time 1 and bullying at Time 2. Our findings indicate that bullying victimization was associated with depression, while property crimes were related to bullying perpetration. Being increasingly victimized was related to later increases in depression, and increased levels of depression were associated with a future increases in victimization. The relationship between bullying perpetration and property crimes was unidirectional, with higher levels of property crimes being associated with increased perpetration one year later. By including depression and property crimes in this model, it was determined that the relationships between friendship support and bullying involvement discussed in the previous section exist even when levels of depression and property crime commission were taken into account. Gender effects As gender differences have previously been reported regarding bullying perpetration and victimization and friendship quality, gender effects were tested in the present study. A grouping variable was added to the original model in order to examine gender differences between girls (n = 435) and boys (n = 445). Tests for gender differences were performed by first constraining each path across groups. Next, each of the cross-path relationships were released, one at a time. All comparisons across models were accomplished using the Satorra–Bentler scaled chi-square difference test statistic (Td), which corrects for non-normality in the data ( Satorra & Bentler, 2001), and was calculated following the procedure described by Muthen and Muthen (2005). Significant changes in model fit were present for three relationships, including the following predictive effects: (1) support of friends at Time 1 on bullying at Time 2 (Td[Δdf = 1] = 13.30, p < .001); (2) depression at Time 1 on victimization at Time 2 (Td[Δdf = 1] = 6.39, p < .05); and (3) bullying at Time 1 on property crimes at Time 2 (Td[Δdf = 1] = 4.10, p < .05). The gender difference in the relationship between support and bullying suggests that increased support of friends at Time 1 reduces bullying at Time 2 for boys (β = −.11, p = .035) but not for girls (β = .04, p = .393). The gender difference concerning the link between depression and later victimization indicates a vulnerability for depressed boys as they, as a consequence, are at particular risk of being victimized by their peers (β = .16, p = .013), whereas the same risk was not evident for girls (β = .04, p = .394). With regard to the path between bullying and later property crimes, the follow up analysis showed that girls' increased involvement in bullying behavior predicted higher frequencies of property crimes (β = .26, p = .001), whereas there was not such effect for boys (β = .02, p = .792). In some cases, it seems that correlates of bullying involvement influence boys and girls differently.