Abstract
This study explored the effects of being bullied from a dual-factor lens, specifically examining the relation between victimization and constructs that contribute to social-emotional well-being. Prior to carrying out the main analyses, the factor structure of self-report items related to experiencing bullying and harassment from the California Healthy Kids Survey, which was administered to more than 14,000 high school students, was examined to establish that these items represent an overall factor: students’ experience of victimization. This factor was then used as an independent variable in a series of planned comparisons with a dependent variable represented by constructs addressed by the Social Emotional Health Survey–Secondary: belief-in-self, emotional competence, belief-in-others, and engaged living. With increased frequency of victimization, suicidality increased and belief-in-others decreased. For other constructs, belief-in-self, engaged living, and depression, there were significant differences found between individuals who had experienced frequencies of bullying as low as less than once a month and those who did not experience bullying at all but no further detrimental impacts were seen with even higher frequencies of victimization, indicating that being victimized at all is significantly worse than not being victimized for these variables. Implications and future directions for research are explored.
Highlights
The mental health field has focused on the presence and effects of mental health problems, but recent years have seen an increased interest in expanding upon this perspective to include positive psychological constructs
In addition to the previously postulated groups of individuals with low subjective wellbeing with high pathology and high subjective well-being with low pathology, as is consistent with the traditional unidimensional model of mental health, individuals can exhibit high subjective well-being with high psychopathology and low subjective well-being with low psychopathology
Prior to carrying out the main analyses for this study we addressed this research question: Do the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) items related to being bullied represent a latent construct that can be utilized in further research regarding bullying victimization? The analyses addressing this question are presented in the “Results” section of this article
Summary
The mental health field has focused on the presence and effects of mental health problems, but recent years have seen an increased interest in expanding upon this perspective to include positive psychological constructs. McDougall and Vaillancourt (2015), in an analysis of prospective studies, found that academics were negatively impacted for youth across all grade levels who had experienced victimization. It seems that victimization results in poor academic achievement because of increased psychological distress and decreased student engagement (Totura, Karver, & Gesten, 2014). The prevalence of bullying on the schoolwide level is correlated with increased high school dropout rates (Cornell, Gregory, Huang, & Fan, 2013) as well as decreased schoolwide academic performance (Lacey & Cornell, 2013)
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