Social ecology and adolescent bullying: Filtering risky environments through antisocial personality

Abstract

An adaptive social ecological framework was used to determine whether risky environmental factors filtered through four antisocial traits from a contemporary model of personality called the HEXACO to predict direct and indirect forms of bullying. Adolescents (N=396; Mage=14.64, SDage=1.52; 58% girls) recruited from Canadian extracurricular organizations completed self-report measures. Through comprehensive overall and system-level models, we found expected indirect effects of parent, peer, school, and neighborhood variables through a predatory, exploitative personality trait for both forms of bullying. Additionally, indirect effects were found through a reckless, impulsive personality trait, although these effects were more frequent for the direct form of bullying. Traits measuring lower empathy and general anger only had direct effects and univariate correlations, respectively. Therefore, risky environmental factors may be indirectly filtered through antisocial personality traits (particularly exploitation) to affect forms of bullying, highlighting the complexity of adolescent bullying social ecology and the heterogeneity needed for intervention and practice.