Different forms of bullying and victimization: Bully-victims versus bullies and victims

Authors

An Yang
Christina Salmivalli, Edith Cowan University

Document Type

Journal Article

Publisher

Routledge

Faculty

Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science

School

School of Exercise and Health Sciences / Child Health Promotion Research Centre

RAS ID

17411

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Journal of Developmental Psychology on 10 May 2013 as: Yang, A., & Salmivalli, C. (2013). Different forms of bullying and victimization: Bully-victims versus bullies and victims. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 10(6), 723-738. Available online here

Abstract

Although much is known about bully-victims, children who bully others and are victimized by others, the forms of bullying they employ and experience have received little attention. The present study examined the extent to which bully-victims (in comparison to pure bullies and pure victims) are perpetrators and targets of verbal, physical, indirect, and cyber bullying. The sample included 19,869 students from grades 1 to 8 (7 to 15 years of age). Bully-victims (whether identified by self- or peer-reports) perpetrated significantly more physical and verbal bullying than pure bullies. They also tended to score higher than bullies in cyberbullying, but not in indirect bullying. With respect to victimization, bully-victims were more frequent targets of all four forms of victimization than pure victims. The frequent victimization experiences of bully-victims may be one factor contributing to their high maladjustment reported in the literature. Challenges for teacher training and bullying interventions are discussed.