Bullying and Child Well-Being: A Literature Review

Introduction

All social situations contain inherent balances — or imbalances — of power between individuals that affect the relationships within the group and the functioning of the group as a whole. This fact, albeit stated far more simply than the research perhaps supports, plays out in many complex ways across different social institutions and groups, influencing their progress and actions enormously and demonstrating the precariousness of interpersonal interactions. Understanding the ways in which power is structured in these groups, and the ways in which it can be abused by certain individuals, is essential to developing an understanding of long-term success and progress for humanity as a whole.

The power mechanisms at work in social institutions also affect the individuals within these systems. It could be — and has been — argued that it is through the sum of these individual effects that group action, direction, and culture is shaped and determined. Of greater practical interest, however, is the way certain power abuses in social groups affect individual development and well-being over the long term. Bullying behaviors, which persist in many adult social organizations, are most prevalent in schools and other groups of children and adolescents, and must necessarily affect the well-being of those who experience bullying — as aggressor and/or victim — and possibly even those who witness it.

This literature review attempts to present an understanding of how bullying in childhood and adolescence affects long-term development and well-being, based on current empirical research. Several different theoretical and practical approaches are represented in the research and literature examined for this review, leading to varied conclusions and different perspectives on the primary research question. Certain studies are more directly on point, delivering explicit information regarding the effects of bullying — being bullied, bullying others, or witnessing bullying — on long- and/or short-term well-being, while others are more tangentially related. All of the studies incorporated herein, however, have a definite bearing on producing a current and comprehensive understanding of bullying and its effects.

Literature Review

Both short- and long-term well-being are difficult to define comprehensively, and this presents the greatest challenge in arriving at a fair and accurate analysis of the various research studies examined in the formation of this review. Despite the fact that the measure of well-being is not entirely consistent across studies, a useful understanding of short- and long-term well-being is achieved in the process of compiling these disparate pieces of research, along with the primary objective of developing an understanding of bullying's influence on well-being. This review therefore both defines terms and establishes relationships between the various concepts and phenomena it addresses.

One broad understanding of well-being encompasses physical, psychological, and social contexts. Within this framework, belief in a just world has been positively correlated with enhanced long-term well-being (Correia et al., 2009). Research into how this belief relates to bullying and how individuals handle — and possibly mitigate — its effects on well-being is still inconclusive, but seems to suggest that such a belief can reduce distress experienced both from witnessing and from being a victim of bullying (Correia et al., 2009). The greatest levels of well-being, as measured by lower levels of self-reported distress in facing school and daily life, were seen among those who acted as defenders in instances of bullying; belief in a just world also appeared to be higher in these individuals, though the correlation is not firmly established (Correia et al., 2009).

In a more concrete and direct study, it was found that the long-term effects of bullying are more detrimental, more pronounced, and more likely to occur among students from less affluent backgrounds than among children and adolescents who experience a more financially comfortable lifestyle (Due et al., 2009). These researchers rely on prior research establishing the proven detrimental effects of bullying on well-being in the short term; their own empirical study demonstrates more clearly that the long-term effects of bullying are highly similar, with additional steps toward individual deterioration (Due et al., 2009). These effects include impacts on self-esteem — which can strongly influence success in adulthood — and even physical health can be directly and adversely affected by experiences of bullying in childhood (Due et al., 2009).

Bullying and attitudes related to bullying behaviors have also been correlated with other, less directly related issues in adolescence, further complicating the relationship between bullying, general hostility, and well-being. Specifically, sexual orientation as reported during high school among a group of students was found to have a strong correlation with hostility: same-sex-attracted students reported higher levels of hostile feelings and attitudes than opposite-sex-attracted students who were otherwise demographically similar (Rivers & Noret, 2008). Same-sex-attracted students were also more likely to have engaged in risky behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, and were more likely to report feelings of loneliness (Rivers & Noret, 2008). While this does not correlate directly to bullying behaviors, it carries interesting implications for factors of well-being that coincide with attitudes likely to contribute to bullying.

Other factors in a child's life have been more directly linked to the effects of bullying. Family support systems have been found to be especially important in fostering resilience against bullying and the witnessing of bullying behavior, both of which can otherwise lead to long-term behavioral and emotional problems (Bowes et al., 2010). Maternal warmth and sibling warmth — positive attention, emotional reinforcement, and support from these figures — were found to be especially potent in combating the negative effects of bullying on well-being (Bowes et al., 2010). Direct emotional countering of bullying's emotional impact is therefore indicated as a highly effective countermeasure.

Similar findings emerged from a broader and more diverse study examining the role that social support plays in adolescent well-being, defined by large-scale and easily observable psychological trends and evidence of social adaptation (McGrath et al., 2009). This research included students in Florida and Ireland in two separate studies utilizing the same methodologies and analyzed in the same manner; the results were consistent enough to suggest that the findings were relevant across at least some cultural barriers (McGrath et al., 2009). Informal social support — rather than formal support provided by established authority figures such as teachers and counselors — was found to be most strongly linked to overall well-being, increasing self-esteem and decreasing the likelihood that certain events would have lasting negative effects (McGrath et al., 2009).

Another study conducted in Jamaica found that the status of the bully had extreme effects on the outcomes of bullying behavior for victims and witnesses. Specifically, bullying by teachers was seen to lead to depression, an overall loss of trust in others, and increasingly oppositional attitudes, whereas no definite outcomes could be linked to instances of peer bullying to a statistically significant degree (Pottinger & Stair, 2009). This was not a long-term study, making it difficult to ascertain the long-term effects of teacher bullying on adolescent students, but the short-term detriments to the well-being of those exposed to bullying by teachers were quite definite and fairly severe (Pottinger & Stair, 2009). The position of the bully, then, has a major impact on the overall outcome of bullying.

Conclusion

There are definite long- and short-term effects of bullying on well-being, including emotional disturbances, psychological issues, and decreased abilities to adapt effectively to changing social situations and to make effective use of social networks. This review has presented evidence of the ways these effects can be exacerbated and ways in which they can be mitigated, suggesting avenues for further research to more concretely and reliably determine the causes of bullying and its harmful effects, as well as the methods for combating them.

References

Bowes, L., Maughan, B., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T., & Arsenault, L. (2010). Families promote emotional and behavioural resilience to bullying: Evidence of an environmental effect. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51(7), 809–817.

Correia, I., Kamble, S., & Dalbert, C. (2009). Belief in a just world and well-being of bullies, victims and defenders: A study with Portuguese and Indian students. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 22(5), 497–508.

Due, P., Damsgaard, M., Lund, R., & Holstein, B. (2009). Is bullying equally harmful for rich and poor children? A study of bullying and depression from age 15 to 27. European Journal of Public Health, 19(5), 464–469.

McGrath, B., Brennan, M., Dolan, P., & Barnett, R. (2009). Adolescent well-being and supporting contexts: A comparison of adolescents in Ireland and Florida. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 19(4), 299–320.

Pottinger, A., & Stair, A. (2009). Bullying of students by teachers and peers and its effect on the psychological well-being of students in Jamaican schools. Journal of School Violence, 8(4), 312–327.

Rivers, I., & Noret, N. (2008). Well-being among same-sex- and opposite-sex-attracted youth at school. School Psychology Review, 37(2), 174–187.