Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Bullying is a group dynamic process, of which peer ecology is an essential context for the occurrence and development of bullying. Although existing studies have focused on peer factors that influence bullying, there is still limited research that systematically examines the development and changes in bullying-related behaviors from a group dynamics perspective. This study reviewed twenty social network studies and analyzed the development of bullying-related behaviors from structural and relational characteristics of social networks in the previous studies. As shown in Figure 1, these social networks include two parts: structures and relationships. Structural characteristics include group structure (e.g., classroom hierarchy) and individual position (e.g., embeddedness and betweenness). Relationship characteristics include static relationships (e.g., rejection and friendship) and dynamic relationships (e.g., selection and influence process). Generally, these social network findings could be summarized as follows. First, as for the role of structural characteristics, it was found that classroom hierarchy (as an indicator of social prominence in the peer group) could directly predict the incidence and severity of bullying. Particularly, a classroom with a higher hierarchy tends to worsen the bullying situation, thus, all students in these classrooms are at a greater risk. At the same time, individual’s position in the network is a critical ecological marker for identifying those who are at risk for bullying, which could provide the possibility for early prediction and prevention. Second, as for the role of relationships in the network, on the one hand, these studies found that friendship increases the spread of bullying-related behaviors within the network, for example, bullying, victimization, and defense behaviors. On the other hand, these studies also demonstrated that bullying-related behaviors can format and maintain friendships in the networks, which bring together those with similar behaviors and exclude those with different behaviors. For example, bullies and defenders were unlikely to select victims as friends. Consequently, victimized individuals are excluded and isolated from various groups. By contrast, the mutual selection of bullies attracts them together and forms a "bully" gang. In this way, it polarizes bullying behaviors in groups and intensifies bullying-related behaviors from individual to group. Future research could, first, explore the occurrence and development of bullying-related behaviors by measuring individuals' central location in the network (such as degree centrality, closeness centrality) and different relationship strengths, relationship scales, and relationship types in social networks from multiple perspectives. Second, future research should systematically and comprehensively examine the developmental changes in different bullying roles in networks to construct patterns of propagation and dissipation behaviors related to bullying roles and the patterns of mutual transformation among different roles. Meanwhile, the moderators and mediators should also be explored in future studies. Finally, future research should strengthen the collectivist culture and the importance of academic achievement, which could reveal the cultural and social environment imprint of bullying-related behaviors developing in China and provide a better empirical basis for bullying interventions from the perspective of group ecology.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Bullying is a group process that involves multiple behaviors and multiagent interactions. However, few studies have focused on the development of bullying-related behaviors in the context of peer group interaction and relationship change, particularly in friendship networks. Although social support theory suggests that positive friendships act as a buffer, previous research has found that victims have difficulty making friends. Furthermore, recent research on friendship networks has indicated that the potential buffering role of friends may depend on the extent to which friends engage in certain behaviors. It is thus crucial to determine how victims shape their friendship networks and the protection mechanisms or detrimental effects associated with victims that such networks can trigger. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to longitudinally examine the selection and influence effects of victimization in dynamic classroom friendship networks using a sample of Chinese adolescents. We expected that (1) while peers tend to avoid selecting victims as friends (H1a: peer avoidance effect), victims tend to select other victimized youth as friends (H1b: peer selection effects), and that (2) the more friends that an adolescent has, the less he or she is victimized (H2a: peer protective effect), whereas one's victimization increases as a result of one’s friends being victimized (H2b: peer influence effect). A total of 1406 eighth-grade students in public middle schools from Central China were recruited to participate in three assessments, with an interval of six months. Peer nomination was applied to evaluate friendship and victimization, with a maximum of five nominations allowed from classmates who fit the description. Capitalizing on longitudinal social network analysis (SIENA) to disentangle selection and influence processes, this study focuses on the role of friendship in adolescents’ peer victimization after controlling for structural characteristics of the network (e.g., transitivity and reciprocity) in friendship network dynamics. It was found that (1) while peers avoided selecting victims as friends (peer avoidance effect), victims tended to select other victims as friends (peer selection effect); (2) whether peers nominated others as friends was not influenced by their level of victimization; (3) having more friends decreased one’s level of victimization (peer protection effect), while being friends with a victim increased one’s possibility of being victimized over time (peer influence effect); (4) the higher the victimization level of an adolescent was, the higher his or her victimization level gradually rose over time (enhanced effect of victimization); and (5) the level of victimization decreased over time among girls compared to that of boys. These results revealed the peer selection and influence effects on the covariation of friendship networks and victimization among Chinese adolescents and demonstrated the peer “contagion” that is associated with victimization, which provides insights for interventions for school bullying.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2022-10-04
Abstract： Bullying is a group dynamic process, of which peer ecology is an important context for the occurrence and development of bullying. Although existing studies have focused on peer factors that influence bullying, there is still limited research that systematically examines the development and changes in bullying-related behaviors from a group dynamics perspective. This study focuses on the key issues of the interaction between social networks and bullying-related behaviors. Specifically, it examines the processes by which bullying-related behaviors develop in peer networks. This study reveals the influence of the structural characteristics and internal relationships of peer network on the development of bullying-related behaviors and illustrates the selection effect and influence effect in the covariant relationship of bullying-related behaviors and peer network. On this basis, the present study reviews the innovative advantages of social network perspectives and methods in promoting bullying research, and proposes an analysis and prospect on how to strengthen group ecological research on bullying interventions in China from a social network perspective.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Hits
Hits
Downloads
Comment