1. What is bullying?

2. Is being bullied associated with later mental health problems in young children?

3. Does being bullied lead to mental health problems in young children, after taking into account previous mental health problems?

4. Does being bullied lead to mental health problems in young children, after taking into account family-wide factors?

5. How does these findings contribute to helping reduce mental health problems in young children?

Mental health outcomes of young children involved in bullying

Louise Arseneault

Associate of King’s College London

January 31th, 2008

“We say a student is being bullied when another student, or a group of

students, say or do nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. It is

also bullying when a student is teased repeatedly in a way he or she doesn’t

like. But it is not bullying when two students of about the same strength

quarrel or fight.”

Health Behaviour of School-aged Children (HBSC), JAMA 2001

Bullying

Involvement in Bullying

Not involved: 66%

Pure bullies: 16%

Pure victims: 12%

Bully/victims: 5%

M=626, F=761

M=145, F=127

M=216, F=162

M=78, F=59

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

victims bully/victims

Reg

ress

ion

co

effi

cien

tBeing bullied lead to age-7 internalising

problems when prior internalising problems are controlled for

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

victims bully/victims

Reg

ress

ion

co

effi

cien

tBeing bullied lead to age-7 externalising

problems when prior externalising problems are controlled for

Standardised mean scores of internalising problems among MZ twin pairs discordant

for having been bullied

-0.25

-0.15

-0.05

0.05

0.15

0.25

Inte

rnal

isin

g pr

oble

ms

age

10

(z-s

core

s)

Bullied twin (N=114)

Not bullied twin (N=114)

Conclusions

Being bullied is associated with later mental health problems in young children.

Bullying involves repeated hurtful actions between individuals where an imbalance of power exists. These types of social interactions, where it is difficult for the ones being bullied to defend themselves, are frequent among school-aged children.

Being bullied contributes to mental health problems (e.g., internalising and externalising problems) in children’s lives over the course of their early school years, over and above prior mental health problems.

Conclusions

Being bullied leads to internalising problems independently of other risk factors common to members of the family in which bullied children grew up, including genetic makeup.

Reducing bullying behaviour in schools and in communities, by designing programs to support victims of bullying, we may be able to decrease rates of childhood internalising disorders and possibly later anxiety and depression disorders

Further reading …

Arseneault, L., Milne, B.J., Taylor, A., Adams, F., Delgado, K., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T.E. (2008). Evidence that bullying victimization is an environmentally-mediated contributing factor to children’s internalizing problems: A study of twins discordant for victimization. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Coming in the February issue.

Arseneault, L., Walsh, E., Trzesniewski, K., Newcombe, R., Caspi, A., & Moffitt, T.E. (2006). Bullying victimization uniquely contributes to adjustment problems in young children: A nationally representative cohort study. Pediatrics, 118, 130-138.