Stabiliteit in pesten en gepest worden: associaties met sociaal functioneren op de basisschool en middelbare school

Abstract

This longitudinal study investigated the social adjustment of children who were involved in bullying. Participants (189 girls and 328 boys) were assessed when they were in primary school (M age = 11 years) and three years later when they were in secondary school (M age = 14 years). Participants were classified as stable bullies or victims, or transient bullies or victims, being children who were bullies or victims only in childhood or adolescence. Children who were not involved in bullying served as a control group. More than half of the childhood bullies were normally adjusted in adolescence. Stable bullies showed a distinctive pattern of social deviant behavior that distinguished them from all other children. Half of the childhood victims did not show any social problems in adolescence, but stable victims clearly did. These problems were not more severe, however, than the problems experienced by the children who were victims only in adolescence. This finding suggests that the duration of being victimized is not related to the magnitude of the adjustment problems. The need to distinguish between stable and transient bullies and victims is underlined by these findings.