Biomedical subjects

M J Boulton

Publications and source records attributed to M J Boulton.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Twenty years' research on peer victimization and psychosocial maladjustment: a meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies.

Cross-sectional quantitative designs are often used to investigate whether peer victimization is positively related to psychosocial maladjustment. This paper presents a meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies, published between 1978 and 1997, of the association of peer victimization with psychosocial maladjustment. Mean effect sizes were calculated for the association between peer victimization and each form of maladjustment (depression, loneliness, generalized and social anxiety, and global and social self-worth) assessed. The results suggested that victimization is most strongly related to depression, and least strongly related to anxiety. There was no evidence that victimization is more strongly related to social than to psychological forms of maladjustment. Effect sizes were stronger when the same informants were used to assess both victimization and maladjustment than when different informants were used. There were some design limitations to the studies reviewed, but all together their results provide a strong background for more complex research into the course and treatment of victims' distress.

Adjustment Disorders↗

PubMed1999

Concurrent and longitudinal links between friendship and peer victimization: implications for befriending interventions.

This short-term longitudinal study examined the associations between peer reports of victimization and self-reported friendship among early adolescents. It was carried out to test the view that friendship provides protection against victimization (called the "friendship protection hypothesis"). Data were collected at two points within a school year, separated by 6 months. At Time 1, 170 pupils provided data, and 158 of these did so again at Time 2. Three sets of findings were consistent with the friendship protection hypothesis. First, at Time 1 those early adolescents who had a reciprocated best friend in their home class received significantly fewer peer nominations for victimization than did classmates without a reciprocated best friend. Second, those early adolescents that did not have best friend at either Time 1 or Time 2 showed the highest increase in victimization over the course of the study, whereas those that did have a best friend at both Times 1 and 2 showed the highest falls in victimization. Third, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that a decrease in conflict and betrayal reported to characterize the participants' best friendship was associated with falls in victimization. The implications of these results for anti-bullying initiatives based on "befriending" principles were discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Swedish and English secondary school pupils' attitudes towards, and conceptions of, bullying: concurrent links with bully/victim involvement.

Thirteen and fifteen year old Swedish and English secondary school pupils (n = 210) completed a questionnaire designed to measure attitudes towards, and conceptions of, bullying. The older participants also provided peer nominations of classmates thought to be bullies and victims. Significant differences between pupils from the two countries, between younger and older pupils, and between girls and boys emerged on a number of these variables. For example, a significantly larger percentage of English pupils than Swedish pupils indicated that name calling is bullying, whereas the reverse was true for leaving somebody out. These results suggest that findings concerning incidence of, and beliefs about, bullying may not generalise from one group of pupils to another. Overall, participants tended to express anti-bullying attitudes. The present results also add to the small but growing set of findings which suggest that pupils' attitudes concerning bullying and their actual involvement in bullying are associated concurrently. Attitudes were found to significantly predict involvement in bullying even after the variance shared with participants' sex had been controlled. Specifically, those pupils that expressed the weakest anti-bullying attitudes were found to be most often nominated by peers as a bully. The implications of these results for anti-bullying interventions were discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Teachers' views on bullying: definitions, attitudes and ability to cope.

BACKGROUND: Teachers play a crucial role in preventing and managing the widespread problem of bullying. Despite this, scant attention has been paid to their views on this type of problem. AIMS: To determine (i) what behaviours teachers regard as bullying; (ii) teachers' attitudes towards bullying, bullies and victims; (iii) teachers' self-beliefs about their ability to deal with bullying and their need for training; (iv) teachers' views of their responsibility for bullying in various locations; (v) the impact of length of service on attitudes and perceived ability to cope with bullying. SAMPLE: Pre-, infant, junior, and secondary school teachers (N = 138) from schools selected on a convenience basis. Age range 19 to 57 years (mean = 35.8), length of teaching experience range one to 38 years (mean = 12.2 years). METHODS: Standardised questionnaire completed and returned within a one-week period. RESULTS: Teachers viewed a wide range of behaviours as bullying, but significantly more agreed that some items (e.g., 'Threatening people verbally') were bullying than agreed others were (e.g., 'Leaving people out'). Teachers expressed generally negative attitudes towards bullying and bullies, and were generally sympathetic towards victims, although sympathy diminished with increasing length of service. Teachers, regardless of length of service, were not confident in their ability to deal with bullying and 87 per cent wanted more training. Significantly more teachers felt responsible for preventing bullying in the classroom and playground than outside of school. CONCLUSION: School psychologists must consider teachers' views about many aspects of the problem of bullying if they are to devise optimum strategies for tackling it.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Proximate causes of aggressive fighting in middle school children.

In study 1, 8- and 11-year-old girls and boys (N = 110) were interviewed individually and asked about why children in general, and themselves in particular, fight with fellow pupils in the playground. A substantial proportion of children (51 per cent) reported having had at least one aggressive fight during the previous year. The most common reasons for children resorting to fighting were retaliations to teasing, retaliations to unprovoked assaults, disagreements over aspects of the game that was being played, because another child was disliked, and to settle dominance disputes. In study 2, a direct observational methodology was employed to examine how often children of these ages engage in aggressive fighting, how long fights last, and their proximate causes. Among the younger pupils, a large proportion of fights (43.3 per cent) had no obvious immediate cause to an adult observer, but others were caused when a playful assault received an aggressive retaliation (15.4 per cent), and by disputes over space in the playground (13.5 per cent). Among the 11-year-old pupils, a smaller percentage of fights (14.8 per cent) had no obvious immediate cause. The two most common causes of fighting at this age were aggressive retaliations to teasing (25.9 per cent) and aggressive retaliations to accidental injury/hurt (18.5 per cent). In study 3, in situ interviews were combined with direct playground observations in order to reveal participants' views (or onlookers' views if participants were not available to be interviewed) about the causes of fights. Again, the most common causes of fighting were disputes over some aspect of the game being played (33.3 per cent), aggressive retaliations to teasing (25.0 per cent), disagreements over possession of toys/equipment (14.6 per cent), and aggressive retaliations to accidental injury/hurt (14.6 per cent). Age and sex differences are reported in some measures across all three studies. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for interventions aimed at improving children's experiences of life on the school playground.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1992

Bully/victim problems among middle school children.

Bully/victim problems among six classes of 8-9 year-old and six classes of 11-12 year-old children, attending three middle schools, were investigated by means of Olweus's self-report Bullying Inventory. About 21 per cent of the children reported being bullied, and about 17 per cent reported bullying others, "sometimes" or more often. Reports of both bullying and being bullied were more prevalent among boys than among girls, and among the younger group than among the older group. The two most common forms of bullying were reported to be teasing and hitting/kicking. Fewer of the younger group than the older group reported being bullied by same-age pupils, and more of the former reported being bullied by older pupils. Most boys were bullied by other boys only, whereas girls were more likely to be bullied by children of either sex. Besides being bullied in school, children also reported that this happened on the journey to/from school and in other places such as in the street near where they live. Many children expressed negative attitudes towards bullying, although nearly a third said that they could understand why it happens. The majority of the children who reported being bullied/bullying others had not been spoken to about this by teachers or by someone at home. Victims of bullying, but not bullies, were found to be most likely to report feeling unhappy and lonely at school, and to report having fewer good friends. In Study 2, children identified as bullies, victims and not involved in this type of problem were interviewed to find out why certain children and/or themselves bully/get bullied by others, and the feelings of the children involved. The pattern of responses by the three groups differed in some important ways.

Aggression↗

PubMed1990

Affective bias in children's perceptions of dominance relationships.

This study investigated children's perceptions of the relative strength of themselves and their peers, in 2 classes of 8-year-olds and 2 classes of 11-year-olds. Each child ranked his or her entire class in terms of strength and liking. Previous investigators have assumed that such strength perceptions reflect the dominance structure of the group. The present results, replicating previous findings, indicate that children consistently overestimate their place in this hierarchy in relation to their peers' perceptions. In addition, it was found that bias in perceptions of strength extended in a systematic way to the peer group, with liked peers being overranked and disliked peers being underranked. For most children, this result could be explained in terms of an enhanced evaluation of liked, but not disliked, peers, or in terms of liked, but not disliked, peers being perceived as similar to themselves. The theoretical and methodological implications of these results for the concept of dominance in children's groups are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Concurrent and longitudinal relations between children's playground behavior and social preference, victimization, and bullying.

Prior research with contrived play groups suggests that how children interact with one another can influence their social relationships, but few studies have been carried out to determine if this is the case in naturalistic settings. This study examined the concurrent and longitudinal links between four observational measures of 8- to 9-year-old children's (N = 89) playground behaviors/peer contacts (Alone, Conversation, Group Size, and Network) and three sociometric measures of their peer relationships (Social Preference, Bully, and Victim). The latter were assessed at 2 points within a school year, the first corresponding with the playground observations and the second 5 months later. Several of the concurrent correlations were found to be significant. For boys, Group Size was positively correlated with Bully Score and Social Preference Score, but negatively correlated with Victim Score; and time Alone was positively correlated with Victim Score. For girls, time Alone was positively correlated with Victim Score; Network was negatively correlated with Bully Score but positively correlated with Social Preference Score; and Group Size was positively correlated with Social Preference Score. The longitudinal analyses indicated that for boys, elevated levels of time Alone and, separately, Conversation, predicted the highest increases in Victim Score. For girls, low levels of time Alone predicted the sharpest increases in Social Preference Score. There was also some marginally significant evidence, p < .06, that among girls, high levels of time Alone predicted the greatest increases in Bully Score, and high levels of Conversation predicted the greatest increases in Social Preference Score. The theoretical and practical importance of these links between children's nonaggressive playground behaviors and their emerging peer relationships are discussed.

Child↗