Sexuality, victimization and drug abuse

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have been looking into the links between sexuality, victimization and drug abuse. They studied 34,635 people using data collected as part of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. The study found that lesbian and bisexual women were more than twice as likely to report victimization over their lifetime and as a whole lesbians, gay men and bisexual women reported a greater number of victimization experiences than heterosexuals. Three times as many lesbians as heterosexual women reported childhood sexual abuse. Homosexual men also reported significantly higher rates of childhood sexual abuse, childhood neglect, partner violence and assault with a weapon than heterosexual men. Regardless of sexual identity women who reported two or more victimization experiences had two to four times the prevalence of alcohol dependence, drug abuse and drug addiction as women who reported no victimization.

Steps to respect shuts up malicious gossip

Despite proverbs about sticks and stones malicious gossip can be hurtful to children and adults alike, and, in the playground at least, can often lead on to physical bullying. Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle studied the effectiveness of a programme called Steps to Respect at reducing spiteful gossip. The programme encourages empathy, teaches assertiveness, emphasises that bullying is not a social norm and teaches children not to retaliate as this can make matters worse. Researchers used Palm Pilots to electronically record 610  Year 3 to Year 6 students' behaviour for five minutes, once a week, while they were in the playground. After the programme the children who had taken part in the Steps to Respect programme showed a 72% decrease in malicious gossip.

Cyber-bullying rife but short-lived

Researchers from the University of Valencia have been looking into the incidence of bullying via mobile phones and the internet. They surveyed 2,101 teenagers between the ages of 11 and 17. 24.6% of them had been bullied via their mobile and 29% via the internet. In most cases the bullying lasted for less than a month but in 4% of cases it lasted between three and six month, and in 3% more than a year. Younger children were more likely to experience bullying via this method than older ones and girls likelier than boys. The bullying often took the form of invasions of privacy, spreading of rumours, and social exclusion.

Brothers, sisters and bullying

Older brothers are more likely to bully their younger siblings than older sisters. Researchers from the Universita' degli Studi Di Firenze in Florence studied 195 children, aged between 10 and 12. They found that children with older brothers were more likely to report being bullied at home and that boys were more likely to bully if they had a younger brother or sister. Older sisters were only likely to bully if they had a bad relationship with their yonger siblings.

What becomes of the school bully?

Ever wondered what happened to the school bully? Do they grow out of it and become normal, law-abiding members of society? A new study by researchers from Iowa State University suggests that they don't and that many of them carry on being just as unpleasant in later life. The researchers used information on 43,093 adults taken from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. 6% of the sample admitted to bullying other children and these people were 10 times more likely to lie, six times more likely to get into a fight and two-and-a-half times more likely than other people to harass or threaten someone.

Bullying and academic performance

Previous research has looked into the mental-health effects of bullying but new research from the University of California Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.) suggests that it may also affect their schoolwork as well. The study involved 2,300 pupils in 11 middle schools in Los Angeles. The pupils were asked about their own experiences of bullying and to list which of their fellow pupils were bullied the most. The pupils who were rated as the most bullied performed substantially worse academically than their peers and participated less in class discussions. The students were less likely to speak up in class and more likely to play truant. However, the link also worked in the other direction with children who performed poorly at school being more likely to be bullied.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Getting to the bottom of bullying

Bullying is a big problem in schools but what makes children become either a bully or a victim? Researchers from Louisiana State University and the University of California at Riverside reviewed 153 studies into this issue carried out over the last 30 years. They found that boys were more likely to bully than girls and that both bullies and victims have poor social problem-solving skills. But the strongest predictor of bullying was poor academic performance. The typical bully was found to have negative attitudes and beliefs about others, to feel negatively about themselves, to come from a family environment characterized by conflict and poor parenting, to perceive school as negative and to be negatively influenced by their peers. Typical victims are likely to be aggressive, lack social skills, come from troubled family, school and community environments and be noticeably rejected and isolated by their peers. Other children were both bullies and victims. These children had trouble with social interaction, do not have good social problem-solving skills, perform poorly academically and are often rejected and isolated by their peers.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100708160937.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Bullying: not just something to grow up and get over

Bullying is a feature of many children's lives but is often thought to be an inevitable phase of growing up, something that is down to bad luck, that passes with age and that has few long-term consequences. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London have been reviewing the evidence on bullying and their conclusions disagree with all these assumptions. They found that being a victim of bullying was linked to certain personal characteristics and family factors, that it can last a long time, that it is associated with severe symptoms of mental-health problems including self-harm, violent behaviour and psychosis and that it has long-lasting effects that can persist until late adolescence.

Arseneault, L., Bowes, L. and Shakoor, S. - Bullying victimization in youths and mental-health problems: 'Much ado about nothing'? Psychological Medicine May 2010, 40(5), 717-729

School playgrounds - red in tooth and claw

School playgrounds can often make the court of the Borgias seem like a vicarage tea party and clinical psychologist Rhiarne Pronk from Griffith University has been carrying out an 'in-depth' study of 'relational aggression' in a sample of 33 11-13 year-olds. She found that both boys and girls had personal experiences of unpredictable friendships, social exclusion, rumour and gossip. In the girls this took place in close friendship groups and involved dirty looks, being ignored or excluded and going behind other people's backs whereas in the boys it was more likely to happen in larger groups, be more direct and involve exclusion from games and sporting teams. Lack of social appeal and emotional reactiveness made children more likely to be victims but being too popular or talented could also lead to children being victimized.



You can find out more about the playground jungle at



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100302093342.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Genes, bullying and depression

Scientists are discovering more and more information about the way in which people's genes and environment interact to affect their health. A study of 78 girls by researchers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California looked into the links between bullying, depression and a variation in a gene called 5-HTTLPR. Between 20-40% of children report bullying of some kind and 3-8% of children report frequent victimization. Bullying has been linked to depression, anxiety, loneliness and low self-esteem and girls are both more likely to suffer from it and to be more severely affected by it while variations in the gene 5-HTTLPR have been linked to an increased vulnerability to depression. So, the study asked the children about their mental health and whether they had been bullied and also tested them to see which variation in the gene they had. The researchers found that the genetic variation did not influence the children's levels of depression on its own. However, of the girls who had been bullied only those with the genetic variation were significantly more likely to develop depression.

Benjet, Corina, Thompson, Renee J. and Gotlib, Ian H. - 5-HTTLPR moderates the effect of relational peer victimization on depressive symptoms in adolescent girls Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry February 2010, 51(2), 173-179

Bullying at school and bullying at home

Researchers from the Universita' degli Studi di Firenze have been looking at the links between bullying at home and bullying at school. They studied 195 children aged between 10 and 12 all of whom had a sibling born within four years of them. The study found that children with older brothers were the most victimized group. More boys than girls bullied their siblings who were more likely to be younger than them. In the girls bullying was related more to the quality of their relationship with their sibling than to any age difference. Overall high levels of conflict and low leves of empathy were significantly related to sibling bullying and sibling victimization. Children who bullied their siblings were more likely to be bullies at school and children who were bullied by their brothers and/or sisters were also more likely to be victimized at school.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091206185410.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Using virtual reality to beat bullies

Researchers at the University of Warwick have been investigating how virtual reality could help children cope with bullying. They used a programme called FearNot!: a virtual school where children could assume roles as bullies, victims or bystanders. The characters were used to improvise real-life bullying incidents and pupils could interact with the characters and suggest ways to cope with, or resolve, the situation. The study involved 1,129 children aged between eight and nine from 27 primary schools across the UK and Germany. Half the children had three 30-minute sessions with the software over a three-week period while the other half formed a control group. The children who used the computer programme experienced a 26% decrease in victimisation.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110105359.htm

Bullying in the classroom - more Lord of the Flies than sweetness and light

Researchers from the University of Granada in Spain have been looking at what children themselves think about bullying, bullies and their victims and have come up with some surprising results. They studied 1,237 children between 11 and 16. 7.3% were victims, 8.5% were bullies and 84.1% were the uninvolved 'audience' for bullying. The study found that younger children were more approving of the bullying than researchers thought they would be. They saw the victims as passive, socially incompetent, anxious, depressed and insecure and the bullies as strong, brave, outgoing, happy, powerful and self-confident. Girls felt more sympathy towards the victims but boys saw them as vulnerable and morally responsible for their victimisation and said that they should feel 'guilty and ashamed.' As the children got older and took on more adult values they felt more sympathy for the victims and were more likely to reject the bullies.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091028112751.htm

Bullying over time

Girls who are bullied between the ages of six and nine are much more likely to be still being bullied in Year 6. Researchers from Warwick University studied 432 children from 17 primary schools in Hertfordshire and North London. Researchers asked the children about their experiences of being bullied between the ages of six and nine and again in Year 6. Among the girls those who were victims of direct bullying (physical or verbal abuse) at the start of the study were 2.5x more likely than their classmates to be being bullied at Year 6. However, boys who were being bullied at the start of the study were no more likely to be being bullied in Year 6. The study also looked at relational bullying - being excluded or given the cold shoulder by other children - and found that those who were the victims of this at the start of the study were no more likely to suffer in Year 6 than other children despite the fact that this was something that happened more often as children got older. Children with emotional problems and fewer friends and in classes with rigid social heirarchies were more likely to be bullied.

You can find out more about this research at

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/10/young-girls-particularly-prone-to.html

Childhood bullying and mental health

Bullying in school is a major problem for children, teachers and parents. Boys tend to bully more than girls who are more likely to use 'relational aggression'. Both bullying and victimisation are associated with poorer family functioning, interparental violence and child abuse and previous studies have shown that children who are both bullies and victims are the most troubled in terms of outcomes. Researchers from Turku University in Finland studied 5,038 children born in 1981. They asked them, and their teachers and parents, about bullying when they were eight and looked at the participants' psychiatric-hospital treatment and use of drugs until they were 24. The study found that girls who were frequent victims of bullying at eight were more likely to have been treated in a psychiatric hospital and to have taken antipsychotic, antidepressant or anti-anxiety drugs by the time they were 24. Among the male participants frequent bully/victim and bully-only statuses predicted the use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Frequent bully/victim status among male participants also predicted psychiatric-hospital treatment and use of antipsychotics. However, among the male participants there was no link between bullying and subsequent mental-health problems once the children's mental-health problems at the age of eight had been taken into account.

Sourander, Andre ... [et al] - Childhood bullying behavior and later psychiatric hospital and psychopharmacologic treatment Archives of General Psychiatry September 2009, 66(9), 1005-1012

School bullying? Take one CAPSLE

A lot of schools use anti-bullying programmes but there have been few trials to compare their effectiveness. Researchers from University College London, Baylor College of Medicine in the U.S. and the University of Kansas studied 1,345 children aged between 7 and 11 in nine primary schools. They compared the effectiveness of School Psychiatric Consultation (which targets problem children for individual therapy), treatment-as-usual (TAU) and CAPSLE (Creating A Peaceful School Learning Environment). CAPSLE works on the relationships between bullies, victims and bystanders and assumes that all school members - including teachers - play a part in bullying. It aims to improve people's ability to understand what other people are thinking in the hope that this will reduce bullying. The study found that CAPSLE was the most effective of the three approaches. It reduced bullying, aggression and 'aggressive bystanding' compared to TAU schools. CAPSLE also produced a significant decrease in 'off-task' and disruptive classroom behaviour - changes which were still there when the children were followed up after a year. However, results for self-reported victimization, 'helpful bystanding,' and beliefs in the legitimacy of aggression did not differ between the groups.

Fonagy, Peter ... [et al] - A cluster randomized controlled trial of child-focused psychiatric consultation and a school systems-focused intervention to reduce aggression Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry May 2009, 50(5), 607-616

Bullying and psychosis

Several studies have shown that traumatic events in childhood - such as physical or sexual abuse - increase the risk of developing psychosis in adulthood. Now researchers at Warwick University have found that bullying can double the risk of developing psychosis symptoms in 12-year-old children. The researchers tracked 6,437 children from 7 to 12. The children had yearly physical and psychological assessments, were asked about psychosis symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions and bizarre thoughts, and children, parents and teachers were asked about bullying. The appearance of psychotic symptoms was twice as high among the bullying victims, regardless of any other mental-health problems they might have, family problems or intelligence.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE5436PQ20090504?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0