THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF BULLYING ON THE QUALITY OF FUTURE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

By: Jamie Kalff

Background

There has been a lot of research on the topic of adolescent bullying recently

However the research is limited when it comes to• Who is doing the bullying• And the recent addition of cyber bullying, as

a form of how they are being bullied, with verbal and physical abuse already studied widely

Research Question

Does the method of bullying, who is doing the bullying, and what they are being bullied for, change the quality of future interpersonal relationships and the self-esteem they hold within those relationships?• Who: A close friend, peer, anonymous person,

family member • How: Cyber bullying versus verbal abuse versus

physical abuse• Why: Academics, social behavior, family

background, and appearance

Hypothesis

Self-esteem will be more adversely affected if the victim is being bullied for appearance based reasons or by a family member.

The quality of the victim’s interpersonal relationships will be worse if they are bullied by a close friend and/or in the form of cyber bullying.

Participants/ Sample

Undergraduate and Graduate students Will be given course credit for

participation Diverse population from 4 different

universities located strategically around the country

Estimated sample of 200 students from each school

Measures

The Teasing Questionnaire- Revised (Storch et al., 2004)

Revised Adult Attachment Scale (Collins, 1996) Janis-Field Self-Esteem Scale With Appearance

Subscale (Pliner, Chaiken & Flett, 1990) Friendship Information Questionnaire (Foth,

Scott & Heimberg, 2004)• Will be revised to include the quality of those

friendships and will be pilot tested Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

(Goodman, 1997)

Procedure

Students selected from around the country

After IRB approval and informed consent, the participants will be given instructions to take each of the five measures

They will not be told what the study is about as to not alter their responses

One month later the same participants will take a re-test to ensure consistency

After they have taken the questionnaires twice there will be a debriefing

Analysis

Who

Why

How

Who• Close friend• Peer• Family member• Anonymous

Why• Academics• Social behavior• Family background• Appearance

How• Cyber bullying• Verbal abuse• Physical abuse

Analysis

We want to determine what combinations (of who, why and how) affect the victim the most negatively‒which causes lower self-esteem, both personally and in relationships, as well as the quality of the relationships the victim has

We will compare the quality of the interpersonal relationships between the participants who were bullied in every combination with those who reported not having been a victim

Analysis

Retrospective correlational study based on• 5 Dependent Variables: each of the 5

questionnaires• They will be analyzed to determine a

correlation between who, why, and how

Possible Limitations

The sample size may be hard to acquire Participants may not be honest and

forthcoming regarding their victimization history or current self-esteem

Sample is not representative The frequency of bullying is hard to

determine• We aren’t differentiating between the victims

who were bullied for a month versus throughout the duration of high school and middle school

THE END