college research paper on bullying

Bullying in higher education: an endemic problem?

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• Published: 30 June 2023
• Volume 29 , pages 123–137, ( 2023 )

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• Malcolm Tight   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3379-8613 1  

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We may think that bullying is a childish behaviour that is left behind on finishing school, or that universities and colleges are too cultured and intellectual as institutions to have room for such behaviour, but these hopes are far from the truth. The research evidence shows that bullying of all kinds is rife in higher education. Indeed, it seems likely that the peculiar nature of higher education actively encourages particular kinds of bullying. This article provides a review of the research on bullying in higher education, considering what this shows about its meaning, extent and nature, and reviews the issues that have been identified and possible solutions to them. It concludes that, while there is much that higher education institutions need to do to respond effectively to bullying, revisiting their traditions and underlying purposes should support them in doing so.

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Introduction

It would be nice to think that bullying was a childish behaviour that we left behind on finishing school, or that universities and colleges were too cultured and intellectual as institutions to have room for such behaviour, but these hopes are far from the truth. Even though this topic has only attracted the attention of higher education researchers relatively recently, having picked it up from research into bullying in schools and workplaces, the research evidence shows that bullying of all kinds is rife in higher education. Indeed, it seems likely that the peculiar nature of higher education actively encourages particular kinds of bullying.

The purpose of this article is to explore and examine the research evidence to see what it reveals about the extent and nature of bullying in higher education, the wider issues that this raises, and the possible solutions that have been put forward, trialled and evaluated. The article aims to provide a synopsis of the state of play regarding bullying in higher education at the time of writing – 2023 – which should prove useful to both future researchers and policy-makers in assessing whether and what progress has been made.

As this article presents a systematic review of the research literature on bullying in higher education, it is not organised in a typical or conventional fashion. The next section outlines the methodological approach taken. It is followed by sections that consider the meaning of bullying, the particular context of higher education, the extent of bullying in higher education, and its varied nature. The issues and possible solutions raised in the literature are then discussed, before some conclusions are reached.

Methodology

Methodologically, the article makes use of the techniques of systematic review (Jesson et al., 2011 ; Tight, 2021 ; Torgerson, 2003 ), an approach that seeks to identify, analyse and synthesize all of the research that has been published on a particular topic – in this case, bullying in higher education. In practice, of course, some limits have to be set on the scope of a systematic review, most notably in terms of the language of publication (in this case confined to English), the date of publication and the accessibility of published articles (all available articles, books and other publications identified were examined).

Databases – Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science – were searched using keywords – ‘bullying’, ‘higher education’, ‘university’, ‘college’ and related terms—to identify potentially relevant articles, books and reports that had been published on the topic. Those identified were then accessed (mostly through downloads) and examined, and retained for further analysis if they proved to be relevant. The reference lists in the articles and reports were checked for other potentially relevant sources to follow up that had not been initially identified.

These searches reveal an upswelling of interest in bullying in higher education over the last 20 years. For example, a search carried out on Scopus on 22/6/23 identified 698 articles with the words ‘bullying’, ‘higher’ and ‘education’ in their titles, abstracts or keywords, 48 of which had those three words in their titles, indicating a likely focus on the topic of interest. Similar searches using ‘bullying’ and ‘university’ identified 1361 (113) articles, while ‘bullying’ and ‘college’ found 593 (57) articles. This is a substantial and growing body of literature.

The interest in researching bullying in higher education, like the incidence of bullying, is also global in nature. While the focus on English language publications meant that the articles identified were mainly from English-speaking countries like Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, articles were also found from researchers based in countries on all continents. Within Europe, researchers from Finland (e.g. Björklund et al., 2010 ; Malik & Björkqvist, 2019 ; Meriläinen et al., 2016 ; Oksanen et al., 2022 ; Pörhölä et al., 2020 ) and Greece (e.g. Giovaziolas & Malikiosi-Loizos, 2016 ; Kokkinos et al., 2016 ; Spanou et al., 2020 ) have shown a strong interest in the topic. Other countries where bullying in higher education has been the subject of research include China (Su et al., 2022 ; Zhao et al., 2022 ), India (Kaur & Kaur, 2023 ; Sinha & Bondestam, 2022 ), Pakistan (Ahmed et al., 2022 ), South Africa (Badenhorst & Botha, 2022 ), Spain (Yubero et al., 2023 ), Turkey (Akbulut & Eristi, 2011 ) and the United Arab Emirates (Al-Damarki et al., 2022 ).

With so many publications focusing on bullying in higher education it is essential to be selective in choosing which ones to reference. In part this can be achieved by only referring to examples of the output of prolific authors, and by choosing representative or the most recently published articles on particular issues. Ultimately, however, the judgement on which publications to reference was one of quality or significance; in some cases this was evidenced by the number of times a publication was cited by others, while in others it came down to personal judgement (helped, in problematic cases, by discussion with colleagues).

The analysis presented in the remainder of this article is based on the 74 key articles selected in this way, which are indicated by an asterisk (*) in the references list: 80% (59) of these have been published since 2015.

Meaning of Bullying

Like many key terms, there is no generally accepted definition of what bullying is. It makes sense, therefore, to examine a few of the definitions available to see what they include and how they differ. Here we will compare three definitions given by national organisations—in the UK, Australia and the USA – with a keen interest in the topic.

In the UK, the Anti-Bullying Alliance defines bullying as ‘the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. It can happen face to face or online’ ( www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk ). There are four key elements in this definition. Two of these, that bullying may involve individuals or groups, or may be face-to-face or online, seem highly pragmatic. However, the other two, that bullying is necessarily repetitive and intentional, and that it involves an imbalance of power, are questionable. Bullies may not, at least initially, know what they are doing, and one incident may be more than enough for those being bullied. And, as social scientists should be aware, power is not a simple, unidirectional force: those lower down the hierarchy may also bully those higher up.

From Australia, the National Centre Against Bullying offers a slightly longer explanation:

Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening. Bullying can happen in person or online, via various digital platforms and devices and it can be obvious (overt) or hidden (covert). ( www.ncab.org.au )

This definition usefully introduces a distinction between overt and covert bullying, and nuances the point about power by referring to perceived power. It does, though, repeat the assertion that bullying is always intentional or deliberate, as well as introducing the debatable point that the bullied are unable to do anything about it.

Taking a third example, the American Psychological Association defines bullying in the following way:

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words, or more subtle actions. The bullied individual typically has trouble defending him or herself and does nothing to “cause” the bullying. Cyberbullying is verbally threatening or harassing behavior conducted through such electronic technology as cell phones, email, social media, or text messaging. ( www.apa.org/topics/bullying )

This definition usefully relates bullying to other unpleasant practices, in this case aggression, harassment and threatening behaviour. Reading the literature more widely identifies a whole range of other cognate or more specialised practices, including hazing, incivility, intimidation, mobbing, stalking and victimization, as well as what is now termed cyberbullying (i.e. bullying online). Bullying may also shade into, or overlap with, other behaviours, such as banter and humour (Buglass et al., 2021 ), or be labelled differently: e.g. as hostile and intimidating behaviour (Sheridan et al., 2023 ).

The American Psychological Association definition also gives attention to the bullied as well as the bully, suggesting that they bear no blame for the bullying (which might not always be the case) and that they have trouble defending themselves. There are, of course, many more definitions of bullying available, but the three used here adequately cover the main points and issues.

Drawing elements from these definitions together, then, presents a picture of bullying as unpleasant behaviour committed by an individual or group on another individual or group. The bullying may take a variety of forms, be face-to-face or online, overt or covert, one-off or repetitive, and unintentional or deliberate. The bully may use whatever power they have to harass and intimidate the bullied. The bullied suffers physical, psychological and/or reputational damage, and finds it difficult to defend themselves.

Research into bullying in higher education clearly developed from research into bullying in schools (e.g. Alvarez-Garcia et al., 2015 ; Cretu & Morandau, 2022 ; Gaffney et al., 2019 ; Moyano & Sanchez-Fuentes, 2020 ; Zych et al., 2021 ) and workplaces (e.g. Bartlett & Bartlett, 2011 ; Einarsen et al., 2020 ; Feijo et al., 2019 ; Hoel et al., 2001 ; Nielson & Einarsen, 2018 ); which are both of longer standing, and where a number of systematic reviews have already been carried out. Indeed, part of the interest in bullying in higher education is in assessing whether it translates directly from the experience of bullying in school (for both the bullies and the bullied), and in examining whether higher education, as a particular kind of workplace, attracts particular bullying behaviours. We will address the latter next.

The Particular Context of Higher Education

Higher education is, indeed, a particular kind of workplace. This manifests itself in several interconnected ways. For a start, like most other workplaces, it is hierarchical, with different grades of academic and other staff. Yet it is also hierarchical beyond the employing institution, with academics operating within the networks of their disciplines and sub-disciplines, nationally and internationally. Academic staff have, therefore, split loyalties and responsibilities.

Within the intersecting hierarchies of institution and discipline there operates the principle of ‘academic freedom’, albeit constrained by other expectations and responsibilities. In its ideal state, each academic member of staff is seen as having the freedom to determine what they teach and how they teach it, as well as what they research and how they research it. Of course, it rarely works quite like that in practice, particularly when it comes to teaching, which is today a much more collective and large-scale activity, and constrained by the need to receive good evaluations and the recognition of professional bodies. Research often depends upon gaining specific funding, so is constrained by the funds available and the priorities of funding organisations.

Academic life and careers are also built upon competition. To build a successful academic career, each academic needs to get their name known, even if only within a relatively small field: through conference presentations, through article and book publication, through successfully obtaining research grants. Each of these activities, as well as the gaining of employment and promotion, involves peer review, when a small number of academic peers are asked to make an assessment of your worthiness (Tight, 2022 ).

Critique is at the heart of these activities, in what is effectively a zero-sum game (i.e. there are only so many posts, research grants and publication spots available at any one time). Academics may get their name known not so much for their own work but for their critique of others’ work, and what may be thought of as fair criticism by one academic may be interpreted as an effort to destroy their reputation (as bullying in other words) by another.

Certain academic relationships – notably that between a research student and their supervisor (Cheng & Leung, 2022 ; Grant, 2008 ), but also between junior and senior members of academic staff working in the same area/topic – have traditionally been characterised as master/servant, or even master/slave. The dominant party – the supervisor or the senior academic – tells the junior party what to do and then assesses how well they have done it. Even today these may be strong power relationships, and may last for years.

However, at the level of the undergraduate student, where a similar kind of relationship would historically have been carried over from school, with students not allowed to challenge the academic judgements of their lecturers and professors, practices are changing. The increased privatisation of higher education, with students required to pay substantial fees, has led to a growing recognition of the student as a customer (indeed, the prime customer), with all of the rights that customers have in other circumstances.

All of these structures, practices and assumptions, and the ways they are changing and adapting to accommodate contemporary policies and expectations, would seem to offer plentiful opportunities for different kinds of bullying to take place. In short, higher education is a near perfect environment for bullying; yet, it is also a near perfect environment for the denial of bullying. Accusations of bullying may be dismissed as fair comment or ‘the way we do things around here’, with the person(s) making the accusations themselves accused of bullying those they accuse by making unwarranted complaints.

For bullying is a matter of perception, and not just in higher education but more generally as well. So anyone who feels that they are being bullied and wishes to do something about it will have to engage with a process – of formal complaint, investigation and hopefully resolution – that will take time, be semi-public and effect their working relationships. Neither the bullied not the perceived bully are likely to come out of this process with their reputation enhanced.

Extent of Bullying in Higher Education

Many attempts have been made to estimate the extent of bullying in higher education. Focusing on staff, Keashly and Neuman ( 2013 ) give the following figures:

the estimated prevalence of bullying varies depending on the nature of the sample, the operationalization of the construct, the timeframe for experiences, and the country in which the research was conducted. The rates of bullying range from 18% to almost 68%, with several studies in the 25%-35% range. These rates seem relatively high when compared to those noted in the general population, which range from 2%-5% in Scandinavian countries, 10%-20% in the UK, and 10%-14% in the United States. (pp. 10-11; see also Keashly & Neuman, 2010 )

These figures are, indeed, high, suggesting that most people working in higher education should have direct – as bully, bullied or bystander (and many of us will, of course, have performed in two or more of these roles) – or indirect, through formal roles or relationships, experience of bullying. Indeed, the estimates are so high that we might speculate that, if you are working in higher education and are not being bullied, then you’re highly likely to be either doing the bullying (whether you recognise it or not) or at least aware that bullying is going on.

In a later work synthesizing the international survey evidence, Keashly ( 2019 ) confirms this interpretation:

Using the 12-month framework, approximately 25% of faculty will identify as being bullied. Adding in the witnessing data, the research suggests that 50–75% of faculty will have had some exposure to bullying in the prior 12 months. Extending the timeframe to career, it appears that faculty who have no exposure are in the minority! Further, bullying of faculty is notable for its duration. There is also evidence that rates of bullying differ cross-nationally and institutionally, suggestive of sociocultural influences. (p. 39)

Similar conclusions may be reached regarding non-academic staff working in higher education, though they have been much less studied. Thus, one American study of higher education administrators noted that: ‘Participants from 175 four-year colleges and universities were surveyed to reveal that 62% of higher education administrators had experienced or witnessed workplace bullying in the 18 months prior to the study’ (Hollis, 2015 , p. 1).

The estimates for students also suggest that a significant minority are directly involved in bullying as bully or bullied. In the USA, Lund and Ross ( 2017 ) note that:

Prevalence estimates varied widely between studies, but on average about 20–25% of students reported noncyberbullying victimization during college and 10–15% reported cyberbullying victimization. Similarly, approximately 20% of students on average reported perpetrating noncyberbullying during college, with about 5% reporting cyber perpetration. (p. 348)

In a four-nation comparative study, Pörhölä et al ( 2020 ) draw particular attention to variations in bullying rates amongst students and staff between countries:

The overall rates of bullying victimization and perpetration between students were the highest in Argentina, followed by the USA, Finland, and finally Estonia. However, victimization by university personnel was reported the most in Estonia, followed by Argentina, the USA, and Finland. (p. 143)

We might also, though the data is mostly not available, expect that bullying rates would vary between disciplines and departments (Bjaalid et al., 2022 ), from institution to institution, and in terms of individuals’ demographic characteristics (age, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).

The Nature of Bullying in Higher Education

Most of the studies on bullying in higher education that have been identified relate to either bullying amongst academic staff or amongst students. There are a much more limited number of studies concerning bullying amongst professional, administrative or support staff in higher education. More recently, a related literature has grown on cyberbullying.

Bullying amongst academic staff is portrayed as being mainly obstructional or reputational in nature: ‘Of all the types of bullying discussed in the literature, the behaviors most frequently cited in academia involve threats to professional status and isolating and obstructional behavior (i.e., thwarting the target’s ability to obtain important objectives)’ (Keashly & Neuman, 2010 , p. 53). After all, (some) academics are regularly involved in making decisions that impact upon other academics; academic life is judgemental and discriminatory. These decisions may relate to almost any aspect of academic life, from teaching allocations and course responsibilities, to promotions, publication and research grants, to the seemingly mundane but critical issues of office space and car parking.

Bullying impacts on some groups of academics more than others; in particular, and unsurprisingly, on the marginalized: ‘academic culture facilitates the marginalization of particular social identity groups… this marginalization is a reason for higher rates of bullying among gender, racial and ethnic, and sexual identity minorities in academe’ (Sallee & Diaz, 2013 . p. 42). This impact is not, of course, confined to higher education.

Bullying amongst academic staff is also believed to be changing in nature, becoming somewhat more subtle as grievance and appeal procedures are overloaded with complaints:

a shift in negative higher education workplace behaviour is occurring. This change primarily results in the well-defined and identified practice of bullying being replaced with victims enduring the accumulated impact of acts of varied disrespect such as negative comments, under the breath comments, intentionally misinterpreting instructions or spreading rumours, collectively known as incivility . (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2021 , p. 1; see also Higgins, 2023 )

The evidence shows that bullying appears to work both ways, bottom up as well as top down. Thus, deans, who oversee faculties or groups of departments and are a key part of higher education’s middle management, have been identified as particularly subject to bullying: ‘a majority of deans currently experience regular acts of bullying or incivility… Many deans believe that an inherent part of their role is that they will be bullied, and as such, part of their role is to deal with these actions’ (Heffernan & Bosetti, 2021 , p. 16). It might be expected, then, that heads of department would have a similar experience – bullied from above to meet institutional targets and from below by individual academics seeking to get their own way – but this does not appear to have been the direct object of research (yet).

One study that focused on the experience of support staff (i.e. non-academic staff) in one English university (Thomas, 2005 ) found that 19 of 42 respondents had experienced bullying within the last two years, whilst 17 had witnessed colleagues being bullied:

The top four bullying tactics ranked in frequency of reporting were undue pressure to reduce work, undermining of ability, shouting abuse, and withholding necessary information. When bullying occurred it was likely to be by a line manager. (p. 273)

From a North American context, where support staff are more usually termed professional staff, Fratzl and McKay ( 2013 ) make the point that they are ‘sandwiched between students and academics who may display aggressive behavior in order to deal with threats and meet their needs’ (2013, p. 70). Given these added pressures, it is critical that such staff are well supported.

For students, bullying may most commonly be carried out by other students, but also by academic staff. Blizard ( 2019 ), however, shows that the opposite, student-on-staff bullying, is also common. The majority, 22, of her 36 staff respondents in a Canadian university reported that they had experienced cyberbullying by students.

In the Spanish context, Gómez-Galán et al. ( 2021 ) identify the dominant form of student-on-student bullying as relational, as opposed to physical or verbal, and portray this as part of a continuing lifetime experience:

Relational victimization, which manifests itself through defamation, social exclusion, or denigration, persists in the university environment. Moreover, it does so mainly because of a pattern of relational violence that is repeated from the compulsory education stage… It constitutes what we call “the spiral of relational violence”—victimization which runs throughout the student’s life with psychological repercussions that can continue into adulthood, especially in the workplace. (p. 10)

The experience of being bullied, and of being a bully, may be deeply ingrained and lifelong (Manrique et al., 2020 ).

In a comparative study of students in China and Germany, Lin et al ( 2020 ) looked at the roles of social support, resilience and self-efficacy in mediating between bullying behaviours and mental health: ‘It was found that in both countries, higher victimization frequency was associated with lower levels of social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy, which in turn predicted poorer mental health’ (p. 1). This is, of course, what you would expect.

As with academic staff, bullying amongst students is more often targeted at the less powerful and marginalized. Simpson and Cohen ( 2004 ) argue for the gendered nature of bullying, noting that ‘While sexual harassment is ‘overtly’ gendered, bullying also needs to be seen as a gendered activity — although at a different, and perhaps more deep-seated, level’ (p. 183). Faucher et al. ( 2019 ) confirm this pattern for cyber-bullying, while a recent systematic review carried out by Bondestam and Lundqvist (2020) found that, on average, one out of four female students reported sexual harassment.

A survey of students ( n  = 414) in one Australian university found that non-heterosexual students were much more likely (30% to 13%) to report bullying than heterosexual students (Davis et al., 2018 ). Homophobic and transphobic bullying of students is a concern in both face-to-face (Clark et al., 2022 ; Koehler & Copp, 2021 ; Rivers, 2016 ) and online (Pescitelli, 2019 ) settings.

There is also some evidence that students (and staff) working in particular disciplines, such as medicine (Björklund et al., 2020 ; Seabrook, 2004 ), are more likely to experience bullying. Such professional disciplines are clearly linked to particular kinds of workplaces, within which placements for training will be based. A greater incidence of bullying may also occur in particular kinds or levels of study; thus, the research student experience might seem to lend itself to staff-on-student bullying, but has been little researched from this perspective (Aziz, 2016 ).

Cyber-bullying in higher education is now being increasingly studied. In an international collection, Faucher et al. ( 2019 ) report the incidence of cyberbullying amongst students varying between 3% in Japan and 46% in Chile. They use the term ‘contra-power harassment’ to refer to cyberbullying of staff by students.

Other, nationally focused, studies have noted the relationship between cyberbullying and victimisation in Turkey, with some victims later becoming bullies (Akbulut & Eristi, 2011 ), identified psychological security, loneliness and age as predictors of cyberbullying in Saudi Arabia (Al Qudah et al., 2020 ), correlated cyberbullying with students’ belief in a just world in Germany (Donat et al., 2022 ), and linked the experience of cyberbullying to depression, anxiety, paranoia and suicidal feelings in the USA (Schenk & Fremouw, 2012 ).

Simmons et al. ( 2016 ) prefer the stronger term cyber-aggression to cyberbullying, and note its incidence among the members of American sororities and fraternities, where ‘racism is a theme that undergirds much of the online aggression’ (p. 108). Lee et al. ( 2022 ) examine the role of parental care and family support in moderating cyberbullying at an American university during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, when the vast majority of higher education provision went online.

Issues and Solutions

As well as examining the nature and extent of bullying in higher education, researchers have sought to better understand the issues it raises and to put forward possible solutions to it. One key issue that has attracted research is the relationship between bullying at school and bullying in higher education. Pörhölä ( 2016 ) reviews the evidence showing that both bullying and being bullied are fairly stable experiences throughout school, and then commonly continue into higher education, though the identities of the people being bullied and those doing the bullying may, of course, change. Young-Jones et al ( 2015 ) confirm these findings in the American context, and note its consequences:

students are susceptible to bullying after high school, and the effects can negatively impact college life, academic motivation, and educational outcomes. In addition, past victimization can cause academic difficulties for college students, even after the harassment has ceased. (p. 186)

Another key issue researched – turning the focus away from students and towards academics – has been the relation between bullying and the contemporary, neoliberal university. Zabrodzka et al. ( 2011 ) report on the findings of a collective biography group of academics based in the Czech Republic, Iran and Australia. They concluded that ‘bullying is co-implicated in, and justified by, the alleged need for control and improvement of our performance’ (p. 717).

In a similar study, based in Sweden, Zawadski and Jensen ( 2020 ) present their findings from a co-authored analytic autoethnography, arguing that: ‘Academics in contemporary universities have been put under pressure by the dominance of neoliberal processes, such as profit maximization, aggressive competitiveness, individualism or self-interest, generating undignifying social behaviours, including bullying practices’ (p. 398).

Of course, academics are not the only workers finding themselves under increasing pressure today. The particular nature of higher education can, however, serve to channel those pressures in a more aggressive, bullying, way.

Nelson and Lambert ( 2001 ) focus on how academic bullies get away with it, identifying a series of neutralization or normalization techniques that deflect attention away from themselves and towards those they bully:

appropriation and inversion , in which accused bullies claim victim status for themselves; evidentiary solipsism , in which alleged bullies portray themselves as uniquely capable of divining and defining the “true” meaning-structure of events; and emotional obfuscation , which takes the form of employing symbols and imagery that are chosen for their perceived ability to elicit an emotional response on the part of an academic audience. (p. 83)

With these kinds of tactics available, it would be little wonder if, in a sector of work where reputation is all important, most victims of bullying chose not to formally pursue grievances (but, of course, we don’t have this data).

Turning to the research on possible solutions to bullying in higher education, a significant amount of attention has been devoted to examining institutional policies (e.g. Barratt-Pugh & Krestelica, 2019 ; Campbell, 2016 ; Harrison et al., 2020 , 2022 ). Thus, in a relatively early, and small-scale, study conducted in an English further/higher education college, Hughes ( 2001 ) focused on identifying examples of good practice for dealing with bullying of students. He came up with an extensive list:

immediate action; good communication; informal discussions; mediation; giving a talk to a tutor group; trying not to use student nicknames; moving students to other teaching groups; choosing groups for students to work in; including students in groups which are excluding them; use of subtlety; putting complaints into writing; making students aware of their actions; and making students aware of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour (p. 12)

In a more recent study, Vaill et al., ( 2020 ; see also Vaill et al., 2023 ) examined the student anti-bullying policies of 39 Australian universities, concluding that: ‘The overall paucity of information and consistency, as well as the poor user-friendliness of many of the documents, highlights the need for changes to be made’ (p. 1262).

An American study focused on the bullying of staff examined 276 faculty codes of conduct in the context of the first amendment of the American constitution. This also concluded that current arrangements were far from satisfactory: ‘higher education institutions should change their Faculty Codes of Conduct so bullying is defined as a distinctive form of harassment, provide faculty and staff clear communications regarding how to define bullying, and offer guidance for both targets and bystanders of workplace bullying’ (Smith & Coel, 2018 , p. 96).

After providing a psycho-social-organizational analysis of the problem of faculty-on-faculty bullying in the USA, Twale ( 2018 ), like Hughes, comes up with a list of ‘practical remedies’. Her list is, however, rather longer, covering a total of 20 bullet-pointed pages (pp. 171–190). Her ‘practical remedies’ include suggestions for promoting physical and psychological health and well-being; promoting social interaction, professionalism and support; considering institutional obligations; providing institutionally sponsored training and development; giving attention to institutional values, beliefs and attitudes; and using administrative intervention strategies.

Bullying, and dealing with it effectively, is a complex and far-reaching business.

A number of general conclusions may be drawn from this review of research into bullying in higher education.

First, and most fundamentally, bullying is clearly a major problem in higher education. It is extensive, continuing, complex and arguably endemic. It involves both students and staff (academic and non-academic) and deserves much more attention.

Second, its complexity is increased by the varied dimensions in which higher education staff and, to a lesser extent, students, operate. Thus, they not only work within a particular course, department, faculty and institution, but also practice their discipline or sub-discipline nationally and internationally. Given the global nature of the higher education enterprise, and the multicultural character of many universities and colleges, we may also add to this complexity the variations in national and sub-national cultures and assumptions.

Third, bullying is a very broad and inclusive term, which includes behaviours that are now more usually discussed in the more specialised languages of, for example, sexism, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia or transphobia (i.e. affecting those who may feel particularly marginalised). To focus on these more specialised areas, however, risks ignoring the many, more commonplace types of bullying that take place, for example, between straight white men and/or straight white women.

Fourth, the role of perception in bullying has to be acknowledged. Just as the bullied have to recognise that they are being bullied for bullying to be identified, so the bullies may not realise that that is what they are doing until they are called out, and, even then, they may still not accept it for what it is. This also applies, of course, to those – individuals, departments, committees and institutions – called upon to rule on and resolve alleged instances of bullying. Naturally enough, this makes bullying so much more difficult to deal with.

Fifth, and finally, there is the question alluded to earlier in this article; namely, does higher education encourage particular kinds of bullying? Here, we need to acknowledge that universities and colleges are a particular kind of institution, to a considerable extent closed off from the outside world, within which other rules apply and high-stakes decisions affecting individuals’ futures are routinely taken. When we add in the additional pressures imposed by managerialism and neoliberalism, it is little wonder that the scope for bullying is enhanced.

It would be nice to be able to draw out from all of this research some key lessons which we all might usefully learn, and which would go some significant way to resolving the issue of bullying in higher education. But, of course, it is not that simple. Some of the key lessons to be learnt have just been summarised, and, as indicated, many institutions and individuals have set out recommendations for improving practice. And, yet, bullying remains rife in higher education across the globe.

Perhaps, instead, we also need to re-emphasise the cultural and intellectual traditions of higher education. As well as clamping down hard on all kinds of bullying, higher education institutions could usefully stress their expansive and liberatory functions. These include encouraging and supporting learning in all areas and on all topics; extending a warm welcome to all who can benefit from their provision and resources; and bringing people together to cooperate in expanding knowledge and understanding.

The university is a great institution, and one of the longest lasting that humans have created. While it has changed and expanded massively over the years, it still holds onto cherished ideas of, for example, intellectual freedom, fairness and scholarship. We need to strengthen these if we are to have any hope of overcoming bullying.

The articles asterisked (*) were identified by the systematic review.

*Ahmed, B., Yousaf, F., Ahmad, A., Zohra, T., & Ullah, W. (2022). Bullying in Educational Institutions: college students’ experiences. Psychology, Health and Medicine , https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2022.2067338

*Akbulut, Y., & Eristi, B. (2011). Cyberbullying and Victimisation among Turkish University Students. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology , 27 (7), 1155-1170.

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Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a repeated cross-sectional study

• Håkan Källmén 1 &
• Mats Hallgren   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0599-2403 2  

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health volume  15 , Article number:  74 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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To examine recent trends in bullying and mental health problems among adolescents and the association between them.

A questionnaire measuring mental health problems, bullying at school, socio-economic status, and the school environment was distributed to all secondary school students aged 15 (school-year 9) and 18 (school-year 11) in Stockholm during 2014, 2018, and 2020 (n = 32,722). Associations between bullying and mental health problems were assessed using logistic regression analyses adjusting for relevant demographic, socio-economic, and school-related factors.

The prevalence of bullying remained stable and was highest among girls in year 9; range = 4.9% to 16.9%. Mental health problems increased; range = + 1.2% (year 9 boys) to + 4.6% (year 11 girls) and were consistently higher among girls (17.2% in year 11, 2020). In adjusted models, having been bullied was detrimentally associated with mental health (OR = 2.57 [2.24–2.96]). Reports of mental health problems were four times higher among boys who had been bullied compared to those not bullied. The corresponding figure for girls was 2.4 times higher.

Conclusions

Exposure to bullying at school was associated with higher odds of mental health problems. Boys appear to be more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of bullying than girls.

Introduction

Bullying involves repeated hurtful actions between peers where an imbalance of power exists [ 1 ]. Arseneault et al. [ 2 ] conducted a review of the mental health consequences of bullying for children and adolescents and found that bullying is associated with severe symptoms of mental health problems, including self-harm and suicidality. Bullying was shown to have detrimental effects that persist into late adolescence and contribute independently to mental health problems. Updated reviews have presented evidence indicating that bullying is causative of mental illness in many adolescents [ 3 , 4 ].

There are indications that mental health problems are increasing among adolescents in some Nordic countries. Hagquist et al. [ 5 ] examined trends in mental health among Scandinavian adolescents (n = 116, 531) aged 11–15 years between 1993 and 2014. Mental health problems were operationalized as difficulty concentrating, sleep disorders, headache, stomach pain, feeling tense, sad and/or dizzy. The study revealed increasing rates of adolescent mental health problems in all four counties (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), with Sweden experiencing the sharpest increase among older adolescents, particularly girls. Worsening adolescent mental health has also been reported in the United Kingdom. A study of 28,100 school-aged adolescents in England found that two out of five young people scored above thresholds for emotional problems, conduct problems or hyperactivity [ 6 ]. Female gender, deprivation, high needs status (educational/social), ethnic background, and older age were all associated with higher odds of experiencing mental health difficulties.

Bullying is shown to increase the risk of poor mental health and may partly explain these detrimental changes. Le et al. [ 7 ] reported an inverse association between bullying and mental health among 11–16-year-olds in Vietnam. They also found that poor mental health can make some children and adolescents more vulnerable to bullying at school. Bayer et al. [ 8 ] examined links between bullying at school and mental health among 8–9-year-old children in Australia. Those who experienced bullying more than once a week had poorer mental health than children who experienced bullying less frequently. Friendships moderated this association, such that children with more friends experienced fewer mental health problems (protective effect). Hysing et al. [ 9 ] investigated the association between experiences of bullying (as a victim or perpetrator) and mental health, sleep disorders, and school performance among 16–19 year olds from Norway (n = 10,200). Participants were categorized as victims, bullies, or bully-victims (that is, victims who also bullied others). All three categories were associated with worse mental health, school performance, and sleeping difficulties. Those who had been bullied also reported more emotional problems, while those who bullied others reported more conduct disorders [ 9 ].

As most adolescents spend a considerable amount of time at school, the school environment has been a major focus of mental health research [ 10 , 11 ]. In a recent review, Saminathen et al. [ 12 ] concluded that school is a potential protective factor against mental health problems, as it provides a socially supportive context and prepares students for higher education and employment. However, it may also be the primary setting for protracted bullying and stress [ 13 ]. Another factor associated with adolescent mental health is parental socio-economic status (SES) [ 14 ]. A systematic review indicated that lower parental SES is associated with poorer adolescent mental health [ 15 ]. However, no previous studies have examined whether SES modifies or attenuates the association between bullying and mental health. Similarly, it remains unclear whether school related factors, such as school grades and the school environment, influence the relationship between bullying and mental health. This information could help to identify those adolescents most at risk of harm from bullying.

To address these issues, we investigated the prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems among Swedish adolescents aged 15–18 years between 2014 and 2020 using a population-based school survey. We also examined associations between bullying at school and mental health problems adjusting for relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and school-related factors. We hypothesized that: (1) bullying and adolescent mental health problems have increased over time; (2) There is an association between bullying victimization and mental health, so that mental health problems are more prevalent among those who have been victims of bullying; and (3) that school-related factors would attenuate the association between bullying and mental health.

Participants

The Stockholm school survey is completed every other year by students in lower secondary school (year 9—compulsory) and upper secondary school (year 11). The survey is mandatory for public schools, but voluntary for private schools. The purpose of the survey is to help inform decision making by local authorities that will ultimately improve students’ wellbeing. The questions relate to life circumstances, including SES, schoolwork, bullying, drug use, health, and crime. Non-completers are those who were absent from school when the survey was completed (< 5%). Response rates vary from year to year but are typically around 75%. For the current study data were available for 2014, 2018 and 2020. In 2014; 5235 boys and 5761 girls responded, in 2018; 5017 boys and 5211 girls responded, and in 2020; 5633 boys and 5865 girls responded (total n = 32,722). Data for the exposure variable, bullied at school, were missing for 4159 students, leaving 28,563 participants in the crude model. The fully adjusted model (described below) included 15,985 participants. The mean age in grade 9 was 15.3 years (SD = 0.51) and in grade 11, 17.3 years (SD = 0.61). As the data are completely anonymous, the study was exempt from ethical approval according to an earlier decision from the Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (2010-241 31-5). Details of the survey are available via a website [ 16 ], and are described in a previous paper [ 17 ].

Students completed the questionnaire during a school lesson, placed it in a sealed envelope and handed it to their teacher. Student were permitted the entire lesson (about 40 min) to complete the questionnaire and were informed that participation was voluntary (and that they were free to cancel their participation at any time without consequences). Students were also informed that the Origo Group was responsible for collection of the data on behalf of the City of Stockholm.

Study outcome

Mental health problems were assessed by using a modified version of the Psychosomatic Problem Scale [ 18 ] shown to be appropriate for children and adolescents and invariant across gender and years. The scale was later modified [ 19 ]. In the modified version, items about difficulty concentrating and feeling giddy were deleted and an item about ‘life being great to live’ was added. Seven different symptoms or problems, such as headaches, depression, feeling fear, stomach problems, difficulty sleeping, believing it’s great to live (coded negatively as seldom or rarely) and poor appetite were used. Students who responded (on a 5-point scale) that any of these problems typically occurs ‘at least once a week’ were considered as having indicators of a mental health problem. Cronbach alpha was 0.69 across the whole sample. Adding these problem areas, a total index was created from 0 to 7 mental health symptoms. Those who scored between 0 and 4 points on the total symptoms index were considered to have a low indication of mental health problems (coded as 0); those who scored between 5 and 7 symptoms were considered as likely having mental health problems (coded as 1).

Primary exposure

Experiences of bullying were measured by the following two questions: Have you felt bullied or harassed during the past school year? Have you been involved in bullying or harassing other students during this school year? Alternatives for the first question were: yes or no with several options describing how the bullying had taken place (if yes). Alternatives indicating emotional bullying were feelings of being mocked, ridiculed, socially excluded, or teased. Alternatives indicating physical bullying were being beaten, kicked, forced to do something against their will, robbed, or locked away somewhere. The response alternatives for the second question gave an estimation of how often the respondent had participated in bullying others (from once to several times a week). Combining the answers to these two questions, five different categories of bullying were identified: (1) never been bullied and never bully others; (2) victims of emotional (verbal) bullying who have never bullied others; (3) victims of physical bullying who have never bullied others; (4) victims of bullying who have also bullied others; and (5) perpetrators of bullying, but not victims. As the number of positive cases in the last three categories was low (range = 3–15 cases) bully categories 2–4 were combined into one primary exposure variable: ‘bullied at school’.

Assessment year was operationalized as the year when data was collected: 2014, 2018, and 2020. Age was operationalized as school grade 9 (15–16 years) or 11 (17–18 years). Gender was self-reported (boy or girl). The school situation To assess experiences of the school situation, students responded to 18 statements about well-being in school, participation in important school matters, perceptions of their teachers, and teaching quality. Responses were given on a four-point Likert scale ranging from ‘do not agree at all’ to ‘fully agree’. To reduce the 18-items down to their essential factors, we performed a principal axis factor analysis. Results showed that the 18 statements formed five factors which, according to the Kaiser criterion (eigen values > 1) explained 56% of the covariance in the student’s experience of the school situation. The five factors identified were: (1) Participation in school; (2) Interesting and meaningful work; (3) Feeling well at school; (4) Structured school lessons; and (5) Praise for achievements. For each factor, an index was created that was dichotomised (poor versus good circumstance) using the median-split and dummy coded with ‘good circumstance’ as reference. A description of the items included in each factor is available as Additional file 1 . Socio-economic status (SES) was assessed with three questions about the education level of the student’s mother and father (dichotomized as university degree versus not), and the amount of spending money the student typically received for entertainment each month (> SEK 1000 [approximately $120] versus less). Higher parental education and more spending money were used as reference categories. School grades in Swedish, English, and mathematics were measured separately on a 7-point scale and dichotomized as high (grades A, B, and C) versus low (grades D, E, and F). High school grades were used as the reference category.

Statistical analyses

The prevalence of mental health problems and bullying at school are presented using descriptive statistics, stratified by survey year (2014, 2018, 2020), gender, and school year (9 versus 11). As noted, we reduced the 18-item questionnaire assessing school function down to five essential factors by conducting a principal axis factor analysis (see Additional file 1 ). We then calculated the association between bullying at school (defined above) and mental health problems using multivariable logistic regression. Results are presented as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (Cis). To assess the contribution of SES and school-related factors to this association, three models are presented: Crude, Model 1 adjusted for demographic factors: age, gender, and assessment year; Model 2 adjusted for Model 1 plus SES (parental education and student spending money), and Model 3 adjusted for Model 2 plus school-related factors (school grades and the five factors identified in the principal factor analysis). These covariates were entered into the regression models in three blocks, where the final model represents the fully adjusted analyses. In all models, the category ‘not bullied at school’ was used as the reference. Pseudo R-square was calculated to estimate what proportion of the variance in mental health problems was explained by each model. Unlike the R-square statistic derived from linear regression, the Pseudo R-square statistic derived from logistic regression gives an indicator of the explained variance, as opposed to an exact estimate, and is considered informative in identifying the relative contribution of each model to the outcome [ 20 ]. All analyses were performed using SPSS v. 26.0.

Prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems

Estimates of the prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems across the 12 strata of data (3 years × 2 school grades × 2 genders) are shown in Table 1 . The prevalence of bullying at school increased minimally (< 1%) between 2014 and 2020, except among girls in grade 11 (2.5% increase). Mental health problems increased between 2014 and 2020 (range = 1.2% [boys in year 11] to 4.6% [girls in year 11]); were three to four times more prevalent among girls (range = 11.6% to 17.2%) compared to boys (range = 2.6% to 4.9%); and were more prevalent among older adolescents compared to younger adolescents (range = 1% to 3.1% higher). Pooling all data, reports of mental health problems were four times more prevalent among boys who had been victims of bullying compared to those who reported no experiences with bullying. The corresponding figure for girls was two and a half times as prevalent.

Associations between bullying at school and mental health problems

Table 2 shows the association between bullying at school and mental health problems after adjustment for relevant covariates. Demographic factors, including female gender (OR = 3.87; CI 3.48–4.29), older age (OR = 1.38, CI 1.26–1.50), and more recent assessment year (OR = 1.18, CI 1.13–1.25) were associated with higher odds of mental health problems. In Model 2, none of the included SES variables (parental education and student spending money) were associated with mental health problems. In Model 3 (fully adjusted), the following school-related factors were associated with higher odds of mental health problems: lower grades in Swedish (OR = 1.42, CI 1.22–1.67); uninteresting or meaningless schoolwork (OR = 2.44, CI 2.13–2.78); feeling unwell at school (OR = 1.64, CI 1.34–1.85); unstructured school lessons (OR = 1.31, CI = 1.16–1.47); and no praise for achievements (OR = 1.19, CI 1.06–1.34). After adjustment for all covariates, being bullied at school remained associated with higher odds of mental health problems (OR = 2.57; CI 2.24–2.96). Demographic and school-related factors explained 12% and 6% of the variance in mental health problems, respectively (Pseudo R-Square). The inclusion of socioeconomic factors did not alter the variance explained.

Our findings indicate that mental health problems increased among Swedish adolescents between 2014 and 2020, while the prevalence of bullying at school remained stable (< 1% increase), except among girls in year 11, where the prevalence increased by 2.5%. As previously reported [ 5 , 6 ], mental health problems were more common among girls and older adolescents. These findings align with previous studies showing that adolescents who are bullied at school are more likely to experience mental health problems compared to those who are not bullied [ 3 , 4 , 9 ]. This detrimental relationship was observed after adjustment for school-related factors shown to be associated with adolescent mental health [ 10 ].

A novel finding was that boys who had been bullied at school reported a four-times higher prevalence of mental health problems compared to non-bullied boys. The corresponding figure for girls was 2.5 times higher for those who were bullied compared to non-bullied girls, which could indicate that boys are more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of bullying than girls. Alternatively, it may indicate that boys are (on average) bullied more frequently or more intensely than girls, leading to worse mental health. Social support could also play a role; adolescent girls often have stronger social networks than boys and could be more inclined to voice concerns about bullying to significant others, who in turn may offer supports which are protective [ 21 ]. Related studies partly confirm this speculative explanation. An Estonian study involving 2048 children and adolescents aged 10–16 years found that, compared to girls, boys who had been bullied were more likely to report severe distress, measured by poor mental health and feelings of hopelessness [ 22 ].

Other studies suggest that heritable traits, such as the tendency to internalize problems and having low self-esteem are associated with being a bully-victim [ 23 ]. Genetics are understood to explain a large proportion of bullying-related behaviors among adolescents. A study from the Netherlands involving 8215 primary school children found that genetics explained approximately 65% of the risk of being a bully-victim [ 24 ]. This proportion was similar for boys and girls. Higher than average body mass index (BMI) is another recognized risk factor [ 25 ]. A recent Australian trial involving 13 schools and 1087 students (mean age = 13 years) targeted adolescents with high-risk personality traits (hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, sensation seeking) to reduce bullying at school; both as victims and perpetrators [ 26 ]. There was no significant intervention effect for bullying victimization or perpetration in the total sample. In a secondary analysis, compared to the control schools, intervention school students showed greater reductions in victimization, suicidal ideation, and emotional symptoms. These findings potentially support targeting high-risk personality traits in bullying prevention [ 26 ].

The relative stability of bullying at school between 2014 and 2020 suggests that other factors may better explain the increase in mental health problems seen here. Many factors could be contributing to these changes, including the increasingly competitive labour market, higher demands for education, and the rapid expansion of social media [ 19 , 27 , 28 ]. A recent Swedish study involving 29,199 students aged between 11 and 16 years found that the effects of school stress on psychosomatic symptoms have become stronger over time (1993–2017) and have increased more among girls than among boys [ 10 ]. Research is needed examining possible gender differences in perceived school stress and how these differences moderate associations between bullying and mental health.

Strengths and limitations

Strengths of the current study include the large participant sample from diverse schools; public and private, theoretical and practical orientations. The survey included items measuring diverse aspects of the school environment; factors previously linked to adolescent mental health but rarely included as covariates in studies of bullying and mental health. Some limitations are also acknowledged. These data are cross-sectional which means that the direction of the associations cannot be determined. Moreover, all the variables measured were self-reported. Previous studies indicate that students tend to under-report bullying and mental health problems [ 29 ]; thus, our results may underestimate the prevalence of these behaviors.

In conclusion, consistent with our stated hypotheses, we observed an increase in self-reported mental health problems among Swedish adolescents, and a detrimental association between bullying at school and mental health problems. Although bullying at school does not appear to be the primary explanation for these changes, bullying was detrimentally associated with mental health after adjustment for relevant demographic, socio-economic, and school-related factors, confirming our third hypothesis. The finding that boys are potentially more vulnerable than girls to the deleterious effects of bullying should be replicated in future studies, and the mechanisms investigated. Future studies should examine the longitudinal association between bullying and mental health, including which factors mediate/moderate this relationship. Epigenetic studies are also required to better understand the complex interaction between environmental and biological risk factors for adolescent mental health [ 24 ].

Availability of data and materials

Data requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis; please email the corresponding author.

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HK conceived the study and analyzed the data (with input from MH). HK and MH interpreted the data and jointly wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Källmén, H., Hallgren, M. Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a repeated cross-sectional study. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 15 , 74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00425-y

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Prevalence of bullying behaviors among students from a national university in the united arab emirates: a cross-sectional study.

• 1 Department of Psychology, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• 2 Department of Health Sciences, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Background: This study aims to investigate bullying behaviors among college students at one of the national universities in UAE, and also to examine the psychological characteristics of those who were exposed to, or have experienced bullying.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 839 undergraduate students at one of the national universities in the UAE. Students from all colleges participated in this study and were selected by using stratified random sampling. Participants completed a bullying survey designed for the study, in addition to three psychological measures [i.e., Aggression Questionnaire, Buss and Perry, 1992 ; The Primary Care Anxiety and Depression, El-Rufaie et al., 1997 ; and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (PCL-5), Weathers et al., 2013 ].

Results: The prevalence rate of students being exposed to or engaged in bullying was 26.3% (221 out of 839). Of those, 72 students (8.7%) reported being bullied, 29 (3.6%) reported bullying others, and 185 (22.8%) reported witnessing friends being bullied. The most common types of bullying reported were traditional bullying (e.g., face-to-face bullying, verbal, and physical). Cyberbullying was not very common. More females reported being bullied in comparison to males and most of the aggressors were peer students. Overall, moderate level of aggressive personality traits and low levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD were reported for the total sample. T -tests revealed significant differences in the three psychological measures between those who did not experience bullying and those who did. The mean scores on the Aggression Questionnaire for those who bullied others were significantly higher than those who did not experience bullying.

Conclusion: Experiences of bullying seem to impact college students’ mental health in the UAE. Therefore, efforts need to focus on developing preventive programs to increase students’ awareness of bullying and its negative impact on campus environment. Offering psychological help for those who were exposed to bullying would help them to deal effectively with this trauma.

Introduction

Bullying is an intentional aggressive behavior that is carried out repeatedly, which usually occur between perpetrators and victims who are unequal in power. Factors like physical size, social status seem to empower aggressors to victimize other individuals ( Nansel et al., 2004 ). Traditional face-to-face bullying is a form of aggression which can be verbal (e.g., name calling, threatening, blackmailing, or making derogatory comments), or physical (e.g., hitting, pushing around, or physical intimidation). It may also be indirect or relational, such as excluding victims socially, or spreading rumors ( Carlyle and Steinman, 2007 ; Liang et al., 2007 ; Lund and Ross, 2017 ). A new form of bullying has emerged in the 2000s as an extension to traditional bullying; this occurs through electronic technologies which spreads bullying beyond school premises. This cyberbullying power is rooted from expertise on social media, rather than physical strength or social status ( Hinduja and Patchin, 2008 ; Wachs et al., 2020 ).

Bullying can be further differentiated by type, but regardless of the label, research has proven that it has negative physical and emotional effects, and has a social impact on those who are involved in bullying as well as on others (e.g., Gruber and Fineran, 2008 ; Schenk and Fremouw, 2012 ; AlMulhim et al., 2018 ). Gender differences have been noted; males tend to bully and get bullied more than females, boys and younger students are more prone to take the aggressor’s side compared with girls and older students ( Bjärehed et al., 2020 ). The type of bullying in which males are involved in is often of the direct traditional type, while females tend to be more involved in indirect/relational or manipulative forms of bullying ( Hinduja and Patchin, 2008 ; Olweus and Limber, 2010 ; Lee, 2017 ). Despite this, both genders feel equally victimized ( Chapell et al., 2004 ). As most research on bullying has been done internationally (e.g., Bjärehed et al., 2020 ; Wachs et al., 2021 ), we know very little about bullying in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Therefore, the current study attempts to fill this gap by investigating experiences of bullying from a sample gathered at a UAE-based university.

Research indicates that bullying declines with age ( Pepler et al., 2008 ) dropping from 15% in 2nd grade to 5% in 9th grade ( Olweus, 1994 ). A large number of studies found bullying to peak during adolescence, then victimization gradually decreases with age (e.g., Pepler et al., 2008 ; Craig et al., 2009 ; Bjärehed et al., 2020 ). Longitudinal studies have demonstrated a continuum where being a bully/victim in elementary school is associated with continuing to be a bully/victim at high school and college ( Sourander et al., 2000 ; Schäfer and Korn, 2004 ). Data from the WHO, Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS), and Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) on bullying prevalence rates in different regions revealed that the prevalence rates of bullying in the Middle East and North Africa were 41.1% and 42.7%, respectively, and the rate was 48.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa. A simple comparison between these rates and the rates of North America (31.7%), Central America (22.8%), and South America (30.2%) shows the difference. Data collected between 2002 and 2017 also revealed changes in bullying rates over time. For example, the prevalence rate of 35 out of 72 countries surveyed has increased, and 31 countries showed a decrease in bullying, whereas 24 showed no change ( United Nations Education and Scientific Cultural Organization, 2019 ). Despite these informative results, most of these studies were conducted on children and adolescents (e.g., Wachs et al., 2019 , 2021 ; Bjärehed et al., 2020 ).

Relevant to college students, Tanrikulu and Erdur-Baker (2019) surveyed bullying among Turkish university students. They found approximately half of the participants admitted to having cyberbullied someone two or more times during the past 6 months. Males had a significantly higher rate of cyberbullying compared to females.

The rates of bullying among university students were similar to that of high school students. In a review of 14 studies from 2004 to 2013 covering populations ranging from 119 to 2085 college students, Lund and Ross (2017) reported a general prevalence rate of bullying that ranges between 20% and 25%. Students who were bullied reported being victimized in traditional face-to-face bullying, such as verbal aggression, while 10%–15% reported being cyber-victimized. Furthermore, 20% of students reported bullying their peers in traditional non-cyber ways, while 5% cyberbullied their peers. A similar pattern has been reported in the literature where both genders felt victimized by the negative effects of bullying on their psychological and physical health ( Chapell et al., 2004 ). Moreover, studies on bullying among teacher/professor-bully show that students have been bullied by their educators ( Al-Hussain et al., 2008 ).

A link between bullying and aggressive behaviors and personality traits has been previously documented in the literature (e.g., Sigurdson et al., 2014 ; Rodkin et al., 2015 ; Pallesen et al., 2017 ). Aggressive behavior has been observed among university students and the stress involved in this transitional period was shown to increase their aggressive behavior ( Lundskow, 2013 ). University students, especially males, who live in dorms were found to have a low tolerance threshold against stressful conditions and higher aggression rates compared to the students who live at home ( Alami et al., 2015 ). Students who bullied others were found to have higher levels of aggressive behaviors than those who were not involved ( Undheim and Sund, 2010 ) and to have low scores on agreeableness and conscientiousness personality dimensions than the victims or the control groups. Those who were bullied scored low on extroversion and neuroticism ( Pallesen et al., 2017 ).

Previous research found that those involved in bullying reported greater symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g., Haynie et al., 2001 ; Nansel et al., 2004 ; Arseneault et al., 2010 ; Undheim and Sund, 2010 ) compared with those who did not experience bullying. In one study, post-traumatic stress disorder, depressive symptoms, and suicide were found to correlate significantly with cyberbullying and physical peer violence in youths who visited an urban emergency department ( Ranney et al., 2016 ). Additionally, those who experienced pre-college bullying were more likely to report depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as a lower perception of mental and physical wellbeing than their non-bullied peers ( Erdur-Baker, 2009 ; Klomek et al., 2011 ; Chen and Huang, 2015 ; Giovazolias and Malikiosi-Loizos, 2015 ). These findings were based on samples mainly from Western countries. The impact of bullying on the wellbeing of individuals from the UAE has not been documented. Relevant to this study, however, AlMulhim et al. (2018) studied 400 college students in Saudi Arabia and found that 49% of the population surveyed have experienced bullying by their peers previously during their school time. They also expressed high levels of anxiety and depression even during college studies long after they were bullied. Some researchers argue, however, that pre-college exposure to bullying does not necessarily mean that students will also be involved in bullying later as college students. Some can be resilient and can adjust well in their new college environment with new social experiences ( Holt et al., 2014 ; Chen and Huang, 2015 ).

As bullying is known to exist worldwide in educational settings, its prevalence in the educational settings in the UAE has not been documented. To the best of our knowledge, there are no published data on bullying among university students in the UAE. This may be because such cases are rarely reported or documented. Although universities have student misconduct policies and disciplinary procedures, our observations as well as the observation of the administration of our institution indicate that student bullying is still occurring on campuses, creating fear and stress among students and their parents. Therefore, this study was carried out to address the size of the problem among the university students in order to design the appropriate interventions.

Interestingly the word “bullying” does not exist in the Arabic language ( Kazarian and Ammar, 2013 ); only a translation “Tanamor” or in Arabic “تنمر” is used to refer to such cases. “Tanamor” implies power and aggressiveness toward those who are perceived as weak or lack power. In an Arab subculture, such as the Emirati culture, victims of bullying in schools or universities regarded it as an embarrassing incident; hence, it remains mostly unreported. In addition, parents may encourage their children to respond with violence, thus, making it even more problematic. However, recent efforts (e.g., social medial articles, bullying prevention initiatives, and school counseling outreach programs) to raise awareness attracted researchers’ attention to address the issue. Our observations indicate that there is a change in the mindset of student populations about bullying, and many students seem to be willing to report it to their families, friends, counselors, or administrators.

Moreover, the consequences of bullying on students’ mental health are unknown. Therefore, examining bullying behavior and its impact on students’ mental health in a sample of college students in the UAE would reveal interesting results. Such findings will help decision-makers and educators as well as counselors to develop interventions to tackle this problem.

The main purpose of this study was of two-fold: (a) to investigate the bullying behavior among a sample of college students from a national university in the UAE and (b) to examine the psychological characteristics of those who were exposed to or have experienced bullying. This research examined (a) prevalence rate of bullying and victimization, (b) types of bullying and the identity of perpetrators of bullying, (c) reasons for bullying, and (d) participants’ suggested strategies to deal with bullying on campus. Additionally, the impact of bullying on the victims’ psychological wellbeing was investigated. This was done through examining participants’ experiences with anxiety and depression (as measured by the Primary Care Anxiety and Depression Scale; El-Rufaie et al., 1997 ), symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (as measured by Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5; Weathers et al., 2013 ), and personality traits of aggression (as measured by Aggression Questionnaire; Buss and Perry, 1992 ). Whether there were significant differences on these measures based on the different types of bullying behaviors (i.e., being bullied, being a perpetrator, witness bullying, and mixed bullying experience) was also explored.

Findings of this study would broaden our understanding of bullying on college campuses and enable decision-makers as well as practitioners to develop interventions to effectively prevent or reduce bullying to create a safer educational environment for students’ learning. Moreover, it will have significant contribution to the literature of bullying on college campuses cross-culturally. Also, it will direct the focus to sustainable prevention and intervention strategies that work with the whole university by involvement of parents, instructors as well as stakeholders.

Materials and Methods

Study design.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 839 students from a national university in the UAE. Ethical approval from the university’s ethical committee was obtained during the academic year 2016–2017 (REC No. ZU14_122_F). Data collection was carried out between Fall 2017 and Spring 2018.

The total number of students enrolled at the university at the time of data collection in both the Dubai and Abu Dhabi campuses was approximately 9,000 (4,000 in Dubai and 5,000 in Abu Dhabi) Emirati undergraduate students. To have 10% of the total population representative of all colleges, the estimated sample size was 900 students. Participants were selected using stratified random sampling (the stratum was the college name). The sampling unit was the class. The classes, student numbers, and locations of the classes were imported from the university’s Banner Web. Simple random sampling was used to obtain a list of classes from each college. The instructor of each selected class was contacted via e-mail to assign appointment for data collection and was informed of the study objective. Trained research assistants visited the selected classes and collected data, resulting in 839 questionnaires from both Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Participants

Eight hundred and thirty-nine college students from a national university in the UAE participated in this cross-sectional study. Of those, 744 (97.5%) were recruited from undergraduate programs, such as Communication and Media Sciences, Technical Innovation, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Public Health, and the first year Academic Bridge Program. Eight hundred and four (95.8%) were females and 35 (4.2%) were males. Their mean age was 20.76 years old (SD = 2.35). As for nationality, 803 (96.7%) were Emiratis and the remaining 27 (3.3%) were from other nationalities (e.g., Omani, Saudi, Yemeni, Sudanese, Palestinian, Lebanese, and American). The majority of the sample 728 (86.8%) were single, 106 (12.6%) were married, and 5 (0.6%) were either divorced or engaged. Most participants were in their third year 288 (34.3%) or fourth year of study 244 (29.1%), and the remaining were either in their first 135 (16.1%) or second year 121 (14.4%) and 51 (6.1%) did not provide data.

Bullying Questionnaire

The Bullying questionnaire was designed for this study (see Appendix ). The style of the questionnaire is in line with those of Campbell et al. (2012) and Tanrikulu and Campbell (2015) . As definitions improve the validity of responses [ Solberg and Olweus (2003) ; cited in Tanrikulu and Campbell, 2015 ], bullying in this study was defined as:

“Any repeated behavior aimed at causing harm (physical, mental, or psychological) to or for practicing control over a person. It can be physical (e.g., hitting and kicking) or verbal (e.g., name calling, gossiping, and threat) or social (e.g., destroy friendships and reputation), or cyber bullying (e.g., use of Internet to hurt a person).”

The questionnaire consisted of two parts labeled A and B. Part A comprised of eight demographic questions, such as gender, age, marital status, year in the university (first year, second year, third year…. etc), major, educational level (undergraduate or graduate), and nationality. In Part B, participants were asked “Have you been bullied in the university?.” Those who answered “Yes” were asked to proceed to answer 10 questions related to frequency of bullying, who were the aggressors, types of bullying, emotional experience after being bullied, response to bullying, reasons for being bullied… etc. For each question, respondents were given options to choose from. For example, in Question 1 “How many times have you been bullied in the University?,” respondents were asked to choose “1 time, or 2 times, or 3 times, or more than 3 times.” For Question 2: “Were you bullied by (you can choose more than 1)?,” three options were provided “A student, A group of students, Instructor/Faculty, Employee.” For Question 3 “What kind of bullying were you exposed to?,” four options were provided to choose from “(a) physical (hitting, hair pulling, kicking etc.), (b) verbal (being laughed at, bad jokes and comments, name calling, shouting at etc.), (c) on social media (got harassed through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,….etc), (d) others (specify).” For Question 4, “How did you feel after been exposed to bullying?,” responses were (a) scared, (b) anxious, (c) depressed, (d), unable to concentrate on studying, (e) angry, and (f) other feeling (specify).

Those who answered “No” to bullying experiences were instructed to proceed directly to question 7 “In general, what are some of the reasons some students got bullied?” through 10 “How do you think the university should deal with bullying and aggressive student behavior? Give 2–3 suggestions.” In Question 7, options of reasons provided were, (a) jealousy, (b) physical appearance, (c) hate, (d) nationality, and (e) other (specify). As the Bullying Questionnaire was a checklist-response type, two psychology experts reported its face validity.

Aggression Questionnaire

The Aggression Questionnaire (AQ; Buss and Perry, 1992 ) was adopted to measure aggression behavior among college students. It consisted of 29 items measuring physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. Sample items are “I have become so mad that I have broken things,” “I tell my friends openly when I disagree with them,” and “I am an even-tempered person.” Items are rated on a five-piont Likert scale from 1 (extremely uncharacteristic of me) to 5 (extremely characteristic of me) with two items (i.e., 9 and 16) positively worded so that they are reversed in scoring. The scale’s developers reported four subscales, namely, Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger, and Hostility. Total score is the sum of scores on all items which can range from 29 to 145 with higher scores meaning greater aggression. The overall scale and four subscales were found to be reliable (alphas were ranging from 0.72 to 0.85 for the subscales and 0.89 for the total scores and test–retest of 0.72 to 0.80 for the subscales and the total scores) and valid. It was found to be correlated with other personality traits, such as emotionality, self-esteem, impulsiveness, assertiveness, competitiveness, public, and private self-consciousness. Additionally, the scale discriminated between males and females with males scoring higher in all the subscales except on Anger ( Buss and Perry, 1992 ).

The scale was translated into Arabic by AlSheikh et al. (2011) using high school samples in the UAE. AlSheikh et al. (2011) found AQ to be reliable (alphas were 0.64 to 0.80 for the subscales and 0.94 for the total scores). We found AQ to be an unidimensional scale with alpha of 0.90.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5

The PCL-5 ( Weathers et al., 2013 ) is a 20-item self-reported questionnaire, corresponding to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) symptoms criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was selected to measure symptoms of post-traumatic stress in this research. The wording of PCL-5 items reflects both changes to existing symptoms and the addition of new symptoms in the DSM-5. Sample items include: in the past month how much you have been bothered by “repeated, disturbing, and unwanted memories of the stressful experience?,” “trouble remembering important parts of the stressful experience,” and “trouble falling or staying asleep?.” Items are rated on a four-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). The total scores can be obtained by adding the scores for each of the 20 items with higher scores indicating increased severity of symptoms. In two studies, using college student samples, Blevins et al. (2015) reported high internal consistency ( α  = 0.95 and 0.94) and test–retest reliability ( r  = 0.82). As for validity, correlations between 0.25 and 0.77 were obtained for the PCL-5 using measures of PTSD, personality, depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems. For example, the PCL-5 demonstrated its convergent validity ( r  = 0.74–0.85) and discriminant validity ( r  = 0.31–0.60) with measures of related (e.g., depression) and unrelated constructs (e.g., antisocial personality features and mania).

Following the guidelines of the International Test Commission (2001) for translating tests, in this study, the PCL-5 was translated into Arabic using translation–back translation method. Two professional translators translated the PCL-5 into Arabic and two bilingual psychology experts translated it back to English. Discrepancies in translation and back translation were discussed and resolved. As recommended by the developers of the checklist, nine items (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10) were worded in reference to bullying experiences. For example, item 1 was changed to “repeated, disturbing, and unwanted memories of the bullying experience?” And item 8 was worded to “trouble remembering important parts of the bullying experience?.”

We found a 2-factor solution for the PCL-5. Alpha was found to be 0.94 and 0.93 for factor 1 (measuring depressive and anxiety symptoms) and factor 2 (assessing the cognitive aspect of the trauma), respectively, and 0.95 for the total scale.

The Primary Care Anxiety and Depression Scale

The PCAD ( El-Rufaie et al., 1997 ) consists of 12 items designed to measure anxiety and depression (e.g., do you experience sudden feelings of panic?). The PCAD is rated on a four-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (non-case) to 3 (severe), with high scores indicating high levels of anxiety and depression. El-Rufaie et al. reported a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91 for its reliability and found the scale to be a valid instrument for detecting clinically significant anxiety and depression in Arab populations. They found PCAD to be correlated strongly with the psychiatrist’s assessment ( r  = 0.61), as compared to its correlation with the general practitioners’ assessments ( r  = 0.23). Al-Darmaki (2014) reported Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89 for groups of college student users and non-users of counseling. In the present study, Cronbach alpha was 0.81, suggesting a good internal consistency reliability.

A survey including a consent form, demographic information, the bullying questionnaire, AQ, PCAD, and PCL-5 was first piloted on a sample of 35 college students who were not included in the present research analysis. Results indicated moderate to high reliabilities for the three scales used in this study. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were 0.93 for AQ and 0.84–0.66 for its subscales and.81 and 0.80 for PCAD and PCL-5, respectively. Feedback from the pilot study was used to revise the survey before using it in this study. The survey was distributed to participants in their classes and was informed that participation is voluntary and that there was no penalty for refusing to participate. They were also informed that their data will be confidential.

Data were analyzed in three steps. First, reliabilities and validities of the three scales (AQ, PCL-5, and PCAD) were obtained through internal consistency and correlations. Second, frequencies, means, and SDs were calculated. Third, t -tests were obtained for the three psychological measures for each of the bullying experiences being reported (i.e., being bullied, a perpetrator, witness, or mixed bullying experience). Fourth, ANOVA tests were used.

Bullying Experience

Results showed that 26.3% of the sample experiencing bullying. Of the 26.3, 8.7% ( n  = 72) reported being victimized ( Table 1 ). Of those, 45.8% reported being bullied one time, 31.9% reported being bullied twice, and 22.2% reported being exposed to bullying three times.

Table 1 . Breakdown of reported bullying experience by gender.

Most of the victims reported that the aggressors were students (46.6%), or a group of students (43.1%), and only 8.6% reported being bullied by a faculty/instructor or a university staff (1.7%).

With regards to types of bullying, 92.2% reported being verbally bullied and 4.7% reported being bullied through social media. Only one case reported being exposed to physical bullying and another one reported experiencing property damage, “my car was damaged.” With regards to feelings after exposure to bullying, most of those who got bullied reported feeling angry (46.6%), depressed (17.2%), anxious (8.6%), or other feelings, such as feeling annoyed, uncomfortable, crying, feeling disgusted, inattentive, numbness (20.7%), or unable to concentrate on studying (5.2%), or scared (1.7%).

As for their response to bullying, 45.2% showed no reaction, 30.6% told a friend, 8.6% informed Student Affairs, 11.3% reacted with revenge and self-defense or informed a family member, 3.2% informed their advisors, and one case called the university security. As for reasons for being bullied, 52.4% thought they were bullied for jealousy, 12.7% believed they were bullied for being disliked, 11.1% reported being victimized for their physical appearance, and 22.1% believed that they were bullied for other reasons (i.e., differences in opinion, academic success, and being liked by the faculty). Only one student mentioned her nationality as the reason for being bullied.

Of those who responded to the question regarding bullying others, 3.6% reported that they were involved in bullying others as a result of being bullied. Of those, eight respondents indicated that they bullied others for their physical appearance, four students mentioned that they bullied others for retaliation, three students bullied others for hate, and six students engaged in bullying for other reasons (i.e., disagreement, disrespect of others, desire to control, to show strength, peer influence, having psychological problems, inferiority complex, and family neglect) and the remaining 8 students did not provide data.

Of the 811 students who responded to a question about witnessing bullying, (22.8%) witnessed friends being bullied. Of those bystanders, more than half (58.2%) tried to help the victims, 30.5% reported that they ignored and did not react, 6.2% mentioned that they did other things (e.g., providing support and empathy, asking the victims’ friends to ignore, joined the fight, deciding not to interact, and becoming a friend with the victim). Only 3.4% informed Student Affairs and 1.7% got scared and ran away.

Results also revealed that of those who said “Yes” to bullying, 6.9% reported experiencing more than one form of bullying (e.g., being victims, or perpetrators, or bystanders).

As for suggesting ways for the university to deal with bullying, the most frequent responses were dismissal (33%), awareness programs (32.5%), warnings (25.8%), and introducing new rules to deal with bullying on campus (19.2%).

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Findings ( Table 2 ) showed that the mean scores for the sample was 53.94 (SD = 16.47) for AQ, 11.98 (SD = 5.81) for PCAD, and 17.26 (SD = 17.22) for PCL-5. These figures suggest that the participants exhibited moderate aggressive personality traits, low levels of depression and anxiety, and PTSD symptoms. Correlation between AQ and PCAD was r  = 0.45, indicating positive association between aggression and depression and anxiety. The correlation between Aggression and PCL-5 was r  = 0.42 and between PCAD and PCL-5 was r  = 0.57. These correlations were significant at p < 0.05 and were in the expected directions, providing additional evidence for the validity of the scales.

Table 2 . Correlations, means, and SDs for the total sample.

A series of t-tests were performed for each of the bullying behavior type (i.e., victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and mixed bullying experience) to examine if there were mean differences in their mean scores on each of the three psychological scales (i.e., AQ, PCAD, and PCL-5). Results indicated significant mean scores differences between each of the four groups of bullying experience and those who did not experience bullying on all the psychological measures.

Results are demonstrated in Tables 3 and 4 . The mean scores of group 1 (victims), group 3 (bystanders) and Group 4 (those who reported mixed bullying experience) on the psychological measures (AQ, PACD, and PCL-5) were significantly different than those who did not experience bullying, p  < 0.05. However, for group 2 (perpetrators) their mean scores on AQ only ( M  = 72.35; SD = 18.69) were significantly different from those who did not report exposure to any bullying experience ( M  = 53.29; SD = 16.10), t  = 5.18; df  = 630, p  < 0.05.

Table 3 . Means and SDs for the psychological variables for the four forms of bullying experience.

Table 4 . Mean differences between the groups on the psychological variables.

Analysis of Variance

Based on the Bullying Questionnaire, the four groups of participants were created and only those who provided complete data were included in the analysis. For each of the psychological measures and based on responses from participants, the mean scores and SDs as well as the number of victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and those who reported mixed bullying experience are shown in Table 5 . Table 6 showed that the between groups one-way ANOVA was significant ( p  < 0.05) for the four groups who experienced bullying, in particular, there was a between groups significant difference ( p  < 0.05) on AQ [ F (4,647) = 14.52], p  = 0.000. For PCAD, there was a between groups significant differences at p  < 0.05 [ F (4,801) = 7.82], p  = 0.000. Similarly, for PCL-5, there was a between groups significant differences at p  < 0.05 [ F (4,735) = 10.96], p  = 0.000.

Table 5 . Descriptive statistics for the psychological measures for participants exposed to bullying experience and for those who were not exposed to bullying.

Table 6 . One-way between groups ANOVA on the variables under investigation.

Bullying Prevalence, Typology, and Gender Considerations

In comparison with other studies (e.g., Kraft and Wang, 2010 ; Lindsay and Krysik, 2012 ; Rospenda et al., 2013 ; Sobba et al., 2017 ; AlMulhim et al., 2018 ) our findings showed low rates of bullying among national university students in the UAE. This prevalence rate is in line with a previous study that found UAE to have the lowest rate of bullying among a sample of middle-school students from 19 countries ( Fleming and Jacobsen, 2010 ). This is also in line with international studies on college students which reported lower levels of bullying behavior ( Beran et al., 2012 ; Bauman and Newman, 2013 ; Schenk et al., 2013 ; Chen and Huang, 2015 ; Giovazolias and Malikiosi-Loizos, 2015 ). Nevertheless, the differences in bullying rates reported in the literature may be partly explained by the use of different types of measures; bullying definition, student perceptions of bullying behaviors, cultural norms, and specific personal student characteristics. Future research should focus on establishing a clear standard definition of bullying and different types of bullying also needs to be established according to United Nations Education and Scientific Cultural Organization (2019) to allow for accurate comparisons across different cultures.

Our results showed that most bullying occurs using traditional ways (face-to-face bullying, verbal, physical…etc.) and only a small percentage of bullying occurs using social media/cyberbullying. Traditional face-to-face bullying, especially verbal aggression and relational/indirect bullying (e.g., spreading rumors and being excluded) are still the most common types of bullying ( Lund and Ross, 2017 ). A decrease in direct physical aggression compared to an increase in incidents of indirect bullying is typically found in the literature, possibly due to the development of verbal and social skills with age ( Pepler et al., 2008 ; Craig et al., 2009 ).

Consistent with previous research, our study showed that most victims who reported being bullied were females. Although males are more likely to bully others and get bullied ( Napolitano, 2011 ), females are more likely to report being bullied. Physical aggression and direct bullying has been regularly associated with males, whereas relational aggression has mostly been associated with males ( Hinduja and Patchin, 2008 ; Olweus and Limber, 2010 ). In our study, however, it was impossible to detect any meaningful gender differences in the rate of bullying due to the small number of male participants. Future research should consider using a balanced male–female sample size to allow for gender comparison taking into consideration variables, such as types of bullying, school response to bullying, and the contributions of various risk factors (e.g., physical appearance, nationality, socio-economic status, disability, and race).

Role of Friends, Families, and Bystanders in Bullying

Respondents were mostly reluctant to report bullying incidents to university officials as only a small percentage reported the bullying incidents to the concerned university staff. Student reluctance to report bullying may be due to embarrassment and perceived negative outcomes ( Juvonen and Gross, 2008 ; Boulton et al., 2017 ). Some victims, however, were able to tell a friend. This is not surprising as friends have been identified as a source of help for problems experienced by college students in the UAE ( Al-Darmaki, 2011 ). This result is in line with previous research that found friendship to be a protective factor against victimization ( Burns et al., 2010 ; Méndez et al., 2017 ).

Although families play a critical role in providing emotional support, encouraging their children to disclose bullying incidents, and teaching them coping skills ( Al-Darmaki, 2011 ; Abdirahman et al., 2013 ; Johnson et al., 2013 ), the role of parents in the bullying behavior of their children was not investigated in this study. Future studies should examine the role of parents in supporting or preventing bullying behavior of their children ( Hinduja and Patchin, 2008 ; Tanrikulu and Campbell, 2015 ).

Respondents in the present study reported being mostly bullied by peer students or by a “group” of students. This is an illustration of the bullying circle or group process, where some of the bystanders are likely to have joined the bullying by taking the role of “assistants/henchmen” and “reinforcer.” Self-enhancement and self-protective motives are likely to encourage bystanders to join the bullying ( Juvonen and Gross, 2008 ). Also, culturally, it is expected in the UAE to conform in order to be accepted by peers.

When examining bystander behavior further, many respondents witnessed friends being bullied. More than half of the witness bystanders (that are not assistants or reinforcers of the bullying) tried to support their friends during the bullying episode, thus taking on the role of defending, while others helped by reporting the aggressors or comforting the victim. Such defending characteristics are associated with having high self-empathy, self-efficacy, and social status, which drives witnesses to intervene ( Pozzoli and Gini, 2010 ). The remainder of the bystanders did nothing, and remained silent, while a small number of witnesses admitted being afraid and running away from the situation. This is a typical pattern in the literature, where it is rare for bystanders to help or defend the victim and they are usually passive onlookers ( Pozzoli and Gini, 2010 ).

Most of the participants did not bully others as a result of being bullied. This result implies that respondents who were previously bullied may have higher empathy and sensitivity toward others, as well as self-efficacy/regulation and moral engagement and resilience ( Sapouna and Wolke, 2013 ; Holt et al., 2014 ).

Faculty/staff bullying of students were much lower in comparison to the higher levels found in the literature ( Al-Hussain et al., 2008 ; Marraccini et al., 2015 ). Some of these studied reported 18% bullying by university/college faculty ( Chapell et al., 2004 ) to 44% bullying cases by teachers in schools ( Marraccini et al., 2015 ). The reasons behind faculty bullying of students is worth investigating as there seems to be a range of factors (e.g., being burned out or envious of smarter students) that are attributing to teacher-bullying behavior ( Twemlow et al., 2006 ). Faculty/staff who received training and participated in a bullying prevention program felt more confident in dealing with bullying situations, had more supportive attitudes toward victims of bullying, and felt more positive about collaborating with parents regarding bullying problems ( Alsaker, 2004 ; Carissa Fehr and Seibel, 2022 ).

Bullying and Mental Health

Victims in this research reported experiencing negative psychological impacts after being exposed to bullying. They reported more externalized symptoms, such as feelings of anger, discomfort, disgust, numbness, crying, and inability to concentrate on their education. Furthermore, they experienced more internalized symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and fear. This is in line with the large body of literature that found exposure to bullying to have a serious impact on the wellbeing of youth (e.g., Beran et al., 2012 ; Tanrikulu and Campbell, 2015 ; Ranney et al., 2016 ). These may last throughout their lives ( Williams and Guerra, 2007 ; Copeland et al., 2013 ; Takizawa et al., 2014 ). Also, this is in line with Fleming and Jacobsen (2010) findings that bullying among students from the UAE was associated with sadness, hopelessness, loneliness, insomnia, and suicide thoughts.

Results based on the psychological measures revealed a moderate level of aggressive personality traits and low levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. These findings show that those who have experienced bullying had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety, and PTSD symptoms compared with those who had no bullying experience. These results are also supported by previous findings ( Beran et al., 2012 ; Landstedt and Persson, 2014 ; Ranney et al., 2016 ; AlMulhim et al., 2018 ) that bullying has a negative impact on college students’ psychological wellbeing.

As students tend to be reluctant to seek counseling ( Al-Darmaki, 2011 , 2014 ), the university student counseling centers should plan outreach programs targeting the victims, the aggressors, and bystanders to increase their awareness of the negative impact of bullying on their wellbeing. As cases of bullying may not be reported for fear of retaliation from peers, student community should be encouraged to report incidents to counselors so that care can be provided to those who are involved in bullying. Also, investigating the impact of bullying on students’ academic performance ( Hinduja and Patchin, 2008 ) in future studies may reveal interesting results.

Those who bullied others exhibited significantly higher levels of aggression as compared with those who did not experience any form of bullying. This suggests that they possess more aggressive traits than their peers which may explain in part, their tendency to bully others. This is consistent with previous research (e.g., Undheim and Sund, 2010 ; Sigurdson et al., 2014 ).

Bullying Preventions

Although participants’ most frequent recommended strategies for dealing with bullying was dismissal of the aggressors, if they ignore a written warning after the first episode, such action would have negative implications for students and their parents. Suspending students for problematic behavior may place them at a higher risk of academic failure, alienation, future antisocial behavior, or other social problems ( American Academy of Pediatrics, 2003 ; Arcia, 2006 ). The most effective bullying prevention programs are whole school approaches in combination with a multi-tiered public health model (for reviews see Rivara and Le Menestrel, 2016 ). Anti-bullying programs are usually most efficient when implemented with older students rather than younger ones ( Smith et al., 2003 ).

Limitations

Despite its interesting findings, this study has some limitations. The definition provided for bullying in the survey may not have been broad enough to capture all types and forms of bullying. Participants may have relied on their own understanding of bullying to report their experiences. Therefore, they may have reported what they perceived as bullying which means that some forms of bullying may have not been considered (United Nations Education and Scientific Cultural Organization, 2009; AlMulhim et al., 2018 ). Future research should provide explicit definitions of the full range of bullying behaviors to help identify them more accurately. Also, poly-victimization was not controlled ( Ford and Delker, 2018 ). Researchers have discussed the limitations of the cross-sectional approach (e.g., Landstedt and Persson, 2014 ), with no mechanism to establish a temporal relationship, this study was unable to determine whether bullying leads to mental health problems and aggression or if these factors pre-date bullying. Another limitation is the use of a self-report screening measure for posttraumatic stress symptomatology, not a diagnostic interview for PTSD ( Blevins et al., 2015 ). The incidence of PTSD may therefore be over- or under-reported. Although some participants reported inability to concentrate on their studies, the impact of bullying on academic performance was not examined. In this study, the psychological variables (i.e., aggression, depression and anxiety, and PTSD) have been measured using Likert scale and analyzed using parametric tests which might be not the best appropriate choice. Additionally, two of the reported correlations are below 0.50 and, therefore, caution should be practiced in interpreting these results. Lastly, the current study was based on a sample that consisted predominantly of Emirati university students and, therefore, its generalizability to other settings might be limited.

In conclusion, this study provides a unique contribution to our understanding of bullying behavior of college students within UAE. As systematic reporting of incidences of bullying ( United Nations Education and Scientific Cultural Organization, 2019 ) is important to our understanding of this behavior. The findings of the present study can serve as a baseline for future research in this area. Our findings showed that incidents of bullying exist in the university setting and have adverse impact on students’ mental health. The need for frequent data collection to discover trends (increase or decrease in bullying behavior) among college student population is also crucial ( United Nations Education and Scientific Cultural Organization, 2019 ).

Experiences of bullying seem to impact college students’ mental health in the UAE. Most bullying occurs using traditional ways, such as face-to-face bullying, verbal, and physical. Only a small percentage of bullying occurs using social media/cyberbullying. The lower rates of cyberbullying than traditional bullying could be due to cyberbullying being a recent type of bullying. Many respondents witnessed friends being bullied. More than half of the witness bystanders tried to support their friends during the bullying episode. This is expected, as Emirati cultural norms are characterized with strong sense of moral obligation toward fellowship, helping others, and rescuing those in needs. Most of the participants did not bully others as a result of being bullied. Empirical research is needed to investigate this issue further. Faculty/staff bullying of students were much lower in comparison to the higher levels found in other studies. In the UAE, faculty have a highly influential role in developing and nurturing students. Therefore, it is important to raise their awareness of bullying to reduce, detect and deal with bullying effectively. Strategies for dealing with bullying and Promoting students’ wellbeing among faculty and staff can also increase their awareness of the impact of bullying on students’ mental health.

Victims reported experiencing negative psychological impacts after being exposed to bullying, such as feelings of anger, discomfort, crying, inability to concentrate on education, depression, anxiety, and fear. Those who have experienced bullying had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety, and PTSD symptoms compared with those who had no bullying experience. There is a pressing need for psychological help for those who were exposed to bullying. Whether they had sought help from the university counseling services was not investigated. Students impacted by bullying should be encouraged to seek counseling for psychological support. Students should be encouraged to report incidents to counselors so that care can be provided to those who are involved in bullying.

There is a need to investigate the impact of bullying on students’ academic performance. Those who bullied others exhibited significantly higher levels of aggression as compared with those who did not experience any form of bullying. Although jealousy and physical appearance seem to be among the main reasons for bullying in our study, future research needs to investigate in depth reasons for bullying to broaden our understanding of such factors so that strategies can be developed to tackle this issue.

It is important to focus on sustainable prevention and intervention strategies that work with the entire university by involving staff and faculty as well as other stakeholders, such as parents. Effective bullying prevention programs are whole school approaches in combination with a multi-tiered public health model.

Therefore, efforts need to focus on developing preventive programs to increase students’ awareness of bullying and its negative impact on campus environment. Offering psychological help for those who were exposed to bullying would help them to deal effectively with this trauma.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary Material ; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Research Ethics Committee (REC)-Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. The approved committee’s reference number is ZU14_122_F. We have used a written informed consent which was given to all participants. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

DH contributed in the research initial design and the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Zayed University funded this research (grant numbers R16066, 2016) and approved the application to conduct this research (ZU14_122_F).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Zayed University for providing the fund to conduct this study. Also, the authors would like to acknowledge Man Chung’s involvement in the early stage of this research and all students who participated in this study. Gratitude also goes to Farry Bruce Jeffirey for editing the final version of the manuscript. We would like to thank Prof. Hamzeh Dodeen from UAE University for his feedback on the statistical analysis.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.768305/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: bullying behavior, anxiety, depression, aggression, PTSD

Citation: Al-Darmaki F, Al Sabbah H and Haroun D (2022) Prevalence of Bullying Behaviors Among Students From a National University in the United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Study. Front. Psychol . 13:768305. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.768305

Received: 31 August 2021; Accepted: 28 March 2022; Published: 25 April 2022.

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*Correspondence: Fatima Al-Darmaki, ZmF0aW1hLmFsZGFybWFraUB6dS5hYy5hZQ== ; Haleama Al Sabbah, aGFsZWVtYWguYWxzYWJhaEB6dS5hYy5hZQ==

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Bullying History and Mental Health In University Students: The Mediator Roles of Social Support, Personal Resilience, and Self-Efficacy

Dieter wolke, silvia schneider, jürgen margraf.

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Edited by: Iliyan Ivanov, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States

Reviewed by: Pratibha N. Reebye, University of British Columbia, Canada; Cheng-Fang Yen, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan

*Correspondence: Jürgen Margraf, [email protected]

This article was submitted to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry

Received 2019 Apr 15; Accepted 2019 Dec 4; Collection date 2019.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Bullying victimization by peers is highly prevalent in childhood and adolescence. There is convincing evidence that victimization is associated with adverse mental health consequences. In contrast, it has been found that perpetrators suffer no adverse mental health consequences. These findings originate from Western countries such as Germany but have rarely been investigated in collectivistic societies such as China. Furthermore, it has been rarely studied whether positive intrapersonal characteristics (e.g., personal resilience and self-efficacy) and interpersonal positive resources (e.g., social support) may mediate the impact of bullying on mental health. The current study used a path analytic model to examine, firstly, whether previous bullying experiences (both victimization and perpetration) are associated with current positive and negative mental health in university students and, secondly, whether these influences are mediated by social support, resilience, and self-efficacy. The model was tested in 5,912 Chinese and 1,935 German university students. It was found that in both countries, higher victimization frequency was associated with lower levels of social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy, which in turn predicted poorer mental health. Moreover, and only in China, perpetration was negatively associated with social support and personal resilience but not self-efficacy. In contrast, in the German sample, perpetration experience was found to enhance one's self-efficacy, and the later was associated with better mental health. The results support a mediation model in which social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy partially mediate the influence of victimization on mental health in both countries. For the relationship between perpetration and mental health, self-efficacy was the only full mediator in Germany, whereas in China, both social support and personal resilience were partial mediators. In conclusion, peer victimization has adverse effects on mental health in both Germany and China. Only in China, however, is perpetration also associated with adverse mental health outcomes. In contrast, getting ahead by bullying in an individualistic society such as Germany is associated with increased self-efficacy and mental health. The differences found between an individualistic country and a collectivistic country have important implications for understanding and planning interventions to reduce bullying.

Keywords: bullying, perpetrators, social support, self-efficacy, resilience, cross-cultural differences, positive mental health, mental illness

Introduction

Peer bullying at school is highly prevalent and has become an international concern (e.g., 1 , 2 ). Victimization has been universally found to be associated with cross-sectional and long-term adverse mental health consequences, including more severe depression and anxiety symptoms (e.g., 3 – 5 ) and lower levels of positive mental health (e.g., 4 ).

In contrast, the relationships between bullying perpetration and health problems are not consistent across countries ( 2 ). In some countries such as Germany, Austria, the UK, the USA, and Denmark, bullies appear to be as healthy as non-involved peers, in terms of adult mental and general health ( 5 , 6 ), except for a higher risk for antisocial personality ( 7 ) and alcohol use ( 2 ). However, in other countries such as China, Greece, or Israel, perpetrators have reported worse health problems and emotional adjustment ( 2 , 8 ). Furthermore, bullies may perceive less social support than non-involved students in the USA and China ( 8 , 9 ). The differences between bullies in different countries indicate that the same behavior may have different consequences depending on context and societal norms. Thus, a cross-national study that applies the same measures in different cultures may help to clarify the relationship between perpetration and mental health.

Only recently has research focused on factors that may help to explain how being bullied may be associated with adverse mental health outcomes (e.g., 10 , 11 ). An increasing amount of urecharacteristics (e.g., personal resilience and self-efficacy) can promote mental well-being ( 12 – 14 ). These may be protective factors that mitigate the negative impact of bullying experience on mental health, meanwhile, they may also be influenced by the bullying experiences.

As one of the most prominent protective factors, perceived social support plays an essential part in preventing mental illness (e.g., 12 , 13 , 15 ). It has a remarkably consistent positive association with positive mental health (e.g., 16 , 17 ). Perceived social support refers to an individual's feeling or evaluation of whether the social network is supportive enough to facilitate the individual's coping with tasks and stress or to achieve personal goals ( 18 , 19 ). The link between social support and bullying has been well established, with poor social support highly associated with victimization by peers (e.g. 20 , 21 ). Stress may erode the perception or effectiveness of social support ( 22 ). For instance, longitudinal evidence has shown that “continuous victims of bullying” had worse school attendance rates, which further isolated them from peers and undermined a healthy peer relationship ( 23 ). Furthermore, social support has been shown to mediate the negative effect of workplace or school bullying on positive or negative well-being ( 24 , 25 ).

While some use friendships and family as protective buffers, others may rely on their resilience to overcome the adversity of victimization ( 10 ). Resilience can manifest in several ways. Personal resilience refers to the capacity to adapt, recover, and avoid potential deleterious effects after facing overwhelming adversity ( 14 ). Children and adolescents are in a constant process of development. Thus, their resilience trait is more likely to be influenced by situational factors such as bullying involvement during primary or secondary school periods. For example, negative life events negatively predict resilience in students ( 26 ) and parental HIV longitudinally affected resilience in children ( 27 ). Indeed, research has shown that resilience trait mediates the relationships between workspace bullying and physical strain ( 28 ) and between primary school bullying and depressive symptoms ( 29 ).

Another essential positive factors in stress regulation is self-efficacy. The perception of self-efficacy is the belief that one can perform novel or challenging tasks and attain desired outcomes, indicating a self-confident view of one's own capability to deal with stressors in life [see Social Cognitive Theory, ( 30 , 31 )]. High self-efficacy is associated with higher levels of optimism and life satisfaction ( 28 , 33 ) and lower anxiety and depression ( 34 ). Meanwhile, prior experience is one of the most influential factors that shape self-efficacy ( 35 ). It is likely that a negative peer experience (i.e., victimization) or a mastery experience (i.e., perpetration) influence one's self-efficacy appraisal. For instance, previous research indicates that self-efficacy mediates the effect of stressful life events or daily stressors on both positive and negative mental health in samples from different cultures ( 36 , 37 ).

Unlike social support and personal resilience, results on the relationship between self-efficacy and bullying involvement are mixed. In some research, both victimization and perpetration were found to be negatively associated with overall self-efficacy [Greek elementary school children: 38 ; Turkish middle school students: ( 39 )]. In some cases, it has been found that victims have lower self-efficacy than bullies and those not involved in Chinese primary and German secondary school bullying. Bullies, on the other hand, do not tend to differ from not-involved peers in self-efficacy ( 8 ). There are also studies indicating that firmer self-efficacy beliefs are positively correlated to high levels of self-reported cyberbullying behaviors ( 40 ). A possible explanation for the mixed results regarding self-efficacy may be that a substantial number of persons are involved in both bullying perpetration and victimization (i.e., so-called bully-victims). Therefore, in the current study, the correlations between perpetration and victimization were controlled.

In sum, there is some consistency in the findings when it comes to social support and personal resilience as single mediators in the relationship between victimization and mental health. The role of self-efficacy has not yet been established. Thus social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy may be considered potential factors that protect against being bullied and may explain the impact of previous bullying severity on mental health. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the role of perceived social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy in the relationship between previous peer bullying experience (both victimization and perpetration) and current mental health (both positive mental health and mental illness symptoms) in university students using a mediation model (see Figure 1 for a hypothesized model). Bullying experience was measured with a retrospective inventory regarding victimization and perpetration frequency from primary schools to current universities. Our work aims to add insight into the relationship between school bullying and its long-term consequences during university. Both perpetration and victimization experiences were examined in one model in order to control for the correlation between them. Adding perpetration into the model was also predicted to expand our knowledge of how bullying behaviors impact one's mental health. Moreover, in order to expand on previous works that typically focused on only the mental illness, both the positive and negative aspects of mental health were outcome variables [measured by the Positive Mental Health scale, PMH; ( 41 ); and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, DASS; ( 42 )].

A hypothesized mediation model for bullying and mental health.

Furthermore, as reviewed above, there appear to be cultural differences in the effects of bullying perpetration on well-being and mental health. So far, our knowledge of bullying consequences is primarily based on studies carried out in western, individualistic societies. In more collectivistic cultures such as China, however, bullying and its mechanisms have rarely been investigated. There is evidence that bullies in China also suffer from concurrent or long-term problems such as poor life satisfaction, depression, suicide ideation, or psychoticism (e.g., 8 , 43 , 44 ), unlike the phenomena found in western countries where bullies typically do well ( 2 , 5 , 6 ). Therefore, the hypothesized model was tested within two separate samples: university students in China, a country that fosters Eastern Asian group-oriented culture (e.g., 45 , 46 ); and students in Germany, a West European individualistic country, where the ties between individuals are relatively loose ( 45 ).

Based on the research regarding bullying and its aversive consequences on mental health and the protective role of social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy (e.g., 3 , 4 , 10 , 12 , 32 ), it is hypothesized that in both countries, (a) social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy would be positively related to PMH and negatively related to DASS; (b) victimization experience would be positively related to DASS and negatively related to PMH and (c) social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy would mediate the relationship between victimization and mental health. Giving that bullies reported different mental health levels across various countries ( 2 , 5 , 8 ), we further hypothesized cross-cultural differences regarding the paths on perpetration.

Participants

This study is part of the Bochum Optimism and Mental Health (BOOM) research project, which is a large-scale cross-cultural longitudinal investigation in mental health. The Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum approved the project. Chinese data were collected either by paper-pencil survey or online questionnaires, while German data were all collected via an online survey.

In total, 5,912 Chinese students from Capital Normal University (Beijing city), Shanghai Normal University (Shanghai city), Nanjing University (Nanjing city), Hebei United University (Tangshan city), and Guizhou University of Finance and Economics (Guiyang city) participated in the 2015 survey. All participants were in the fourth year of bachelor degree studies (age: 21.54 ± 1.20). Among them, 3,301 (60.0%) were female and 2,202 (40.0%) were male; 3,403 (60.1%) came from low affluent families, 1,687 (29.8%) from medium affluent families, and 573 (10.1%) from high affluent families. Family affluence was measured and classified based on the scores on the 4-item Family Affluence Scale-II ( 47 ).

The German sample consists of 1,935 students (age: 21.73 ± 4.93) of Ruhr University Bochum (Bochum city) who took the survey at least once between 2015 and 2017. Among them, 1166 (61.7%) were female while 725 (38.3%) were male; 242 (15.7%) came from low affluent families, 812 (52.5%) from medium, and 492 (31.8%) from high affluent families; 1156 were in the freshman year, 105 in the sophomore year, 53 in the junior year, 99 in the senior year, 352 in the fifth year or higher, and 68 were in Ph.D. programs.

Questionnaires

Bullying history.

Peer victimization and perpetration experiences at primary school, secondary school, and currently at university were collected with the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire [modified from ( 48 )]. Behaviors of direct, relational and cyberbullying were first described. Participants rated how frequently they perpetrated or received (victimization) the described behavior during each school period (primary school, secondary school, current university) from 1 ( never ), 2 ( once or twice ), 3 ( occasionally ), 4 ( about once a week ), to 5 ( several times a week ). The three victimization questions across all periods were summed for a total victimization score, while the three perpetration questions were summed for a total perpetration score. The Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire was test-retested in 287 German students with a one-year gap. The one-year test-retest reliability was.81 for school victimization and ranged from.55 to.60 for school perpetration.

Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS)

The 21-item DASS ( 42 ) assesses depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms (seven items for each) from the last seven days. Participants checked agreement on a four-point Likert scale from 0 ( did not apply to me at all ) to 3 ( applied to me very much or most of the time ). A higher score indicates severer mental illness symptoms. Cronbach's alpha was.93 in the German sample and.96 in the Chinese sample.

Positive Mental Health Scale (PMH)

The 9-item PMH ( 41 ) measures positive aspects of emotional well-being and health on 4-point Likert scales ranging from 0 ( do not agree ) to 3 ( agree ). A higher score indicates better general positive mental health. Cronbach's alpha was.91 in the German sample and.96 in the Chinese sample.

Resilience Scale

The 11-item Resilience Scale ( 49 ) is a short unidimensional version of the 25-item Resilience Scale from ( 14 ), which measures psychosocial stress-resistance (e.g., personal competence and acceptance of self and life) on scales ranging from 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree). Higher scores indicate a higher level of resilience. Internal consistency was.87 in the German sample and.90 in the Chinese sample.

Brief Perceived Social Support Questionnaire (F-SozU K-6)

The 6-item F-SozU ( 50 ) assesses general support that one perceives from the social network. Participants indicated agreement on 5-point Likert scales ranging from 1 ( not true at all ) to 5 ( very true ). Higher scores indicate a higher level of perceived social support. Cronbach's alpha was.87 in the German sample and.90 in the Chinese sample.

General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE)

The 10-item GSE ( 51 ) was used to assess a general sense of one's ability to cope when facing unexpected situations. Items are rated on a 4-point likely scale ranging from 1 ( not agree ) to 4 ( totally agree ). Higher sum scores indicate a greater sense of self-efficacy. In the German sample, Cronbach's alpha was.88, and in the Chinese sample, .93.

Data Analysis

Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine the difference in bullying frequency (victimization and perpetration) at each school period between China and Germany. In order to define the relationship between bullying experience, positive factors, and mental well-being, Mplus [version 7.4, ( 52 )] was used to test the path analytic model. Full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation was used. The hypothesized model was defined with two correlated predictors (victimization and perpetration), three inter-correlated mediators (social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy), and two correlated dependent variables (DASS and PMH). Sum scores of all the scales were entered into the model. Bias-corrected bootstrapping (5000 times) was applied for testing the significance of indirect effects ( 53 ). Then, insignificant paths were removed one by one to simplify the model. Final models contained only significant paths. An adequate model fit was determined by a nonsignificant chi-square statistic, a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) <.06, a comparative fit index (CFI) >.95, and a standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) <.08 ( 54 ). The effect size of the standardized regression coefficient was interpreted as small (.14), medium (.39), and large (.59) based on Cohen ( 55 ); while the effect size of standardized indirect effects was interpreted as small (.01), medium (.09), and large (.25) as suggested by Kenny and Judd ( 56 ). The datasets for this study can be found in the online Supplementary Material .

Bullying Frequency in Both Countries

Table 1 presents the self-reported bullying frequency at primary, secondary school, and university. Results from MANOVA showed that both countries differed significantly for all periods; however, the effect size of bullying at university was trivial (η 2 part. <.01). German students reported more frequently being bullied and bullying others than Chinese students during primary and secondary school.

Means (M) and standardized deviations (SD) of bullying frequency in each school period.

***: p <.001; **: p <.01.

Correlation Table

Table 2 presents the correlations between the variables. All variables were found to be significantly correlated with each other ( p <.05), except for perpetration, which was not correlated with personal resilience and self-efficacy in the German sample. As expected, in both countries, victimization was positively related to perpetration and DASS, and negatively related to social support, personal resilience, self-efficacy, and PMH. Moreover, the three positive factors were positively inter-correlated with each other and with the two outcome measures. Additionally, in China, the effect sizes between perpetration and other variables were small to modest, whereas the same correlation in Germany had only trivial to small effects.

Means (M) and standardized deviations (SD) of measures and correlation table.

Mediated Path Analytic Model Within the German Sample

The results of the final mediated path model in the German sample indicate an excellent fit of the data, RMSEA <.0001 (90% confidence interval from <.0001 to.027), CFI = 1, SRMR =.004. The standardized path coefficients ( p <.001) of the final model are shown in Figure 2 . Victimization experience was negatively linked with all three mediators and the two dependent variables, and the three mediators further associated negatively with DASS and positively with PMH, suggesting that social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy partially mediated the effect of victimization on the two mental health measures. Perpetration experience was significantly linked only with self-efficacy, the later further regressed positively on PMH and negatively on DASS, suggesting that self-efficacy fully mediated the effect of perpetration on mental health. The correlations between the two predictors, the three mediators, and the two dependent variables were all significant at.001 level. The effect sizes of the direct and indirect effects from the bootstrapping are presented in Table 3 . In addition, the final model explained 58.1% of the variance in PMH, 37.0% in DASS, 3.0% in personal resilience, 3.9% in self-efficacy, and 6.4% in social support.

Final path mediated model for the effects of bullying, social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy on positive and negative well-being in the German sample. Regression paths (single-arrow) and correlation paths (curved double-arrow) were all significant on at least.05 level. Standardized coefficients are shown. DASS, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. PMH, Positive Mental Health Scale.

Standardized total indirect, specific indirect, and direct effects and their 95% confidence intervals (C.I.).

Mediated Path Analytic Model in the Chinese Sample

The results of the final mediated path model in the Chinese sample also indicate an excellent fit of the data, RMSEA <.0001 (90% confidence interval from <.0001 to.024), CFI = 1, SRMR =.002. The standardized path coefficients are shown in Figure 3 . Victimization experience was negatively linked with all three mediators and the two dependent variables, while perpetration frequency was negatively linked with personal resilience and social support and the two dependent variables but not with self-efficacy. All three positive factors were positively associated with PMH, while only social support and personal resilience further regressed on DASS. The results indicate that social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy partially mediated the effect of victimization on mental health and that only social support and personal resilience partially mediated the effect of perpetration on mental health. The direct and indirect effects of the mediation are presented in Table 3 . Moreover, all the correlations were significant at.001 level. In addition, the final model explained 49.0% of the variance in PMH, 20.8% in DASS, 2.6% in personal resilience and self-efficacy, and 3.9% in social support.

Final path mediated model for the effects of bullying, social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy on positive and negative well-being in the Chinese sample. Regression paths (single-arrow) and correlation paths (curved double-arrow) were all significant on at least.05 level. Standardized coefficients are shown. DASS, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. PMH, Positive Mental Health Scale.

The main aim of this study was to test the mediators of previous bullying experience regarding the outcomes of both positive and negative mental health in university students in China and Germany. For both countries, it was found that social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy partially mediate the effect of previous victimization experience on current well-being and mental illness. In contrast, cultural differences were observed for the relationship between perpetration and positive and mental health. For Germany, only self-efficacy fully mediated the effect of perpetration on mental health: more frequent perpetration promoted higher mental health status via a higher level of self-efficacy. Conversely, for students in China, social support and partially resilience partially mediated the effect of perpetration on mental health. More specifically, more frequent bullying perpetration was linked with a lower level of social support perception and lower personal resilience, which in turn was found to be associated with worse mental health.

In both countries, social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy partially mediated the negative effect of victimization on mental health, with medium-sized total indirect effects. The results replicate previous findings on similar social resources and positive traits (e.g., 24 , 28 , 29 , 38 , 57 ) and indicate that the long-term adverse emotional consequences of being bullied are partly explained by less social support, lower personal resilience and lower self-efficacy levels. The current results further provide some initial evidence of an important role for self-efficacy, which revealed the strongest indirect mediating effect in our data. Bullying interventions may consider promoting the social resources and the self-efficacy of the victims in order to reduce the negative impact of victimization. However, there was also a direct effect of bullying victimization, indicating that even if social support, personal resilience or self-efficacy is high, a negative effect of being excluded and beaten may not be avoided.

The relationships between perpetration, positive factors, and mental well-being were different across countries. In China, bullying others more frequently, like being bullied, was associated with a lower level of personal resilience and support perception; whereas in Germany, bullying others was unrelated to the level of social support or personal resilience, but instead even weakly increased one's self-efficacy. The results indicate that bullies from two different cultures, Germany and China, face different psychological consequences of their perpetration behavior. The associations of perpetration with positive factors were different as well. Those involved in bullying in China were less personally resilient and socially supported and had more severe mental illness symptoms ( 8 ). Thus, providing social support and strengthening personal resilience may reduce bullying perpetration in China. In contrast, in Germany, bullies were as socially supported and personally resilient but even more self-efficient than those not involved in any bullying. This is consistent with previous findings that bullying is little socially sanctioned and conducted by students who are competent social manipulators with good emotional well-being (e.g., 5 , 6 , 58 , 59 ).

Cultural differences were also found in the relationship between positive and negative mental health. For instance, the effect size of the correlation between PMH and DASS was smaller in China than that in Germany. Moreover, self-efficacy had a stronger association, as indicated by the path coefficient in Figure 3 , with PMH than with DASS in Germany. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the China sample, where self-efficacy had a significant association with PMH but not with DASS. On the one hand, these results are in line with Karademas ( 60 ), who proposed that the buffering effect of self-efficacy is greater for positive than for negative mental health. On the other hand, it may be that self-efficacy may not be related to depression or anxiety in China. In China, many people believe that uncontrollable or unexpected events or “fate” ( Tianming ) may sometimes impact the outcome of ones' best endeavors. Thus, those having high self-efficacy may face greater disappointment, while having low self-efficacy may also link to a greater sense of powerlessness. In Germany, in contrast, having higher self-efficacy not only promoted PMH but also prevented mental illness at a certain level. Taken together, it appears that the difference between the latent constructs measured by PMH and DASS was greater in China than in Germany.

While the large sample size, cross-cultural design (allowing for direct comparison of bullying involvement in Germany and China), and the inclusion of mediators are major strengths of the current study, there are also limitations. The measure of bullying history was retrospective and self-reported. However, test–retest showed high reliability over one year. Nevertheless, reported associations need to be interpreted cautiously and require replication in prospective studies. The large sample size did allow us to detect small effects. Thus, when interpreting our results, not only the significance of paths but also the effect sizes should be considered, especially regarding the effects between perpetration and other variables ( 56 ). In addition, the current study chose three representative positive factors as a start of the coping/recourse model of bullying; however, there may be more critical mediators, especially for perpetration, that were not tested in our study. Further studies may consider other protective or buffering factors and expand the model upon the three mediators examined in the current study.

In sum, the current study found that social support, personal resilience, and self-efficacy play essential roles in regulating the influences of victimization on later mental well-being across countries considered as individualistic or collectivistic. Thus strengthening social support, personal resilience and self-efficacy are likely to help to mitigate the ill effects of peer victimization. In contrast, mechanisms of how bullying perpetration associates with mental health differ between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. In Germany, bullying increases self-efficacy and has even small positive effects on mental well-being. In contrast, in a collectivistic society such as China, bullying others is associated with reduced social support and decreased personal resilience and negative mental health. Bullying may be seen as breaking the social norms of caring for others. The model proposed here needs to be explored longitudinally and applied to the development of strategies that build psychological personal resilience and resource in bullying victims.

Data Availability Statement

All datasets generated for this study are included in the article/ Supplementary Material .

Ethics Statement

This study is part of the Bochum Optimism and Mental Health (BOOM) research project, which is a large-scale cross-cultural longitudinal investigation in mental health. The project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This study was supported by Alexander von Humboldt Professorship awarded to the last author by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Xiao Chi Zhang and Dr. Kristen Lavallee for their support in results discussion, manuscript proofreading, and data collection management.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00960/full#supplementary-material

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Bullying in school and in the workplace

Bullying is a worldwide phenomenon that refers to any form of aggressive behaviour towards others, be it physical or verbal. Bullying may occur across the life span, from preschool to adulthood, and in a variety of contexts, such as schools, an individual’s workplace, and online. Research on bullying is important, as the experience of being victimised has been associated with a wide range of physical, social, emotional, academic, and mental health issues.

This Collection welcomes original research articles on bullying at school and in the workplace. Studies that investigate cyberbullying are also welcome.

Qiqi Chen, PhD

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Morteza Mahmoudi, PhD

Michigan State University, USA

Tracy Vaillancourt, PhD

University of Ottawa, Canada

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