10.1177/0272431605276933JOURNAL OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE / August 2005Ando et al. / PSYCHOSOCIAL INFLUENCES O BULLYING Psychosocial Influences on Physical, Verbal, and Indirect Bullying Among Japanese Early Adolescents

Although bullying among Japanese youth is a current major concern, psychosocial influ-ences on bullying are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to identify the psychosocial factors associated with physical, verbal, and indirect bullying among Japa-nese adolescents. Junior high school students between seventh and ninth grade (N = 2,923) completed a self-reported questionnaire. Involvement in bullying and psychosocial factors were investigated. Deviant peer influence, less serious attitude in school, poor self-control of aggressiveness and impulsiveness, poor self-assertive effi-cacy against bullying, and euphemistic thinking were commonly associated with physi-cal, verbal, and indirect bullying. Experiences of victimization by physical and verbal bullying were associated with both physical and verbal bullying, whereas experiences of victimization by indirect bullying were associated with indirect bullying. Psychosocial factors associated with different types of bullying substantially overlapped. Therefore, interventions focused on these modifiable common factors could be effective in the pre-vention of adolescent bullying