When the Shooter Knocks: Bully and affects on self esteem in young adults

In light of recent school shootings, bullying has recaptured the public attention as a major influence on the mental health of the shooters. This meta-analysis examined twenty studies (n = 24,670) on the relationship between bullying and self-esteem. The articles were gathered from the PsychINFO database and coded for relevance. The average age of participant was 14 years old. One study had as many participants as the rest of the studies combined (n = 13,122), and was a major outlier (r = -0.97). The results for overall correlation was calculated with and without this outlier. The relationship between bullying and self-esteem without the outlier showed a weak negative correlation between bullying and self-esteem (r = -0.21). With the outlier included, the relationship between bullying and self-esteem showed a moderate correlation (r = -0.37)