The relation between emotional self-concept domains and involvement in bullying : a preliminary investigation

In Australia, it has been estimated that half of all high-school students have encountered some type of bullying at school (Rigby, 1997). Only recently has research started to investigate and target specific psychological mediators which play a role in bullying (Marsh, Parada, Craven, & Finger, 2004; Smith & Myron-Wilson, 1998). The present study examines the relation of multidimensional self-concept and bullying. Participants included Year 7 to 9 students from a co-educational secondary school (N= 106). Using the Adolescent Peer Relations Instrument-Bully/Target (APRI-BT; Parada, 2000) and the Self-Description Questionnaire II-Short (SDQII-S; Marsh, Ellis, Parada, Richards, & Heubeck, 2005), this study specifically associates bullying with those self-concept factors relating to varying dimensions of affective confidence, namely: emotional stability, honesty/trustworthiness and general self-esteem. A confirmatory factor analyse (CFA) was conducted on the data using structural equation modelling techniques. Although preliminary results show significant and negative correlations between involvement in bullying and emotionally oriented based self-concept factors, future research with a larger sample size is warranted