Individual and Social Network Predictors of Physical Bullying: A Longitudinal Study of Taiwanese Early Adolescents

Abstract

This study followed 125 7th-grade students in Taiwan for the entire school year and analyzed the individual and social network factors predicting their involvement in physical bullying over 5 waves of data. Using self-reports of bullying experiences, 20 classroom-level networks of bullying and friendship were constructed for 4 classrooms and 5 temporal points, from which 4 individual-level network measures were calculated. They included bully and victim centrality, popularity, and embeddedness in friendship networks. A series of mixed models for repeated measures were constructed to predict students' bully and victim centrality in bullying network at time t + 1. Compared to girls, boys were more likely to be both the bullies and victims. Lower self-esteem and higher family economic status contributed to victim centrality. Having parents married and living together predicted lower bully centrality. Higher educational level of parents predicted lower victim and bully centrality. Regarding the social network factors, students' bully centrality at t positively predicted their bully centrality at t + 1, whereas victim centrality predicted their subsequent victim centrality. Interaction effects between friendship network and bullying network were observed. Embeddedness in friendship network reduced victim centrality at t + 1 except for those students with low victim centrality at t. For those with high victim centrality at t, popularity increased their risk of physical victimization over time. Implications for research and practice are discussed.