Classroom interdependence and sensitivity to malicious envy in potential bullying involvement among Japanese junior high school students

Abstract

Potential bullying involvement, defined as indirect reinforcement of bullying and contextualized teasing, was explained by individual sensitivity to envy and classroom orientations of the cultural self, using multi-level analysis. A survey was conducted among 1,205 Japanese junior high school students in 39 classrooms. Results confirmed that at the classroom level, potential bullying involvement was explained by malicious envy and classroom interdependence, and that malicious envy was in turn explained by classroom interdependence. A parallel survey of 39 homeroom teachers on classroom disorganization found that their ratings did not track classroom interdependence or malicious envy.