Stability and change in bullying behaviors and victimization in Japanese college students

Abstract

Japanese previous research emphasized that bullying behaviors/victimization were easily changeable into non-bullying behaviors/non-victimization in a short time. On the other hand, previous research in the United States and other western countries emphasized that bullying behaviors/victimization were stable over time. Then in this study we examined the effects of bullying behaviors/victimization on subsequent bullying/victimization, using 118 Japanese college students' two-wave and three-month interval longitudinal data. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that, after controlling the effects of confounding factors, the effect of bullying behaviors on subsequent ones was significantly positive but small (b* (standard partial regression coefficient)=.24, 95%CL [.05, .43] for all students).The models also revealed that the effect of victimization on subsequent one was significantly positive and large (b*=.45, 95%CL [.29, .65] for the 2nd grade; b*=.74, 95%CL [.56, .97] for the 3rd grade).Based on these results, we concluded that bullying behaviors were weakly stable and that victimization was strongly stable. These results were discussed in terms of uncertainty of victimization.