Cross-national observational study reveals that feelings of belonging buffer the harmful impact of bullying on well-being among adolescents, highlighting belonging as a protective factor.
Bullying is a serious issue among adolescents worldwide. It has been conceptualized as a type of physical or indirect peer victimization that occurs repeatedly over time and is characterized by a systematic abuse of power. Being bullied at school severely affects victims’ health and well-being. What protects students from these consequences? We investigate feelings of belonging –i. e., the feeling that one is accepted, included, respected, and valued in the respective social environment – as a possible compensator for bullying consequences across different cultures. We hypothesize that being bullied is less severe for students who have strong feelings of belonging. We use data from 319,057 15-year-old students across 47 countries. Multilevel regression analyses replicated that bullying and well-being are negatively associated. Further, the results indicated, as expected, that feelings of belonging compensate for the negative impact that bullying has on well-being. Practical implications as well as limitations are discussed.
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Marksteiner et al. (2020) studied this question.
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