Reciprocity of Cognitive and Emotional Antecedents to Bullying: Bidirectional Relations Between Cognitive Impulsivity and Anger

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility that cognitive and affective variables form a reciprocal relationship when it comes to predicting future bullying perpetration. To this end, the bidirectional relationship between cognitive impulsivity and anger was evaluated in an effort to determine whether both cross-lagged pathways contributed to a rise in bullying behavior. The reciprocal hypothesis was tested in a sample of 1,160 early adolescents (567 boys, 593 girls) from the Illinois Study of Bullying and Sexual Violence (ISBSV). Cognitive impulsivity and anger were cross-lagged at Waves 1 and 2 of the ISBSV, after which they were correlated with bullying perpetration at Wave 3 in a three-wave longitudinal path analysis. Results from the path analysis identified the presence of a significant bidirectional association between Cognitive Impulsivity-1 and Anger-2 and between Anger-1 and Cognitive Impulsivity-2, with both cross-lags effectively predicting future bullying behavior.

Keywords

reciprocity bidirectional cognitive impulsivity anger bullying

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Agnew

(1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Criminology, 30(1), 47–87.

Agnew

(2001). Building on the foundation of general strain theory: Specifying the types of strain most likely to lead to crime and delinquency. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38(4), 319–361.

Akers

R. L.

(1998). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Northeastern University Press.

Allison

P. D.

(2002). Missing data. Sage.

Baldry

A. C.

Farrington

(2000). Bullies and delinquents: Personal characteristics and parental styles. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 10(1), 17–31.

Bosworth

Espelage

(1995). Teen conflict survey. Center for Adolescent Studies, Indiana University.

Botvin

G. J.

Griffin

K. W.

Nichols

T. D.

(2006). Preventing youth violence and delinquency through a universal school-based prevention approach. Prevention Science, 7(4), 403–408.

Broidy

L. M.

(2001). A test of general strain theory. Criminology, 39(1), 9–33.

Brown

W. J.

Hetzel-Riggin

M. D.

Mitchell

M. A.

Bruce

S. E.

(2021). Rumination mediates the relationship between negative affect and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in female interpersonal trauma survivors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(13–14), 6418–6439.

10.

Candelaria

A. M.

Fedewa

A. L.

Ahn

(2012). The effects of anger management on children’s social and emotional outcomes: A meta-analysis. School Psychology International, 33(6), 596–614.

11.

Choi

Park

(2018). Who becomes a bullying perpetrator after the experience of bullying victimization? The moderating role of self-esteem. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(11), 2414–2423.

12.

Cole

D. A.

Maxwell

S. E.

(2003). Testing mediational models with longitudinal data: Questions and tips in the use of structural equation modeling. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112(4), 558–577.

13.

Collins

L. M.

Schafer

J. L.

Kam

C.-M.

(2001). A comparison of inclusive and restrictive strategies in modern missing data procedures. Psychological Methods, 6(4), 330–351.

14.

Elwert

Winship

(2014). Endogenous selection bias: The problem of conditioning on a collider variable. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 31–53.

15.

Espelage

D. L.

Holt

M. K.

(2001). Bullying and victimization during early adolescence: Peer influences and psychosocial correlates. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2(2/3), 123–142.

16.

Espelage

D. L.

Holt

M. K.

Henkel

R. R.

(2003). Examination of peer-group contextual effects on aggression during early adolescence. Child Development, 74(1), 205–220.

17.

Espelage

D. L.

Hong

J. S.

Merrin

G. J.

Davis

J. P.

Rose

C. A.

Little

T. D.

(2018). A longitudinal examination of homophobic name-calling in middle school: Bullying, traditional masculinity, and sexual harassment as predictors. Psychology of Violence, 8(1), 57–66.

18.

Espelage

D. L.

Low

S. K.

Anderson

De La Rue

(2014). Bullying, sexual, and dating violence trajectories from early to late adolescence (Report submitted to the National Institute of Justice Grant #2011-MU-FX-0022). National Institute of Justice.

19.

Faccio

Iudici

Costa

Belloni

(2014). Cyberbullying and intervention programs in school and clinical settings. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 122, 500–505.

20.

Gottfredson

M. R.

Hirschi

(1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford University Press.

21.

Hirschi

(1969). Causes of delinquency. University of California Press.

22.

Hollist

D. R.

Hughes

L. A.

Schaible

L. M.

(2009). Adolescent maltreatment, negative emotion, and delinquency: An assessment of general strain theory and family-based strain. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(4), 379–387.

23.

IBM Corporation. (2019). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows (Version 26.0). Author.

24.

Kenny

D. A.

(2013). Mediation: Sensitivity analysis. http://davidakenny.net/webinars/Mediation/Sensitivity/Sensitivity.html

25.

Kohlberg

(1984). The psychology of moral development: The nature and validity of moral stages (Essays on moral development, Volume 2). Harper & Row.

26.

Laird

R. D.

Pettit

G. S.

Bates

J. E.

Dodge

K. A.

(2003). Parents’ monitoring-relevant knowledge and adolescents’ delinquent behavior: Evidence of correlated developmental changes and reciprocal influences. Child Development, 74(3), 752–768.

27.

Lansford

J. E.

Rothenberg

W. A.

Jensen

T. M.

Lippold

M. A.

Bacchini

Bornstein

M. H.

Chang

Deater-Deckard

Di Giunta

Dodge

K. A.

Malone

P. S.

Oburu

Pastorelli

Skinner

A. T.

Sorbring

Steinberg

Tapanya

Tirado

L. M. U.

Alampay

L. P.

Al-Hassan

S. M.

(2018). Bidirectional relations between parenting and behavior problems from age 8 to 13 in nine countries. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 28(3), 571–590.

28.

Lee

Liu

Watson

M. W.

(2016). The timing effect of bullying in childhood and adolescence on developmental trajectories of externalizing behaviors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 31(17), 2775–2800.

29.

Lleras

(2008). Hostile school climates: Explaining differential risk of student exposure to disruptive learning environments in high school. Journal of School Violence, 7(3), 105–135.

30.

Maiuro

R. D.

(Ed.). (2015). Perspectives on bullying: Research on childhood, workplace, and cyberbullying. Springer.

31.

Morcillo

Ramos-Olazagasti

M. A.

Blanco

Sala

Canino

Bird

Duarte

C. S.

(2015). Socio-cultural context and bulling others in childhood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(8), 2241–2249.

32.

Muthén

(2010, April 8). Missing data modeling: Multivariate normality. Mplus Discussion Board. http://www.statmodel.com/discussion/messages/22/5308.html?1279319060.

33.

Muthén

(1998–2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Author.

34.

Nansel

T. R.

Overpeck

Pilla

R. S.

Ruan

W. J.

Simons-Morton

Scheidt

(2008). Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(16), 2094–2100.

35.

Nielsen

M. B.

Einarsen

(2012). Outcomes of exposure to workplace bullying: A meta-analytic review. Work & Stress, 26(4), 309–332.

36.

Olweus

(1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. Blackwell.

37.

Patterson

G. R.

Reid

J. B.

Dishion

T. J.

(1992). Antisocial boys. Castalia.

38.

Piquero

A. R.

Jennings

W. G.

Diamond

Farrington

D. P.

Tremblay

R. E.

Welsh

B. C.

Gonzalez

J. M. R.

(2016). A meta-analysis update on the effects of early family/parent training programs on antisocial behavior and delinquency. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 12(2), 229–248.

39.

Polanin

J. R.

Espelage

D. L.

Grotpeter

J. K.

Spinney

Ingram

K. M.

Valido

El Sheikh

Torgal

Robinson

(2021). A meta-analysis of longitudinal partial correlations between school violence and mental health, school performance, and criminal or delinquent acts. Psychological Bulletin, 147(2), 115–133.

40.

Preacher

K. J.

Hayes

A. F.

(2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 879–891.

41.

Preacher

K. J.

Selig

J. P.

(2012). Advantages of Monte Carlo confidence intervals for indirect effects. Communication Methods and Measures, 6(2), 77–98.

42.

Rebellon

C. J.

Manasse

M. E.

Van Gundy

K. T.

Cohn

E. S.

(2012). Perceived injustice and delinquency: A test of general strain theory. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(3), 230–237.

43.

Rogaten

Moneta

G. B.

(2015). Use of creative cognition and positive affect in studying: Evidence of a reciprocal relationship. Creativity Research Journal, 27(2), 225–231.

44.

Rucker

D. D.

Preacher

K. J.

Tormala

Z. L.

Petty

R. E.

(2011). Mediation analysis in social psychology: Current practices and new recommendations. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(6), 359–371.

45.

Sigfusdottir

I. D.

Gudjonsson

G. H.

Sigurdsson

J. F.

(2010). Bullying and delinquency. The mediating role of anger. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(4), 391–396.

46.

Smeijers

Benbouriche

Garofalo

(2020). The association between emotion, social information processing, and aggressive behavior: A systematic review. European Psychologist, 25(2), 81–91.

47.

Sourander

Jensen

Rönning

J. A.

Elonheimo

Niemelä

Helenius

Kumpulainen

Piha

Tamminen

Moilanen

Almqvist

(2007). Childhood bullies and victims and their risk of criminality in late adolescence: The Finnish from a boy to a man study. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161(6), 546–552.

48.

Stavrinides

Nikiforou

Georgiou

(2015). Do mothers know? Longitudinal associations between parental knowledge, bullying, and victimization. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32(2), 180-196.

49.

Sutherland

E. H.

(1947). Principles of criminology (4th ed.). J.B. Lippincott.

50.

Sykes

G. M.

Matza

(1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 664–670.

51.

Thornberry

T. P.

(1987). Toward an interactional theory of delinquency. Criminology, 25(4), 863–891.

52.

Todd

A. R.

Forstmann

Burgmer

Brooks

A. W.

Galinsky

A. D.

(2015). Anxious and egocentric: How specific emotions influence perspective taking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(2), 374–391.

53.

Ttofi

M. M.

Farrington

D. P.

Lösel

Loeber

(2011). The predictive efficiency of school bullying versus later offending: A systematic/meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 21(2), 80–89.

54.

Walters

G. D.

(2017). Modelling the criminal lifestyle: Theorizing at the edge of chaos. Palgrave Macmillan.

55.

Walters

G. D.

(2019). Animal cruelty and bullying: Behavioral markers of delinquency risk or causal antecedents of delinquent behavior. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 62, 77–84.

56.

Walters

G. D.

(2020). Neutralization, moral disengagement, and delinquency in adolescence: Testing the reciprocal effects of proactive criminal thinking and guilt on future offending. Justice Quarterly, 37(2), 210–230.

57.

Warr

(2002). Companions in crime: The social aspects of criminal conduct. Cambridge University Press.

58.

Wells

K. C.

Lochman

Beidel

Brown

T. A.

Haaga

D. A. F.

(2003). Effectiveness of the coping power program and of classroom intervention with aggressive children’s outcomes at a 1-year follow-up. Behavior Therapy, 34(4), 493–515.

59.

Wemmers

J.-A.

Cyr

Chamberland

Lessard

Collin-Vézina

Clément

M.-E.

(2018). From victimization to criminalization: General strain theory and the relationship between poly-victimization and delinquency. Victims and Offenders, 13(4), 542–557.