Adolescent male bullies, victims, and bully-victims: a comparison of psychosocial and behavioral characteristics.
OBJECTIVE
To determine among male adolescents whether bully-victims would report the poorest psychosocial health, the worst attitudes toward school, more problem behavior (delinquency, weapons possession, and substance use), and more physical injury compared with bullies, victims, and neutral students. We also assessed ethnic differences in bullying category membership.


METHODS
Employing multisample latent variable models, we contrasted 1,312 males in grades 7-12 classified as bullies (n = 299), victims (n = 180), bully-victims (n = 195), and neutral (n = 638) on school attitudes, psychosocial health, problem behaviors, and physical injury.


RESULTS
Hypotheses were generally confirmed, especially contrasts between bully-victims and neutrals. However, bullies did not have better school attitudes than bully-victims, and victims only marginally reported better psychological health than bully-victims. The boys of mixed ethnicity were more likely to be victims.


CONCLUSIONS
Greater awareness of the problems associated with boys who both bully and are victimized is necessary for improved intervention.
Stein
Judith A
JA
Department of Psychology, UCLA Franz Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA. jastein@ucla.edu
Dukes
Richard L
RL
Warren
Jazmin I
JI
D000293:Adolescent; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003710:Demography; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005389:Firearms; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011584:Psychology; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D014754:Violence / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*