title: Television viewing and forms of bullying among adolescents from eight countries.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Based on theories suggesting that frequent television viewers act and react in hostile, malicious, malevolent, or verbally aggressive ways rather than being physically violent, the present study investigates relationships between television viewing and different forms of bullying.
  
  
  METHODS
  Multilevel regression models were estimated based on cross-sectional data from 31,177 adolescents aged 11, 13, and 15 years from Canada, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, and the United States who participated in the 2001-2002 Health Behavior in School-aged Children Survey.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although all different forms of bullying were associated with television viewing in bivariate analyses, only the verbal forms (i.e. "calling mean names" and "spreading rumors") remained significant in multiple regression models. These relationships were observed consistently in all eight participating countries. However, the association between television viewing and physical forms of bullying such as kicking, pushing, or shoving around, varied across countries. In most weekend TV viewing cultures, frequent television viewers were prone to kick or push another student in addition to verbal forms of bullying, which was not the case in weekday viewing cultures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results demonstrate the importance of limiting adolescents' time engaged in unsupervised television watching, and the need to motivate adolescents to engage in joint family activities or organized after-school activities.
authors.affiliation: Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, Lausanne, Switzerland. ekuntsche@sfa-ispa.ch
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuntsche
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pickett
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Overpeck
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Boyce
authors.forename: Margarida Gaspar
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: de Matos
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000374:Aggression / Q000145:classification*; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005061:Europe, Eastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D011174:Portugal / Q000453:epidemiology; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology