Adolescents’ Coping Strategies in Hypothetical Bullying Scenarios: The Influence of Bullying Type, Gender, and Reported Frequency of Bullying Involvement

• Author / Creator

  Hochman, Faren

• The current study investigated the types and effectiveness of strategies female and male adolescents generated in response to hypothetical bullying situations, based on bullying type, and participants reported frequency of bullying involvement. Participants were 225 junior high school students. Students were asked to generate as many strategies as possible in response to four bullying scenarios. Additionally, they completed the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ), which assessed their reported frequency of bullying or victimization. Results revealed that females generated significantly more help-seeking and assertive strategies than males. Adolescents were more likely to respond with aggressive strategies to the physical bullying scenario, to seek help in response to the physical or verbal bullying scenarios, and to generate non-confrontational strategies in the relational bullying scenario. Females generated significantly more effective strategies than males, but overall adolescents generated less than effective solutions. There were small negative correlations between reported frequency of bullying and victimization and solution effectiveness. The results suggest that adolescents do not always know how to effectively address bullying, thus, educating adolescents on different types of bullying and strategies to solve bullying dilemmas is essential.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Bullying
  • Cyberbullying
  • Coping

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3770F

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.