Abstract

The present study tried to identify 1) the relationships between school bullying and a number of psychological variables including violence-exposure, 2) if violence-exposure was one of the most important variable affecting school bullying, 3) how violence-exposure affects school bullying, by exploring the interactions between violence exposure and psychological variables studied. A sample of 827 female middle school students completed a questionnaire survey. In results, fast, as schoolwork related stress, passive strategies to stress, aggressiveness, violence-exposure from all four sources, desensitization increased and as self-esteem, family's support, empathy decreased, bullying offending behaviors increased. Whereas, as teachers' support, stress, passive strategies to stress, aggressiveness, violence-exposure from family, teachers, mass-media increased and as self-esteem, support from family and friends decreased, victim behaviors increased. Second, according to the results of regression analyses, all four sources of violence-exposure, aggressiveness, empathy were important predictor for offending behaviors whereas teachers' violence, self-esteem, support from teachers and friends were important predictors for victim behaviors. Third, the analyses on the interaction effects between violence-exposure and all other psychological variables on school bullying, respectively, showed that family's support and violence-exposure had a significant interaction effect on bullying. On the bases of the results of this study, possible interventions to school bullying were discussed.