Abstract

The present study tried to explore the effects of various social and psychological variables on school bullying. The specific purposes of this study were to explore 1) if the social and psychological variables differed among the groups of non-participants, bullies, victims, and bully-victims, 2) the relative importance of various social and psychological variables affecting bullying behaviors, 3) if past exposure to violence is specially important variable in predicting school bullying. A sample of 827 female middle school students completed a questionnaire survey. In results, 1) non-participants, bullies, victims, and bully-victims differed in their grade, school-achievement, monthly spending money, satisfaction with home and school environment, self esteem, social support from family and friends, level of stress, passive strategies for stress, aggressiveness, exposure to violence, and sympathy. 2) Exposure to peer's violence, aggressiveness, exposure to family's violence, grade, exposure to mass-media's violence, father's job, and feeling of danger on school environment were important variable in predicting the bullies' behaviors. Whereas, feeling of danger on school environment, exposure to teachers' violence, self-esteem, social support from teachers, father's job, and social support from friends were important variable in predicting the victims' behaviors. On the bases of the results of this study, variables related to school bullying and possible interventions were discussed.