Time among the taunted: The moderating effect of time perspective on bullying victimization and self-esteem in adolescents

Relationships Among Self-Esteem, Bullying, and Cyberbullying in Adolescents: A Systematic Review

The current systematic review explored relationships among self-esteem, bullying, and cyberbullying in adolescents. Three databases were used to search for articles pertaining to mental health, health care, and the social sciences. Keywords, including "bully," "victim," "victimization," "harassment," "aggression," and "abuse," were used to describe victims of cyberbullying and locate relevant articles. A total of 861 articles were found during the initial search, 110 were assessed for eligibility, and 10 ultimately met inclusion criteria. Most studies found correlations among self-esteem, bullying, and cyberbullying. Self-esteem was linked to being a victim of cyberbullying but not to being a perpetrator of cyberbullying or bullying in general. Students with high self-esteem at the beginning of the school year were more likely to become bullies as they got older, whereas those with low self-esteem were less likely to do so. In addition, self-esteem was found to have direct negative effects on victimization and cybervictimization, and victimization and cybervictimization were found to have direct negative effects on peer difficulties. Findings suggest that adolescent bullying and cyberbullying perpetration may be mitigated by higher levels of self-esteem. Parents should pay close attention to and limit adolescents' exposure to bullying and cyberbullying and stressful life events. Psychiatric nurses should routinely screen adolescents and develop interventions to enhance self-esteem and reduce bullying and cyberbullying. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 62(5), 11-17.].

A pilot study of how the past, present, and future are represented in three-dimensional space

Numerous studies have shown that the representation of temporal concepts is associated with spatial features such as position and size. In a conventional task called the "Circle Test (CT)," participants are asked to express the relative importance of the past, present, and future and to demonstrate relationships among them by drawing three circles representing the past, present, and future. Studies on various participants, including refugees, patients living with serious illnesses, and adolescents, have used it to understand the temporal perspectives of different test takers. On the other hand, several studies have suggested that concepts of time are represented in three-dimensional (3D) space. It is expected that temporal concepts of the past, present, and future could be recorded using a 3D drawing task. Here we created a 3D version of CT (the "Sphere Test [ST]") to investigate the sagittal representation of time and to record the relative time importance and relatedness, allowing for the shielding relationships and the laws of perspective. We conducted experiments with university students to compare the results from the CT and the ST. Our results suggested that not all on-screen overlapping can be interpreted as representing a connection between two time zones in 3D space. We also found correlations between the chosen sizes of the three circles in the CT and ST, i.e., the on-screen sizes of the past and present circles were positively correlated. In contrast, we observed no correlation between the on-screen sizes of the future circles in the two tests. The alignment pattern along the sagittal axis showed different patterns from the horizontal and vertical axes. In conclusion, this study sheds new light on the third dimension of the spatial representation of time and may help us understand the relationship between temporal perspectives and other factors, including mental health.

No moderating effect of coping skills on the association between bullying experience and self-esteem: Results from K-CHILD study

Introduction

Few studies have investigated the moderating effect of coping skills on the association between bullying experience and low self-esteem. The aim of this study was to examine whether coping skills have a moderating effect on the association between bullying experience and self-esteem among Japanese students.

Methods

Data from the population-based Kochi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (K-CHILD) study conducted in 2016 were analyzed. Participants included fifth-and eighth-grade students living in Kochi Prefecture, Japan. A questionnaire for the students (n = 5,991) assessed the bullying experience, self-esteem (the Japanese Edition of the Harter's Perceived Competence Scale for Children), and coping skills that comprised six types (The shortened version of coping skills for elementary school children). Multivariate linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between bullying experience and self-esteem and then the moderating effects of six types of coping as interaction terms on the association were considered.

Results

Bullying experience was inversely associated with self-esteem. All six types of coping did not moderate the relationship between bullying experience and low self-esteem even after adjusting for cofounders (all P for interaction > 0.15).

Conclusion

Coping skills did not moderate the association between bullying experience and self-esteem, suggesting that intervention to boost coping skills to mitigate the adverse effect of bullying experience may not be promising.

Time Buffers Teasing and Lessens Tobacco Use: The Moderating Role of Time Perspective on Bullying Victimization and Tobacco Use in Adolescents

Bullying victimization is a prevalent and harmful experience for adolescents and is positively associated with risky behaviors, including tobacco use. We investigated a potential moderator for the associations between bullying victimization and tobacco use, namely time perspective, which refers to thoughts about time. Bullied adolescents may focus on past events more than present or future events, which could lead to less adaptive coping mechanisms in response to stress, such as tobacco use. Multiple time perspective dimensions and time periods (past, present, and future) were examined. Time orientation refers to the relative emphasis placed on a time period. Time relation refers to the perceived relationship among the time periods. Bullying victimization and tobacco use were self-reported. Participants included 758 adolescents (M_age = 15.81, SD_age = 1.22; 54% female). Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that bullying victimization was positively associated with tobacco use. Moderated regression analyses indicated that perceiving all time periods as important (time orientation) and interrelated (time relation) buffered the positive association between bullying victimization and tobacco use in adolescents. Analyses controlled for demographics, sensation seeking, and stress. Results suggest that future research should examine the viability of time perspective-based interventions for bullying victimization and tobacco use in adolescents.