Anti-Bullying research summary part 2: outcomes and interventions
This winter we are shining our spotlight on ‘Anti-Bullying’
The #BeeWell data unlocks the opportunity for schools and communities to understand more about bullying.
We can use #BeeWell and other data to find out more about:
- Prevalence: how many young people are bullied?
- Inequalities: who is more or less likely to be bullied?
- Outcomes: what is the impact of being bullied?
- Interventions: how can we all prevent or reduce bullying?
#BeeWell data is just one part of the puzzle of understanding young people’s experiences, but is a helpful tool for gaining insights at scale.
in bullying. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive review of the available evidence; instead, it provides illustrative examples of what we know.
Read our research summary blog about prevalence and inequalities here.
What do we mean by bullying?
When we talk about bullying, we mean acts of social aggression that are carried out with the intention to cause harm to the victim, are repeated over time, and involve an either perceived or an actual imbalance of power that favours the perpetrator(s).
A distinction is often made between relational (e.g. calling names, or leaving the victim out of games), physical (e.g. hitting the victim) and cyber (e.g. that carried out via digital media, such as posting negative online content about the victim) forms of bullying (Thornton, Panayiotou & Humphrey, 2024).
What is the impact of being bullied?
Some studies examine the relationship between being bullied and outcomes such as mental health difficulties. These include:
- A study using the #Beewell dataset found that that young people who are bullied (regardless of how this was defined) are much more likely to experience significant internalising mental health difficulties (e.g. sadness and worry). One of our analyses indicated that if bullying could be effectively prevented, we could reduce the rate of such difficulties by nearly 20%. The strength of the relationship between being bullied and experiencing mental health difficulties was largely stable across different groups, with the exceptions of being more strongly associated among LGBTQ+ young people and cisgender heterosexual girls (compared to cisgender heterosexual boys), and less strongly associated among Black students (compared to White students) (Thornton, Panayiotou & Humphrey, 2024).
- Another #BeeWell study found that higher rates of bullying at age 12/13 was associated with significantly worse mental wellbeing at age 13/14 (Black, Marquez & Humphrey, 2023).
- Other #BeeWell research found that bullying at age 12/13 was associated with significant increases in internalising mental health difficulties and reductions in life satisfaction at age 13/14 (Marquez, Francis-Hew & Humphrey, 2023). The latter finding is supported by an analysis of international data, which revealed that bullying was associated with lower life satisfaction in all 33 countries included in the study (Marquez & Main, 2020). However, there is evidence that the relationship between being bullied and life satisfaction is stronger among young people who are subject so socio-economic disadvantage than their more affluent peers (Marquez, 2021).
- Our most recent #BeeWell analysis has examined how bullying, mental wellbeing and peer support influence one another over time from age 12/13 to 14/15, and how this varies between girls and boys. We found that higher bullying victimisation led to increased internalising mental health difficulties and lower friendship and social support (for girls only); we also found evidence of reciprocal relationships between bullying victimisation and mental health difficulties (for boys only) (i.e., bullying leads to mental health difficulties, but mental health difficulties also increase the likelihood of later experiences of bullying) (Cheng, et al, 2024).
- Research has also found that exposure to bullying in childhood increases the risk of experiencing nightmares, night terrors, or sleepwalking in early adolescence (Wolke & Lereya, 2014).
- One study revealed that being bullied at school increased the risk of self-harm later in adolescence. Additionally, this study found that bullying heightened the risk of self-harm indirectly through depression (meaning that being bullied increased the likelihood of depression, which in turn raised the risk of self-harm) (Lereya et al, 2013).
- Several studies have demonstrated that the impact of bullying in childhood or adolescence can still be seen in adult life. One study using data from both the UK and USA found that being bullied by peers in childhood increased the risk of mental health issues in adulthood, such as anxiety, depression, and self-harm/suicidality. Indeed, children who were bullied by peers were more likely to experience later mental health problems than those who had been maltreated by their parents (Lereya et al, 2015). Another study found that victims of bullying in childhood faced a higher risk of poor health, financial struggles, and troubled social relationships in adulthood, even after accounting for family hardships and childhood psychiatric issues (Wolke et al, 2013).
How can we prevent or reduce bullying?
Some studies have examined whether we can effectively intervene to prevent or reduce bullying.
Bullying is a ‘sticky’ problem, requiring a comprehensive, whole-school response that involves work with peers, bullies and victims; involvement of parents and teachers; and, implementation of classroom rules and curriculum materials. Importantly, reviews of the evidence indicate that anti-bullying interventions can successfully reduce perpetration, victimisation and mental health problems (Cheng et al, 2024; Hebron & Humphrey, 2015). For example:
The Learning Together intervention (also known as ‘Inclusive’) uses a restorative practice approach to reduce bullying in secondary schools. It includes restorative practice and social-emotional learning (SEL) training for all school staff, and SEL curriculum materials. Schools coordinate two action group meetings per term, where a staff and pupils discuss plans to improve school climate and inclusive practices, informed by the results of needs assessments completed by young people. A randomised trial by the programme developer found that Learning Together successfully reduced bullying victimisation, and our related analysis demonstrated that it also improved academic attainment (Wigelsworth et al, 2023).
The Anti-Bullying Alliance offers free toolkits and training to do with responding to and preventing bullying. These can be found here.
Their school prevention toolkit encourages schools to:
- Understanding what bullying is and isn’t
- Promote a kind and respectful ethos
- Challenge derogatory and discriminatory language
- Listen to young people and involve them in decision making
We know many of our partners do loads of great work to promote inclusion, kindness and youth voice outside of schools in the community too, which is all part of the picture of preventing bullying and promoting positive wellbeing!
