Citation

Arnarsson A, Bjarnason T. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018; 15(7): e15071535.

Affiliation

School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Akureyri, IS-600 Akureyri, Iceland. thorodd@unak.is.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph15071535

PMID

30036943

Abstract

This paper tests the hypothesis of whether being bullied in an environment where bullying is infrequent decreases adolescents' life satisfaction. Analyses were based on the international standard questionnaire from the 2005/2006 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (HBSC). The sample included answers from 183,736 children in 35 Western, industrialized countries. Our results show that the negative effects of being bullied on the life satisfaction of individuals are stronger in schools and countries where bullying is less frequent. We therefore conclude that the prevalence of bullying in the students' surroundings may act as a mediating variable explaining the relationship between bullying and life satisfaction.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescents; bullying; life satisfaction; stress