TY - JOUR PY - 2018// TI - The mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy on the association between self-esteem and school bullying in middle school students: a cross-sectional study JO - International journal of environmental research and public health A1 - Wang, Xiaoqin A1 - Zhang, Yue A1 - Hui, Zhaozhao A1 - Bai, Wanyue A1 - Terry, Paul D. A1 - Ma, Mei A1 - Li, Yang A1 - Cheng, Li A1 - Gu, Wei A1 - Wang, Mingxu SP - e15050991 EP - e15050991 VL - 15 IS - 5 N2 - School bullying is negatively associated with self-esteem, but psychological mediators of bullying have yet to be clarified. We examined regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) as a possible mediator in the association between self-esteem and school bullying. A cross-sectional study of 995 adolescents was conducted in two middle schools of Xi'an. All of the participants completed the Chinese version of the School Bullying Experience Questionnaire (C-SBEQ), Self-Esteem Scale (SES), and Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RESE). Descriptive statistics analysis, the bias corrected percentile Bootstrap CI method, and structural equation modelling were used to analyze the data. The results showed that 418 students (42.0%) reported that they were involved in school bullying in the past year. Self-esteem was negatively associated with school bullying (total effect: β = -0.275, 95% CI = -0.381⁻-0.034), and RESE mediated the association between self-esteem and school bullying (indirect effect: β = -0.136, 95% CI = -0.245⁻-0.037). Furthermore, self-esteem had an indirect effect through perceived self-efficacy in managing negative affect, while self-esteem had no indirect effect through self-efficacy in the expression of positive affect. The present study suggests that school authorities and the related education departments should not only focus on improving students' self-esteem, but should also pay more attention to students' RESE, in order to mitigate, and potentially reduce, the occurrence of bullying.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1661-7827 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050991 ID - ref1 ER -