What Do Parents Attribute the Cause of Bullying to? It Can Amplify or Buffer the Vicious Cycle of Bullying Perpetration and Victimization

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine what do parents attribute the causes of bullying to and how the attributions of parents are related with their adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration and bullying victimization in the subsequent year. The data were drawn from 3,293 Korean secondary students and their parents from the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study across two waves (seventh, eighth grades). The results revealed that 1,228 (37.3%) parents thought that bullying was caused by perpetrators’ faults while 512 (15.5%) parents thought bullying was caused by victims’ faults. The other 1,553 (47.2%) showed external attributions (e.g., peer, violent media). Adolescents’ bullying perpetration and victimization interacted with parent’s attribution in predicting later bullying perpetration and victimization. These results indicate that parent’s attribution is a critical factor to understanding the alleviation or deterioration of bullying in adolescents. Intervention programs should be designed to concern parents’ attribution as well as adolescents’ prior bullying experiences.

Keywords

parental attribution of bullying bullying perpetration victimization

Introduction

There is no dispute in the fact that bullying is a critical problem for adolescents because it affects later adjustments of not only bullies but also victims (Nansel, Haynie, & Simonsmorton, 2003). There has been much literature exploring the possible factors that could affect bullying perpetration and victimization (Cook, Williams, Guerra, Kim, & Sadek, 2010). However, there is still not much known and further exploration of this topic is needed. The exploration of parental factors is important in that not only are parents the people directly concerned with the bullying behaviors of their children, but also they have considerable influence on their children (Engels, Deković, & Meeus, 2002; Harper, 2012). Accordingly, further exploration of the relations between parental factors and child’s bullying behavior is needed to suggest what parents should do to prevent or intervene with their children.

In particular, prior literature does not say many things about what parents could do to intervene with their children who are already either bullies or victims. Rather, what prior literature consistently says is that there is a vicious cycle of bullying perpetration and victimization (Menesini, Modena, & Tani, 2009; Sentse, Kretschmer, & Salmivalli, 2015). In other words, not only does prior victimization lead to later victimization and prior perpetration lead to later perpetration (i.e., high stability), but also that prior victimization leads to later bullying and vice versa (i.e., bullying victimization–perpetration overlap). Interventional effort to reduce bullying in school are not very efficient (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011) and it is partly attributable to the high stability of the bullying and victimization–perpetration overlap phenomenon. In this context, exploration of possible parental factors that could buffer the vicious cycle of bullying perpetration and victimization is needed.

Prior literature has focused on the direct effects of parental risk factors such as parenting style, parental conflict, and parent–child relationships that could lead to bullying perpetration and victimization (e.g., Park & Chae, 2011). Exploring the direct risk factors is important in that it could suggest ways to prevent bullying perpetration and bullying victimization before it actually happens. However, what is easily overlooked is the fact that there are so many adolescents who are already bullies or victims. Their parents lack knowledge regarding bullying and do not know what to do to get their children out of the vicious cycle of bullying and victimization, even though parents are significant agents of intervention programs (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). It is important to explore the possible parental factors that could buffer the vicious cycle of bullying perpetration and victimization which are applicable to both basic research and applied intervention settings for the adolescents who are already bullies or victims. Understanding the inter-individual differences for predicting subsequent changes in bullying behaviors is important for maximizing the intervention efficacy of bullying prevention programs. In the current study, parental attribution of bullying was chosen as a possible buffering factor.

Parental Attributions of Bullying

Attribution is how people explain or attribute the causes of specific situations. According to the attribution theory, people want to understand the causes of specific situations of themselves or others in their own way (Weiner, 1985, 2000). This understanding is related with attitudes and responses to specific situations. The attributional perspective has been applied to bullying perpetration and victimization situations (e.g., Graham & Juvonen, 1998). The previous studies mainly focused on the examination of what adolescents actually attribute the cause of bullying to (e.g., Georgiou & Stavrinides, 2008; Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg, Rosenqvist, & Johansson, 2012) and what the effects of their attributions are (e.g., Graham & Juvonen, 1998). Still, not many studies were done with the parental attribution of bullying (Harper, 2012). However, parental attribution is important in that the cognitive process of parents could affect their children’s adjustment in schools (Troop-Gordon & Gerardy, 2012). The adolescents could learn and follow their parents’ attributions through social learning process (Bandura, 2001). In particular, if there is a specific attribution that is closely related to improving or disturbing adjustment of their children, it could suggest some basic information about the directions of intervention programs.

Most adolescents attributed the cause of bullying to individualistic reasons (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012). Adolescents emphasize internal characteristics (e.g., perpetrator’s personality, family’s characteristics) rather than external factors (e.g., peers, school). Based on the results, researchers suggest that interventional efforts should proceed to let them know that bullying and victimization is too much of a dynamic phenomenon to be solely attributable to the bullies or victims (Cook et al., 2010; Garandeau, Lee, & Salmivalli, 2014; Salmivalli, 2010). The same approach could also be applied to the attributions of parents. Based on the prior literature that cognitive processes of parents and their children are positively related with each other (Harper, 2012), it could be hypothesized that the attributions of parents would show similar patterns with that of their adolescents. If most parents also show individualistic attributions, rather than external attributions, it might suggest the interventional needs to let them know that bullying and victimization is too much of a dynamic phenomenon to be solely attributable to the bullies or victims (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012).

Moderating Effects of Parental Attributions of Bullying

It is well known that parental cognitive processes could affect their children’s adjustment in schools (Troop-Gordon & Gerardy, 2012). As the same parental factors have differential effects depending on their children’s current states (Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Pijlman, Mesman, & Juffer, 2008), it is possible that the effects of parental attributions of bullying would have differential effects depending on whether their adolescents are bullies or victims. More specifically, if adolescents are bullies and their parents endorse an external attribution of bullying, the adolescents would be more likely to become chronic bullies. Several previous studies provide the evidence that external attribution is positively related with lower feelings of responsibility (Davis & Davis, 1972; Phares & Wilson, 1972; Weiner, 1985, 2000). Therefore, parents’ external attribution would stop adolescents feeling responsible for their bullying behaviors and it would induce adolescents to become chronic bullies.

On the contrary, if adolescents are victimized by others and their parents endorse an external attribution of bullying, they would be less likely to become chronic victims. This is because the parent’s external attribution would stop their children feeling responsible for their experiences of victimization and therefore stop them blaming themselves. Self-blame of victims brings out not only social maladjustments but also further victimizations, while external attribution could allow them to maintain and defend themselves (Georgiou & Stavrinides, 2008; Graham & Juvonen, 1998; Perren, Ettekal, & Ladd, 2013; Weiner, 1985, 2000). In the same way, they would be less likely to become bullies later (i.e., bully–victim). If adolescents are victimized by others and their parents endorse perpetrator or victim attribution, they could feel anger at themselves or others and this anger could lead to antisocial behaviors (Sandstrom & Herlan, 2007; Weiner, 1985, 2000), because anger is very well known to share similar psychological states with aggression (Leary, Twenge, & Quinlivan, 2006).

The Present Study

Taken together, the purpose of this study is to examine what do parents attribute the causes of bullying to and how the attribution of parents relates to their adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration and victimization. In other words, this study tried to explore what the causal attributions of bullying of parents is like and identify which attributions of bullying is relatively more related to desirable change for their adolescents, who have already experienced bullying and victimization. Parents’ attributions were categorized into three types according to their contents; perpetrator attribution, victim attribution, and external attribution. Perpetrator attribution includes attributions that the cases of bullying are flaws in the perpetrator’s personality or his or her family. Victim attribution includes attributions that the cases of bullying are flaws in the victim’s personality or his or her family. Perpetrator attribution and victim attribution were individualistic attributions. In contrast, external attribution includes nonindividualistic explanations that environmental factors such as peers, classroom atmosphere, and violent media are the causes of bullying.

Based on the prior literature of attributions (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012; Weiner, 1985, 2000), responsibility (Davis & Davis, 1972; Phares & Wilson, 1972), and self-blame (Graham & Juvonen, 1998), two main predictions were made. First, it is expected that parents would endorse more individualistic causal attributions (i.e., perpetrator attribution, victim attribution) than external attribution. Second, it is expected that that the parental attribution of bullying would interact with their adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration and victimization, in predicting later bullying perpetration and victimization. If adolescents are bullying others and their parents endorse an external attribution of bullying, the adolescents would be more likely to become a chronic perpetrator. If adolescents are victimized by others and their parents endorse an external attribution of bullying, the adolescents would be less likely to become chronic victims and they also would be less likely to become perpetrators later. Furthermore, the effects of closeness with parents were controlled for to test those hypotheses. It was based on the prior literature that reports closeness with their parents as a crucial factor in predicting social adjustments of adolescents (Engels, Finkenauer, Meeus, & Deković, 2001; Kerns & Stevens, 1996; Laible, Carlo, & Raffaelli, 2000; Larose & Boivin, 1998).

Method

Samples

The data were drawn from 3,293 Korean secondary students (51.3 % were male) and their parents (87.6% were mothers) from the first panel data of the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (SELS) across two waves (seventh to eighth grades). All students attended secondary schools in Seoul, South Korea. Based on the prior literature reporting that bullying perpetration and victimization problems are salient in secondary school period (Guerra, Williams, & Sadek, 2011), the panel sample of secondary students was selected.

This longitudinal panel data were implemented by the Seoul Education Research & Information Institute (SERI). It was carried out under the approval and cooperation of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to investigate their students’ cognitive, affective, and social developments. The panel study followed up with those students and their parents from 74 different schools in Seoul. By using Local Seoul Metropolitan Offices of Education as strata, stratified cluster sampling was carried out. Local Seoul Metropolitan Offices of Education were used as strata. That is, a random sample was collected from each stratum proportional to the population to obtain data that could represent the city proportionately.

Of the total 3,293 seventhseventhgrade students who participated in Wave 1, 122 (3.7%) were dropped from the second survey for unknown reasons. According to the suggestion of Graham (2009) that missing values lower than 5 % dose not distort the data significantly, we preceded with statistical analysis without any additional imputations. Prior to the survey, the participants were informed that there are no correct answers. All the participating students and their parents submitted consent forms with explicit agreement through a newsletter from each school. This study received official approval from the authorities of the SERI.

Measure of Variables

For parents, questions about the causal attributions of bullying were used. For adolescents, questions about their experiences of bullying perpetration, victimization and closeness with parents were used. Parental attributions of bullying and their adolescent’s experiences of bullying perpetration and bullying victimization at seventh grade were used as independent variables and later year experiences of bullying perpetration and victimizations at eighth grade were used as dependent variables. Gender and closeness with parents were used as control variables.

Parent’s attributions of bullying

To measure parent’s attributions of bullying, the following questions and items based on the prior literature (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012) were used. Each student’s parent was asked what they attribute the cause of bullying to and selected answers from the options of bully’s individual faults, family of bully’s faults, victim’s individual faults, family of victim’s faults, problem of peer relation, gang circle, excessively competitive atmosphere, careless policies, violent media, indifference from adults, no special reasons, and other. Among those options, the bully’s individual faults and family of bully’s faults were categorized as perpetrator attribution, the victim’s individual faults and family of victim’s faults were categorized as victim attribution. The other attributions were categorized as external attribution. This categorizing approach was based on the prior literature (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012).

Experiences of bullying of adolescents

To measure the experiences of bullying (i.e., perpetration, victimization) of adolescents, a Korean version of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire (Olweus, 2007) was used. Before asking about students’ experiences of bullying, the instructions above the questionnaire explained the definition of bullying. It included the statement of imbalance of power between perpetrator and victim. The questionnaire consists of 13 items in total, including the factors of traditional bullying (six items), cyber bullying (six items), and sexual harassment (one item). Among these items, traditional bullying was selected in the current study. It was based on prior literature of bullying which usually only includes traditional bullying. The six items of traditional bullying perpetration included one item for verbal bullying (i.e., “saying mean and hurtful things, making fun of someone, or calling someone mean and hurtful names”), two items for relational bullying (e.g., “completely ignoring or excluding someone from their group of friends or leaving someone out of things on purpose”), and three items for physical bullying (e.g., “hitting, kicking, pushing, shoving around, or threatening someone”). Items for measuring experience of bullying victimization were the same as bullying perpetration except that the statements were expressed as passive voice. The items were measured with a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = I haven’t been bulling/bullied other students at school in the past couple of months, 5 = several times a week). The Olweus Bullying Questionnaire has been found to be reliable and valid (Olweus, 2013). For each time point of seventh and eighth grade, Cronbach’α were 75, .72 for perpetration, and .74 or .76, for victimization.

Closeness with parents

To measure closeness with parents, six items were used. Those items were developed by the SERI based on prior literature on the parent–child relationship (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987; Armsden, McCauley, Greenberg, Burke, & Mitchell, 1990). The adolescents scored the following statements regarding their parents: “They are concerned and interested in my daily school life,” “They try to hang out with me,” “They show me love and affection,” “They talk with me a lot about daily life,” “They talk with me a lot about my peer relationships,” “Before anyone else, I consult with them when a difficulty arises.” The validity and reliability of closeness with parents have been found to be good in the previous studies (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987; Armsden et al., 1990; Kerns & Stevens, 1996; Laible et al., 2000). In the current study, Cronbach’α was .92 at seventh grade.

Statistical Analysis

To examine what do parents attribute the causes of bullying to and how the attributions of parents relate to their adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration and victimization, prevalence analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were carried out with SPSS 22.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Before the analysis, normality assumptions of all the continuous variables were tested. The results revealed that there were problems of normality assumption under the rule of thumb of skewness under||3| and kurtosis under||20| (Kline, 2005) for the mean of perpetration and victimization (both for seventh and eighth grades). Thus, those were log-transformed (Keith, 2014). After the transformation, they satisfied the normality assumptions (Keith, 2014; Kline, 2005).

Prevalence analysis of parent’s attributions of bullying was carried out to examine what parents attribute the causes of bullying to. In addition, means of bullying experiences (i.e., perpetration, victimization) of adolescents for each of the three groups (i.e., adolescents with parent’s perpetrator attribution, parent’s victim attribution, parent’s external attribution) were compared by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s honestly significant difference (HSD) post hoc test. Correlations among the variables were analyzed. Using the Fisher’s r-to-z transformation, significance of the differences between two correlation coefficients in two independent samples were examined (Soper, 2018).

To examine the relation between attributions of parents and their adolescents’ experiences of bullying, two hierarchical regression analyses in predicting later bullying perpetration or victimization were carried out. Parental attributions of bullying and their adolescent’s experiences of bullying perpetration and victimization (seventhseventhgrade) were input as independent variables and later year experiences of bullying and victimizations (eighth grade) were input as dependent variables. The attribution of bullying variable was dummy-coded so that external attributions were regarded as comparative group. Dummy-coded gender variable (female = 0, male = 1) and closeness with parents were used as control variables. For Step 1, only the control variables of gender and closeness with parents were entered. For Step 2, the independent variables of prior bullying perpetration, victimization, parent’s perpetrator attribution, and parent’s victim attribution at seventhseventhgrade were input. For Step 3, four interaction terms between parent’s attributions of bullying and their adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration and victimization (i.e., Perpetration × Parent’s Perpetrator Attribution, Perpetration × Parent’s Victim Attribution, Victimization × Parent’s Perpetrator Attribution, Victimization × Parent’s Victim Attribution) were input. A p value of <.05 derived from the two-tailed test were considered statistically significant.

Results

Prevalence of Parent’s Attributions of Bullying

Table 1 shows the prevalence of parent’s attributions of bullying. Among the 3,293 parents, 1,228 (37.3%) attributed the cause of bullying to perpetrator; 666 (20.2% of the total) attributed the cause of bullying to perpetrator’s personality and 562 (17.1% of the total) attributed it to family of perpetrator. Other 512 (15.5%) parents attributed the cause of bullying to victim; 380 (11.5% of the total) attributed the cause of bullying to victim’s individual personality and 132 (4.0% of the total) attributed it to family of victim. The other 1,553 (47.2%) attributed the cause of bullying to external factors; 401 (12.2% of the total) attributed the cause of bullying to peer relation problems, 365 (11.1 of the total) attributed it to violent media, 289 (8.8% of the total) attributed it to gang circles, 179 (5.4% of the total) attributed it to indifference from adults, 139 (4.2% of the total) attributed it to an excessively competitive atmosphere, 125 (3.8% of the total) attributed it to careless policies, 48 (1.5% of the total) attributed it to no special reason, and the other seven (0.2% of the total) chose other reasons.

Table 1.

Prevalence of Parent’s Attributions of Bullying.

Categories of Attribution	Frequency	%
Perpetrator attribution	1,228	37.3
Perpetrator’s individual faults	666	20.2
Perpetrator’s familiar faults	562	17.1
Victim attribution	512	15.5
Victim’s individual faults	380	11.5
Victim’s familiar faults	132	4.0
External attribution	1,553	47.2
Problem of peer relationa	401	12.2
Violent media	365	11.1
Gang circle	289	8.8
Indifference from adults	179	5.4
Excessively competitive atmosphere	139	4.2
Careless policies	125	3.8
No special reasons	48	1.5
Et cetera	7	0.2
Total	3,293	100

Options are presented from highest to lowest frequencies.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Variables by Parent’s Attribution Groups

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of variables by parent’s attribution groups. The means of victimization of seventh and eighth grade were 1.27 to 1.31 and 1.20 to 1.24 for each. The means of perpetration of seventh and eighth grade were 1.28 to 1.30 and 1.20 to 1.23 for each. The means of closeness with parents of seventh were 3.93 to 4.08. The ANOVA revealed that there were no differences in adolescents’ bullying experiences across parent’s attribution groups (all ps > .05). However, the closeness with parents were lower in victim attribution group than perpetrator or external attribution groups (p = .003).

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics and Mean Comparisons Across Parent’s Attribution Groups.

	Categories of Parents’ Attribution			F	p	Post Hoc
	Perpetrator(n = 1,228)	Victim(n = 512)	External(n = 1,553)	F	p	Post Hoc
Victimization seventh	1.30 (0.46)^a	1.31 (0.43)	1.27 (0.41)	2.479	.084	—
Victimization eighth	1.22 (0.41)	1.24 (0.41)	1.20 (0.35)	2.368	.094	—
Perpetration seventh	1.29 (0.45)	1.30 (0.44)	1.28 (0.39)	0.489	.613	—
Perpetration eighth	1.20 (0.33)	1.23 (0.38)	1.21 (0.35)	1.350	.259	—
Closeness with parents seventh	4.08 (0.83)	3.93 (0.85)	4.04 (0.83)	5.867	.003	Perpetrator, external > victim

Note. Closeness with parents was control variable.

M (SD).

Table 3 shows the correlations among the independent (seventh victimization, seventh perpetration), dependent (eighth victimization, eighth perpetration) and control variable (i.e., seventh closeness with parents) by parent’s attribution groups. All the correlations were statistically significant (p < .001), except for the coefficients of –.04 in victim attribution group. The correlations between victimization of seventh and eighth grades were .41 to .48. Correlation in the perpetrator attribution group (.48) was larger than that (.41) of the external attribution group (z = 2.285, p = .022). The correlation between perpetration of seventh and eighth grades was .38 to .40 across groups and there were no significant differences between the correlation coefficients.

Table 3.

Correlations Among Variables by Parent’s Attribution Groups (Perpetrator/Victim/External).

	1	2	3	4
1. Victimization seventh	—
2. Victimization eighth	.48*/.42/.41**	—
3. Perpetration seventh	.42*/.44/.41**	.20*/.20/.21**	—
4. Perpetration eighth	.26*/.29/.16**	.50*/.53/.44**	.39*/.38/.40**	—
5. Closeness with parents seventh	−.18*/–.04^ns/–.12*	−.12**/–.10/–.07**	−.12**/–.10/–.13***	−.11*/–.04^ns/–.09*

Note. Closeness with parents was control variable, Correlations were presented in order of perpetrator attribution group (n = 1,228)/victim attribution group (n = 512)/external attribution group (n = 1,553).

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The correlations between seventh victimization and eighth perpetration were .26 in the perpetrator attribution group, .29 in the victim attribution group, .16 in the external attribution group. The coefficients in the external attribution group was lower than the perpetration (z = 2.739, p = .006) and victim attribution group (z = 2.685, p = .007). The correlations between seventh perpetration and eighth victimization were .20 in the perpetrator attribution group, .20 in the victim attribution group, .21 in the external attribution group, and there were no significant differences between the correlation coefficients.

Relations Between Parent’s Attributions and Subsequent Bullying Perpetration and Bullying Victimization of Adolescents

Table 4 shows the relations between parent’s attributions at seventh grade and bullying perpetration (left side) and bullying victimization (right side) of adolescents at eighth grade. The adjusted R² and standardized coefficients at individual steps and the final model were presented.

Table 4.

Parent’s Attributions at seventh Grade Predicting the Bullying Perpetration and Victimization of Adolescents at Eighth Grade.

Variables	Perpetration (Eighth Grade)			Victimization (Eighth Grade)
Variables	R ²	β at Step	β at Final	R ²	β at Step	β at Final
Step 1: Control variables	.03***			.01***
Male		.14***	.11***		.01^ns	.03^ns
Closeness with parents		−.10***	−.05**		−.09***	−.04*
Step 2: Independent variables	.17***			.19***
Perpetration of adolescent		.35***	.42***		.02^ns	.04^ns
Victimization of adolescent		.06***	−.02^ns		.42***	.38***
Parent’s perpetrator attribution^a		.02^ns	.02^ns		.02^ns	.02^ns
Parent’s victim attribution^a		−.03^ns	−.03^ns		.01^ns	−.01^ns
Step 3: Interaction variables	.18***			.19***
Perpetration × Parent’s Perpetrator Attribution			−.08***			−.02^ns
Perpetration × Parent’s Victim Attribution			−.05*			−.01^ns
Victimization × Parent’s Perpetrator Attribution			.08***			.05*
Victimization × Parent’s Victim Attribution			.08***			.03^ns

These variables were dummy coded and the reference group was an external attribution group. All the independent variables were measured at seventh grade while dependent variables were measured at an eighth grade period.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The bullying perpetration level at seventh predicted later perpetration (β = .42, p < .001) after controlling for the gender, closeness with parents, prior victimization, and interaction terms. Prior victimization predicted later perpetration in Step 2 (β = .06, p < .001), even though the relationship disappeared after controlling for the interactions terms between parent’s attributions of bullying and their adolescents’ experiences of bullying and victimization in Step 3. Interaction terms were significant to predict later bullying perpetration. Compared with the adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying, parent’s perpetrator attribution (β = –.08, p < .001) and victim attribution (β = –.05, p < .05) regulated the relations between prior perpetration and later perpetration of their adolescents. Furthermore, compared with the adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying, parent’s perpetrator attribution (β = .08, p < .001) and victim attribution (β = .08, p < .001) strengthened the relationship of prior victimization to later bullying perpetration.

To interpret moderating effects of parent’s attributions of bullying, separate regressions analyses were carried out by each parent’s attribution group. Figure 1 shows the results of the three regression lines created by each group. The relations between prior bullying perpetration and later perpetration was highest for the adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying (β = .40, p < .001), while the coefficients of those whose parents endorsed perpetrator attribution (β = .31, p < .001) and victim attribution (β = .30, p < .001) were similar (Figure 1 left). The relationship of prior victimization to later bullying was significant for the adolescents whose parents endorsed perpetrator attribution (β = .12, p < .001) and victim attribution (β = .16, p < .001) while there was no significant relationship for those whose parents endorsed external attribution (p>.05) (Figure 1 right).

Figure 1.

Moderating effects of parent’s attribution of bullying on predicting bullying perpetration in eighth grade.

Prior victimization was a critical factor (β = .38, p < .001) for predicting later victimization after controlling for gender, closeness with parents, prior perpetration, and interaction terms (Table 4, right). Prior perpetration had no relations with later victimization. In addition, compared with the adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying, parent’s perpetrator attribution (β = .05, p < .05) regulate the longitudinal relation between prior victimization on later victimization of their adolescents. Figure 2 shows the relation between prior victimization and later victimization was highest for the adolescents whose parents endorsed perpetrator attribution (β = .46, p < .001) and followed by adolescents whose parents endorsed victim attribution (β = .42, p < .001), external attribution of bullying (β = .39, p < .001).

Figure 2.

Moderating effects of parent’s attribution of bullying on the relations between seventh grade and eighth grade bullying victimization.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the attributions of bullying of parents and identify relations between attributions of bullying and bullying behaviors for their adolescents, who have already experienced bullying perpetration and victimization. Parent’s attributions were categorized into the three types: perpetrator attribution, victim attribution, and external attributions. The relation between prior bullying perpetration and subsequent perpetration, the relation between prior bullying victimization and subsequent bullying perpetration and the relation between prior bullying victimization and subsequent victimization were differentiated depending on types of parent’s attributions. These results demonstrate parent’s attributions can amplify or buffer the vicious cycle of bullying perpetration or victimization. Concrete discussions according to the main analysis are as follow.

Prevalence analysis revealed that most parents of Korean adolescents attributed the cause of bullying to the perpetrator (37.3%) or the victim (15.5%), while the other parents attributed it to other external factors such as peer relations (12.2%), violent media (11.1%) or and so on. The most prevalent explanation of bullying was that bullying occurs because of the perpetrator’s individual faults and his or her family faults. It is likely that the bullying perpetrator is perceived as an active offender who has a desire to dominate others (Juvonen, Graham, & Schuster, 2003; Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012). This attribution would lead to parent’s positive attitudes toward strong punishments for bullies because bullies would be perceived as responsible for perpetration. It is worth noting that punitive policies are often found to be ineffective in reducing bullying (Borgwald & Theixos, 2013). Rather, considering external factors such as peer and school factors are found to be more effective to reduce bullying (Kärnä et al., 2013). The results of parents’ attributions of bullying are similar with the adolescents’ attributions of bullying, that adolescents attributed the cause of bullying to perpetrator or victim rather than external factors (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012). This is consistent with the previous study that reports cognitive processes of parents and their children are positively related with each other (Harper, 2012). It is worth noting, however, that bullying is too dynamic of a phenomenon to be solely attributable to the perpetrators or victims (Cook et al., 2010; Garandeau et al., 2014; Salmivalli, 2010). Therefore, interventional efforts to let them know that there are other complex dynamics among external variables, other than individualistic causes, are needed not only for adolescents but also for their parents.

Furthermore, it is especially interesting that a fairly significant number of parents reasoned that bullying occurs because victims provoke it themselves. Victims are blameworthy for their victimization at least to some extent (Smokowski & Kopasz, 2005) and most of the victims are aware of this fact (Graham & Juvonen, 1998). However, victim attribution of parents would have negative effects on their adolescents. It can justify the bullying behavior of their adolescents who are already perpetrators or reinforce the self-blame tendency of their adolescents who are already victims.

Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that prior bullying perpetration and victimization of adolescents interacted with parents’ attributions in predicting later bullying perpetration and victimization, after controlling for gender and closeness with parents. Parent’s external attributions of bullying amplified the stability of bullying of their adolescents in comparison with perpetrator or victim attribution, while it buffered the stability of victimization in comparison with perpetrator or victim attribution. In addition, prior victimization led to later bullying perpetration when their parents endorsed victim attribution and perpetrator attribution, while there was no relationship when their parents endorsed external attribution. Those differential effects of parent’s attributions, depending on their adolescents’ prior status as bullying perpetrators or victims, are consistent with the prior literature that suggests external attribution could be adaptive for victims but it would make it harder for bullies to change their behaviors (Georgiou & Stavrinides, 2008). Concrete discussions with each interaction are as follow.

The adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying showed the highest stability of bullying, compared with the adolescents whose parents endorsed perpetrator or victim attributions. As the external attribution is positively related with a lower feeling of responsibility (Davis & Davis, 1972; Phares & Wilson, 1972; Weiner, 1985, 2000), it is likely that parents’ external attributions make their adolescents feel like they are not responsible for their bullying behaviors.

On the contrary, the adolescents whose parents endorsed the external attribution of bullying showed the lowest stability of victimization, compared with the adolescents whose parents endorsed perpetrator or victim attributions. It is likely that parents’ external attributions made their adolescents not to feel responsible for their experiences of victimization and thus they do not blame themselves. This is consistent with the prior literature that external attribution could maintain and defend their self-esteem, while self-blame could lead to further victimization (Graham & Juvonen, 1998; Perren et al., 2013; Weiner, 1985, 2000). Further studies should be carried out to confirm these explanations.

There was no relationship between prior victimization and later bullying perpetration for the adolescents whose parents endorsed external attribution, whereas there were positive relations between them for the adolescents whose parents endorsed perpetrator or victim attributions. It could be interpreted as the same mechanism of the above mentioned amplifying and buffering effects of parental attribution. The adolescents who are victimized by others and whose parents endorse external attribution would feel less anger at themselves because they would feel less responsible for their victimization (Davis & Davis, 1972; Phares & Wilson, 1972; Weiner, 1985, 2000). On the contrary, it is likely that the adolescents who are victimized by others and whose parents endorse perpetrator attribution or victim attribution would feel anger at themselves or others and this anger would lead to antisocial behaviors (Leary et al., 2006; Sandstrom & Herlan, 2007).

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the effects of parent’s perpetrator and victim attributions showed similar patterns. It could stem from the high co-occurrence of perpetration and victimization, which were widely known to be a general phenomenon (Graham, Bellmore, & Mize, 2006; Wang, Iannotti, Luk, & Nansel, 2010). In other words, both the parent’s perpetrator attribution and victim attribution of bullying could make their adolescents responsible for both their victimization and perpetration experiences because bullies are mostly victims as well.

As the current study did not adapt an experimental approach, we cannot tell the exact causal relations between parental attribution of bullying and the adolescents’ vicious cycle of bullying perpetration and victimization. However, previous studies have been demonstrated that the parent’s victimization-related beliefs are related with children’s subsequent psychosocial functioning (Troop-Gordon & Gerardy, 2012) and poor parental monitoring affects adolescents’ perceptions about negative school atmosphere, and tend to have a negative attitude toward others (Cook et al., 2010). In addition, bullying perpetrators and victims showed lower parental monitoring and emotional attachment with parents than noninvolved students (S. G. Lee & Chung, 2013). Parenting behaviors have critical impacts on adolescents’ self-esteem, aggression, perpetration, and violence tolerance (B. S. Lee, 2007). These results suggest than parenting styles, monitoring, responses (i.e., emotional supports) toward bullying situation could be possible mediating factors between parental attributions of bullying and the adolescents’ experiences of bullying perpetration or victimization. Further research is needed to illuminate the causal relationships and sophisticated mechanisms underlying parents’ attribution and change in adolescents’ bullying behaviors.

The current study is not free from a few limitations. First, parents’ attribution can be changed depending on various factors. As the main purpose of the current study was to examine moderating effects of parents’ attribution in predicting subsequent adolescents’ bullying behavior, we did not investigate changes in parents’ attributions. However, further studies should examine whether there are changes in parents’ attribution and find relations with adolescents’ bullying behavior. Second, all the variables were measured by self-reported data. Thus, not only can we not infer strong causal directionality but also the analysis is not free from shared method variances. For adolescents, however, the validity of the self-report method increases while that of other informants (e.g., parents, teachers) decreases (Kamphaus & Frick, 1996). Also, self-report measurements of experiences of bullying and victimization (Olweus, 2013) and cognitive attributions (Georgiou & Stavrinides, 2008; Graham & Juvonen, 1998; Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012; Weiner, 1985, 2000) are well known to be most valid when measured with self-report methods. Third, even though the items measuring parent’s attributions of bullying were based on the prior literature on attributions of bullying (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012), we used selection type questions rather than open-ended questions (Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012). Even though the selection type questions are also suitably valid methods when measuring cognitive attributions (Georgiou & Stavrinides, 2008), this may have distorted the real attributions of bullying compared with open-ended data. Fourth, because the data were drawn from Korean adolescents and their parents, we cannot be sure that the same results would be obtained from Western samples. We assumed that the results of this study could also apply to western samples because bullying is well known to be a universal phenomenon (Craig et al., 2009) and the results of this study are consistent with the predictions which were based on the western literature on bullying and attributions (Davis & Davis, 1972; Graham & Juvonen, 1998; Phares & Wilson, 1972; Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg et al., 2012; Weiner, 1985, 2000). However, further study should be performed to test this assumption.

In conclusion, this study suggests that parent’s attribution is a critical factor to understanding the bullying phenomenon in adolescents. Parent’s individualistic or external attributions could amplify or buffer the bullying perpetration and victimization of their adolescents. The findings of the current study underscore the need for including parental attributions in designing studies and concerning parent education components within anti-bullying interventions.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Boungho Choi is a researcher and police officer at the same time at the Education department of Korean National Police University. His research interests focus on youth violence, school bullying and victimization, juvenile delinqeuncy and quantitative research methodology.

Soowon Park is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at the Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Her research interests include examining social relationships, prosocial behavior, and mental health. She also conducts brain imaging studies to examine the brain plasticity in learning and memory.

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	1	2	3	4
1. Victimization seventh	—
2. Victimization eighth	.48*/.42/.41**	—
3. Perpetration seventh	.42*/.44/.41**	.20*/.20/.21**	—
4. Perpetration eighth	.26*/.29/.16**	.50*/.53/.44**	.39*/.38/.40**	—
5. Closeness with parents seventh	−.18*/–.04^ns/–.12*	−.12**/–.10/–.07**	−.12**/–.10/–.13***	−.11*/–.04^ns/–.09*