Parental support and bullying bystander behaviors in Chinese adolescents: Longitudinal mediation through social harmony

Xiaoyu Jia; Jun Wang; Yuchi Zhang

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.994658

Parental support and bullying bystander behaviors in Chinese adolescents: Longitudinal mediation through social harmony

Front Public Health. 2023 Mar 10:11:994658. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.994658. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xiaoyu Jia¹, Jun Wang^{2

3}, Yuchi Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Teacher Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Child Cognition & Behavior Development of Hainan Province, Haikou, China.
³ Chinese Department, Qiongtai Normal University, Haikou, Hainan, China.
⁴ Department of Educational Technology, School of Smart Education, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China.

Abstract

Objectives: Bullying in schools is a serious concern worldwide. The active defending or passive bystanding behaviors of bullying bystanders significantly contributes to the prevention of bullying. Relevant studies have increasingly adopted a social-ecological system approach in bullying research. However, the role of parental factors (microsystem) and cultural value (macrosystem) factors in adolescents' bullying behaviors in non-western culture contexts is unclear. Social harmony, which is closely related to social behavior, is a core value in Chinese culture. Exploring the role of social harmony in bullying bystanders in China could enhance our understanding of bullying, and enrich the diversity of the literature. This study aimed to examine the mediation effects of social harmony on the associations between parental support and the bullying bystanders among Chinese adolescents.

Materials and methods: The participants comprised 445 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 14.41, SD = 0.51) from Beijing City, China. A 17-month, two-point longitudinal study was conducted. Parental support, social harmony, and the behavior of bullying bystanders were evaluated at two time points. The hypothesized mediation model was examined using a structural equation modeling approach using bootstrapping techniques.

Results: The results showed that social harmony partly mediated the positive relationship between adolescents' parental support and active defending behaviors, and fully mediated the negative relationship between adolescents' parental support and passive bystanding behaviors.

Conclusion: These results highlight the importance of studying parental and cultural values in research on bullying bystanders.

Keywords: Chinese culture; bullying; bullying bystander; cultural value; parental support; social harmony.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Bullying*
East Asian People*
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Parents
Peer Group

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0973); Jiangsu Provincial “The 14th Five-Year Plan” Education Science Planning Project of 2022, Special Project (C/2022/01/02): Research on the construction of risk warning measurement and education digital prevention system for school bullying; and the 2022 Hainan Province Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project: Research on the Development Characteristics and Promotion of Children's National Identity under the Construction of the Free Trade Port in Hainan province, Project No. HNSK (YB) 22–39.