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. 2022 Sep 19;19(18):11809.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph191811809.

School Bullying Is Not a Conflict: The Interplay between Conflict Management Styles, Bullying Victimization and Psychological School Adjustment

Christoph Burger  1   2   3
Affiliations

School Bullying Is Not a Conflict: The Interplay between Conflict Management Styles, Bullying Victimization and Psychological School Adjustment

Christoph Burger. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

It has been argued that adaptive conflict management styles may protect students against bullying victimization and against negative effects of ongoing victimization on psychological school adjustment. Moreover, maladaptive conflict management styles may lead to victimization or intensify negative effects of victimization on school adjustment. Mediation and moderation models were computed to test these effects. Furthermore, a person-oriented approach compared noninvolved students, victims, and bully-victims regarding conflict management styles and school adjustment. A total of 172 individuals (77.2% female, mean age: 22.7 years) completed a retrospective online questionnaire about conflict management styles, bullying victimization and school adjustment during their school years. In the mediation model, conflict management styles were not associated with victimization, but there was a positive direct effect of the integrating style on school adjustment. In the moderation model, the integrating style moderated the negative effect of victimization on school adjustment but did not buffer against the negative effects when victimization was high. Person-oriented comparisons showed that victims used the obliging style more often than bully-victims. Furthermore, victims and bully-victims showed lower school adjustment than noninvolved students. Overall, results corroborate the view that school bullying is qualitatively different from normal peer conflicts. Implications for researchers, policymakers, school principals and teachers are discussed.

Keywords: bully-victims; bullying; conflict management; integrating; psychological adjustment; psychological maladjustment; school violence; victimization.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A schematic visualization of the two continua generating a fourfold table of conflict management styles.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mediation Model: The Effect of Conflict Management Styles on Psychological School Adjustment with Bullying Victimization as Mediator Variable. Note. Mediation analysis was computed using JASP [72]. Solid paths and path coefficients represent significant loadings (p ≤ 0.05). Loadings are unstandardized coefficients with standardized coefficients in parentheses.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A profile plot of the ordinal interaction effect of integrating conflict management style and victimization on school adjustment. (a) Psychological school adjustment (unstandardized score plotted on the vertical axis) as a function of victimization (low, average, high; plotted on the horizontal axis) for different levels of integrating conflict management style (low, average, high; plotted as separate lines). (b) Psychological school adjustment (unstandardized score plotted on the vertical axis) as a function of integrating conflict management style (low, average, high; plotted on the horizontal axis) for different levels of victimization (low, average, high; plotted as separate lines). Note. Data for visualizing the conditional effects were taken from the syntax output of the PROCESS macro v4.00 [73]. Values for victimization (low = 1.00; average = 1.86; high = 3.31); values for integrating conflict management style (low = 3.30; average = 3.95; high = 4.59).
Figure 4
Figure 4
ANCOVA Results: Adjusted Means of Person-Oriented Bullying-Related Groups Regarding Conflict Management Styles and Psychological School Adjustment. Note. Marginal mean estimates are unstandardized scores adjusted for gender, age, and conflict frequency in class. Conflict management style is measured on a 5-point scale and psychological school adjustment on a 7-point scale. Whiskers represent 95% confidence intervals. Results of Tukey post-hoc tests: ‡ p ≤ 0.10, * p ≤ 0.05 (including lower significance levels).
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