Aggression, depression, and Bullying Others

A questionnaire survey of a representative sample of 2083 Norwegian pupils in Grade 8 revealed a positive and significant correlation between depressive symptoms and bullying others and a strong positive correlation between both power-related (ProPow) and affiliation-related (ProAff) proactive aggressiveness and bullying others among both boys and girls. We investigated whether the correlation between Depressive Symptoms and Bullying Others was spurious. For boys, a multiple-regression analysis with Bullying Others as the dependent variable revealed that both ProPow and ProAff had strong separate effects on Bullying Others, whereas the separate effect from Depressive Symptoms was not significant. Interactions between Depressive Symptoms and ProPow and ProAff on Bullying Others were not present. It was concluded that the significant correlation between Depressive Symptoms and Bullying Others was spurious for boys. For girls, ProAff, and ProPow x Depressive Symptoms had significant and rather strong separate impacts on Bullying Others. Implications for intervention and further research were discussed. Aggr. Behav. 28:198-206, 2002. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.