Television Viewing and Forms of Bullying among Adolescents from Eight Countries

Kuntsche, Emmanuel; Pickett, William; Overpeck, Mary; Craig, Wendy; Boyce, William; de Matos, Margarida Gaspar

doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2006.06.007

« Previous Next »Journal of Adolescent Health
Volume 39, Issue 6 , Pages 908-915, December 2006

Television Viewing and Forms of Bullying among Adolescents from Eight Countries

Emmanuel Kuntsche, M.A.
- Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Address correspondence to: Mr. Emmanuel Kuntsche, Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, PO Box 870, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland.
William Pickett, Ph.D.
- Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Mary Overpeck, Dr.PH.
- Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Rockville, Maryland
Wendy Craig, Ph.D.
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
William Boyce, Ph.D.
- Social Program Evaluation Group, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Margarida Gaspar de Matos, Ph.D.
- Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon, Cruz Quebrada, Portugal

Received 14 March 2006; accepted 16 June 2006. published online 29 August 2006.

Abstract

Purpose

Based on theories suggesting that frequent television viewers act and react in hostile, malicious, malevolent, or verbally aggressive ways rather than being physically violent, the present study investigates relationships between television viewing and different forms of bullying.

Methods

Multilevel regression models were estimated based on cross-sectional data from 31,177 adolescents aged 11, 13, and 15 years from Canada, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, and the United States who participated in the 2001–2002 Health Behavior in School-aged Children Survey.

Results

Although all different forms of bullying were associated with television viewing in bivariate analyses, only the verbal forms (i.e. “calling mean names” and “spreading rumors”) remained significant in multiple regression models. These relationships were observed consistently in all eight participating countries. However, the association between television viewing and physical forms of bullying such as kicking, pushing, or shoving around, varied across countries. In most weekend TV viewing cultures, frequent television viewers were prone to kick or push another student in addition to verbal forms of bullying, which was not the case in weekday viewing cultures.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate the importance of limiting adolescents’ time engaged in unsupervised television watching, and the need to motivate adolescents to engage in joint family activities or organized after-school activities.

Keywords: Adolescents, Television viewing, Forms of bullying, Cross-cultural research, Multi-level models