Psychological Correlates of Bullying Experiences among Korean-American Adolescents

Background and Purpose: The incidence of bullying experiences has risen dramatically in recent decades and has caused serious mental health issues among adolescents. There have been no studies reported on the bullying experiences of Asian-American/Korean-American youth as potentially related to their psychological development. The complexities of Korean-American adolescent experiences as they are related to bullying, discrimination and other psychological variables were explored in this study. We hypothesized that those who were bullied would experience a higher level of depression and a higher level of discrimination than their counterparts. We explored additional research questions, examining other types of bullying experiences: observers, bullies, and bully-victims, and their relationships with depression, discrimination and ethnic identity.

Method: The Korean-American Youth Bullying Experiences Project was conducted in 2008 in Long Island, New Jersey and Queens. We used the subset of the data that included participants from grades nine to twelve (n = 270). Bullying experiences were assessed by the Bully Survey (Swearer & Paulk, 1998), from which we were able to group the participants into victim, observer, bully and victim/bully categories. Discrimination experiences were assessed by the Perceived Ethnic and Racial Discrimination Scale (Way, 1997). The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure-Revised (MEIM-R, Phinney & Ong, 2007) was used to assess the participants' affiliation with their own ethnic group. The depressive symptoms were assessed by using the Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression Scale (CES-D).

Results: As hypothesized, the adolescents who reported being bullied (n = 83, 31%) experienced a higher level of depression, t = -3.3, p <.001 and a higher level of discrimination, t = -1.9, p =.03 (one-tailed test). There was no significant difference between the victim and non-victim groups in their affiliation with their own ethnic group. Those who reported ever having observed others being bullied (n = 192. 71%) experienced a higher level of depression, t = -2.0, p <.05, and a higher level of discrimination, t = -4.2, p <.001. They were more likely to affiliate with their own ethnic group, t = -2.5, p <.05, than the non-observer group. Those who reported bullying others (n = 83, 31%) experienced a higher level of discrimination, t =-3.7, p <.001, but no difference was found in depression between the bully and non-bully groups. There was no difference between the groups in their affiliation with their own ethnic group. The group who reported both being bullied and bullying others (n = 42, 16%) were more depressed, t = -2.7, p < .01, and experienced a higher level of discrimination, t =-2.5, p <.05. There was no difference between these two groups in their affiliation with their own ethnic group.

Conclusions and Implications: Regardless of the types of bullying experiences, those who were bullied, observed bullying others or/and bullied others had a higher level of discrimination experiences. The results suggests that the experiences of bullying among Korean/Asian-American adolescents need to be addressed in the context of their discrimination experiences.