Victimization and the Onset of Violence Among Korean Youth

Background/Purpose: According to Akers’ social learning theory (1973), risk behavior is learned through social interaction. That is, individuals learn certain behaviors through behaviors of others by which they are surrounded. The present study applies the idea of learned risk behavior to understand youth who become both victims and perpetrators of violence. Although such bully-victims are a group with greatest risk, not much is known about the relationship between victimization and bullying, especially first bullying experience. Examining the predictors of first bullying behavior is important for setting effective programs to intervene against subsequent violent behavior among youth. Guided by the core constructs of Akers’ social learning theory, this research examines factors that are associated with the onset of violent actions while considering individual and family variables.

Methods: Analyses were based on waves 1-5 of the Korea Youth Panel Survey(KYPS), a nationally representative data of second-year middle school students(N=3,449).We estimated discrete-time hazard model with logistic regression to identify the relationship between experience of victimization (e.g., threatened, collectively bullied, beaten, sexually assaulted, robbed) and the timing of first bullying activity (e.g., first experience of threatening, collective bullying, beating, sexual assault, robbing). Individual (gender, aggression) and family (family structure, household income, parental education, attachment, abuse, monitoring) variables were included as controls in the analytic models.

Results: Experience of victimization, as well as individual and family factors predicted the timing of youth’s bullying behavior. Victimization predicted early onset of youth violence (b=0.018, p=0.004). For individual variables, being male (b=0.439, p<0.001)and having higher levels of aggression (b=1.011, p<0.001)was associated with early onset of bullying. As for family variables, parental monitoring (b=-0.213, p=0.007) significantly delayed the onset of bullying, whereas abusive parenting behavior (b=0.223, p<0.001) led to earlier involvement in youth bullying. However, parental attachment and family structure were not statistically significant predictors of youth’s first bullying behavior.

Conclusions and Implications: This study used event history analysis to identify whether the experience of victimization predicted the onset of youth's first bullying behavior. Consistent with Akers' framework of social learning theory, we identified a significant relationship between victimization and the onset of first bullying behavior among Korean youth. As youth interact with perpetrating youth or abusive parents ("differential association"), they may develop a positive attitude toward violence ("definition"). Furthermore, youth would engage in bullying from learning violence from others' behaviors ("modeling") and as an avoidant strategy against further victimization ("discriminative reinforcement"). Findings from this study proposed that the robust link between experience of victimization and perpetrating behavior must be recognized and adopted in interventions to stop the vicious cycle of violence among youth. Furthermore, policies against youth bullying should be considered through a multidimensional approach that involves family members, particularly parents. For example, greater levels of parental understanding of youth's whereabouts may protect youth from being exposed to violent situations. Consideration of parental maltreatment was found to be strongly linked to earlier onset of youth's bullying behavior, thus may provide implications for the importance of parental education among bully-victim youth.