Typologies of Offline and Online Bullying/Victimization Among Early Adolescents in Korea: A Latent Profile Analysis

Background/Purpose:

As adolescents spend more time with internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, the online space has increasingly become a venue for school bullying. Transmission of perpetration/victimization from the traditional offline domain to the online domain is expanding rapidly, yet very few studies have examined patterns of involvement. Identifying unique groups of perpetrating and victimized youth across offline and online domains is significant for intervention research and is timely particularly in South Korea, where smartphone-user rate is among the highest in the world and experience of cyber victimization is a common form of school bullying. The current study derived typologies of offline perpetration/victimization and online perpetration/victimization, and further examined how youth in these distinct groups differ in terms of demographic and social characteristics.

Methods:

Data were collected from two elementary schools in a relatively homogeneous middle-class neighborhood located in Gyeonggi province of South Korea (N=354). The entire 5^th and 6^th grade class participated in a 45-minute self-reported survey administered by the classroom teacher. We applied latent profile analysis to classify groups based on experience of perpetration and victimization between offline and online domains using surveys data of offline perpetration (11 items), offline victimization (11 items), online perpetration (10 items), and online victimization (10 items). We explored how these latent classes differed in demographic and social characteristics (e.g., gender, school grade, peer conformity, ethic disengagement) using logistic regression.

Results:

Adolescent bullying/victimization experience was summarized by three latent subgroups (Entropy=.972, AIC=-2110.856, BIC=-1994.777, SABIC=-2089.950, LMRLRT <.05, BLRT <.001). The “low risk” group showed low levels of offline perpetration, offline victimization, online perpetration, and online victimization, whereas the “high risk” group showed high levels of all four types of behaviors. The “selective risk” group was characterized by LOW levels of offline perpetration/victimization, but HIGH levels of online perpetration/ victimization. As for class differences, there were no statistically significant group differences in demographic characteristics, but higher peer conformity was associated with greater odds of falling into the “high risk” group (AOR=3.26, p<.05) and the “selective risk” group (AOR=2.42, p<.05) and against the “low risk” group

Conclusion/Implications:

First, youth in the “high risk” group scored high on all four behaviors, which is evidence for transmission of perpetration and victimization experience across offline and online domains. This finding highlights the need for redirecting and expanding current intervention programs, which traditionally focus on offline school bullying, to cover online content. Second, latent classes were divided by offline and online domains, but not by experiences of perpetration and victimization. This draws our attention to the growing number of youth who are both perpetrators and victims of school bullying. This bully-victim group is usually smallest in size, but most vulnerable to a host of psychosocial maladjustment. Third, group membership was distinct by level of peer conformity. This may be related to the nature of online relationships that are non-face-to-face interactions, which makes perpetrating behavior much easier for youth through responsibility avoidance. Therefore, intervention programs should have a clear understanding of specific interpersonal processes in the online domain to increase effectivity.