There and back again from bully to victim and victim to bully : a reciprocal effects model of bullying behaviours in schools

Marsh, Parada, Craven and Finger (2004) were amongst the first to propose a reciprocal effects model in which being a bully leads to being a victim, and being a victim subsequently leads to being a bully. As such, the bully and victim roles cannot be seen as separate entities but rather as mutually reinforcing roles that co-occur. This paper extends those findings by examining whether this is the case for all forms of bullying, in particular verbal, physical and social/relational forms of bullying through the use of longitudinal structural equation models. A total of 3500 students attending NSW high schools were surveyed with a multidimensional measure of bullying behaviours at three time points during a single school year to examine their participation in bullying and victimising behaviours. Results, including the psychometric properties of the instruments and longitudinal structural equation models examining the reciprocal relation between specific forms of bullying and victimisation are presented. Implications for developing anti-bullying interventions are discussed.