Health & Fitness - Many teens resign themselves to bullying

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Many teens resign themselves to bullying

GRANADA, Spain (UPI) -- Many adolescents have "a negative, pessimistic and resigned attitude" toward bullying at school, researchers in Spain said.

Jesus Caurcel Cara, Fernando Justicia of the University of Granada in Spain, Ana Tomas Almeida of the Universidade do Minho in Portugal and colleagues, conducted a survey of 1,237 children ages 11-16 from Granada, Spain, and Braga, Portugal, to measure their perception of bullying.

The researchers said 7.3 percent of the students were victims, 8.5 percent were abusers and 84.1 percent of the children were an audience.

"Bullying is getting more and more integrated in the daily routine of interaction among groups of peers, is considered as something natural and has certain social approval," the researchers said.

Schoolchildren approve abusers' behavior and leave victims isolated and unprotected, the study found.

Children revealed in answering questionnaires the bullies characterized their victims as passive, socially incompetent, people who experience unpleasant emotional states of anxiety, depression and insecurity. The abuser is characterized as a strong, brave and extroverted person who experiences pleasant emotional states, feels power and self-confidence, reinforces status in the group and inhibit social motivations to end the abuses.

The findings are published in the Electronical Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, Revista de Educacion de la Universidad de Granada and the European Journal of Education and Psychology.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 11/01/2009

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