The Mediating Effect of Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy on the Association between Self-Esteem and School Bullying in Middle School Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health 2018-05, Vol.15 (5), p.991
• Main Authors: Wang, Xiaoqin, Zhang, Yue, Hui, Zhaozhao, Bai, Wanyue, Terry, Paul D, Ma, Mei, Li, Yang, Cheng, Li, Gu, Wei, Wang, Mingxu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Adolescent; Adolescents; Aggressiveness; Alcohol; Antisocial personality disorder; Behavior; Bullying; Bullying - psychology; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Data processing; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male; Middle schools; Psychological factors; Public health; School environment; Schools; Self Concept; Self Efficacy; Self esteem; Statistical analysis; Students; Students - psychology; Studies; Suicides & suicide attempts; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers; Victimization
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph15050991

School bullying is negatively associated with self-esteem, but psychological mediators of bullying have yet to be clarified. We examined regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) as a possible mediator in the association between self-esteem and school bullying. A cross-sectional study of 995 adolescents was conducted in two middle schools of Xi'an. All of the participants completed the Chinese version of the School Bullying Experience Questionnaire (C-SBEQ), Self-Esteem Scale (SES), and Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RESE). Descriptive statistics analysis, the bias corrected percentile Bootstrap CI method, and structural equation modelling were used to analyze the data. The results showed that 418 students (42.0%) reported that they were involved in school bullying in the past year. Self-esteem was negatively associated with school bullying (total effect: β = -0.275, 95% CI = -0.381⁻-0.034), and RESE mediated the association between self-esteem and school bullying (indirect effect: β = -0.136, 95% CI = -0.245⁻-0.037). Furthermore, self-esteem had an indirect effect through perceived self-efficacy in managing negative affect, while self-esteem had no indirect effect through self-efficacy in the expression of positive affect. The present study suggests that school authorities and the related education departments should not only focus on improving students' self-esteem, but should also pay more attention to students' RESE, in order to mitigate, and potentially reduce, the occurrence of bullying.