Examining the Correlation between Perceived Social Support in Adolescence and Bullying in Terms of Prediction.

Introduction To date, bullying is a problem that has increased and has to be prevented in schools. Generally, bullying has many definitions: it is defined as a person or a group of people doing harm (Ada, 2010; Andreou, 2001) intentionally (Hector, Barrios, Dios, Montero, & Barrio, 2008) and embarrassing someone repeatedly (Ayas & Pikin, 2011; Barboza, Schiamberg, Oehmke, Korzeniewski, Post-Lori, & Heraux, 2008; O'Connell, & Debra, 1999; Pikin, 2010), on purpose (Gokler, 2009) to show so-called dominance or power over weak ones (Bilgic & Yurtal, 2009; Smith, 2004). As for the other researchers, it is argued that bullies are the students who draw attention and can be provoked without any impulsion and there must be a harmful behavior if we call it as bullying. Thus, we cannot consider all the aggressive behaviors as bullying; the definition generally needs (1) acting without any reason (O'Connell, & Debra, 1999), and (2) repeated and intentional behavior. Bullying has three types of people in terms of participation: the bully, the victim (the bullied) and the bystander (Andreou, 2001; Smith, 2004). Apart from all of these, there is another role in bullying issue; the bully-victim (Bollmer, Harris & Milich, 2005). Bullying has two main sides: direct bullying and indirect bullying. The first is related to physical sides of bullying (hitting, kicking and threatening someone etc.); the latter is related to the social conditions of people (spreading rumors, not giving permission to be involved in a group or a game, teasing or nicknaming etc.). According gender aspect, girls generally prefer to use indirect bullying (Nansel et al. 2001) and it is certain in most of the research that boys are more likely to bully (generally using physical form of bullying) and to be victims than girls (who generally prefer to use verbal bullying) (Aksaray, 2011; Ayas & Pikin, 2011; Aypay & Durmu, 2008; O'Connell, & Debra, 1999; Ozkan & Ciftci, 2010). However, little research has been carried out on the roles of supporting bullying so far (Holt & Espelage, 2006). In addition, social support when giving adolescents' for facing the difficulties and measurement of social support have not been studied widely (Malecki & Elliot, 1999). Focuses of interests are generally on family and peers. Parental effects certainly appear in most of the characteristics of a person. If a child or an adolescent expose to physical violence, s/he will probably show much more aggression than their peers having a good family relationships (Spriggs, Lannotti, Nansel, & Haynie, 2007) as the violence is modeled by the adolescents. Besides, parents' overprotection towards children and adolescents and lack of warming behaviors are other factors for victimization. In most cases, the roles of peers in adolescents' lives are inevitable. According to a research, uncared adolescents receive less social support among their peers (Malecki & Elliot, 1999). The research question is as follows: 1. What is the strength (capacity) of the multi dimensional support level in terms of bullying? Method Participants The population in this study was selected among the students of Kayseri High School, Mimar Sinan Vocational High School and Zubeyde Harem Girls' High School in Turkey. In the process of determining the sample, a relational scanning model was used and the sample consists of the students and high schools. The sample of this study included a total of 283 students; 112 (39.6%) female and 171 (60.4%) male students, which were selected using the disciplines students from disciplinary punishments. The schools being included in this study were chosen among the students who were received disciplinary punishments by disciplinary committees in schools. Instruments Determining Bully-Victims Scale: In this study, 'Determining Bully-Victims Scale' which was developed by Mynard and Joseph (2000) was used to determine the participants' levels of bullying exposure. …