J Youth Adolescence DOI 10.1007/s10964-014-0094-y

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Beyond the Deficit Model: Bullying and Trajectories of Character Virtues in Adolescence Lacey J. Hilliard • Edmond P. Bowers • Kathleen N. Greenman • Rachel M. Hershberg • G. John Geldhof • Samantha A. Glickman Jacqueline V. Lerner • Richard M. Lerner



Received: 12 September 2013 / Accepted: 15 January 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Previous work on peer victimization has focused primarily on academic outcomes and negative indicators of youth involved in bullying. Few studies have taken a strength-based approach to examine attributes associated with bullies and victims of bullying. As such, we examined developmental trajectories of moral, performance, and civic character components, and their links to bully status using data from 713 youth (63 % female) who participated in Wave 3 (approximately Grade 7) through Wave 6 (approximately Grade 10) of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that moral character was stable across waves, whereas civic character increased slightly by Wave 6. Trajectories for performance character varied; some youth alternatively displayed positive versus negative growth. Youth who reported bullying behavior reported lower initial levels of moral, performance, and civic character as compared to youth not involved in bullying. Bully–victims reported lower initial levels of moral and civic character as compared to youth not involved in bullying. Implications

L. J. Hilliard  E. P. Bowers  K. N. Greenman  R. M. Hershberg  S. A. Glickman  R. M. Lerner (&) Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University, 309 Lincoln-Filene Building, Medford, MA 02155, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. J. Hilliard e-mail: [email protected] G. J. Geldhof Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA J. V. Lerner Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

for future work examining character-related components in the context of peer victimization are discussed. Keywords Peer victimization  Bullying  Character  Positive youth development  Relational developmental systems  Latent growth curve  Adolescence

Introduction Since the scientific study of adolescent development was launched through the publication of Hall’s (1904) book on this period of life, the deficit model of development remained across much of the next century an important, and often predominant, lens for theory and research (Lerner and Steinberg 2004). Purporting that the biological changes associated with puberty necessarily and universally created among youth a developmental disturbance involving the emergence of personal problems and socially problematic behaviors (e.g., Anthony 1969; Freud 1969), this deficit model regarded adolescents as ‘‘problems to be managed’’ (Roth and Brooks-Gunn 2003a, b). Despite evidence in the middle decades of the twentieth century (e.g., Bandura 1960; Douvan and Adelson 1966) that most youth showed developmental trajectories inconsistent with this deficit conception, another several decades would pass before a coherent model of adolescent development that offered a different, strength-based and positive model of adolescence, would crystallize (Larson 2000; Lerner et al. 2007, 2013). Positive Youth Development as a Framework for Positive and Negative Behavior The positive youth development (PYD) perspective was derived in large part from relational developmental systems

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theories (Overton 2013; Overton and Muller 2012) that emphasize that the basic process of adolescent development involves mutually influential relationships between the developing individual and the multiple levels of his or her changing context. These bidirectional relationships regulate the course of development (i.e., its pace, direction, and outcomes). History, or temporality, is part of the ecology of human development that is integrated with the individual through these developmental regulations. As such, there is always change and, as well, at least some potential for systematic change (i.e., for relative plasticity), across the life span (Baltes et al. 2006; Lerner 1984). Such plasticity represents a fundamental strength of the adolescent period (Lerner et al. 2009b), in that it reflects the potential that systematic changes may result in more positive functioning. Indeed, if adaptive developmental regulations emerge or can be fostered between young people and features of their context (e.g., the structure and function of his or her family, school, peer group, and community), then the likelihood will be increased that youth may thrive (that is, manifest healthy, positive developmental changes) across the adolescent decade. In short, predicated on developmental systems theories, the links among the ideas of relative plasticity, mutually beneficial (i.e., adaptive; Brandstatter 1998) developmental regulations, and thriving suggest that all young people have strengths that may be capitalized on to promote thriving across the adolescent years. There is growing evidence that the PYD perspective is a useful frame for understanding the processes linking youth and features of their context across the adolescent years and for accounting for outcomes of these individual-context relationships that are associated with features of positive development, for instance, the ‘‘Five Cs’’ of positive development (Competence, Confidence, Character, Connection, and Caring) and for the links between these ‘‘C’’s and other indicators of thriving, for example, a ‘‘sixth C,’’ of youth Contribution to self, family, school, and civil society (Lerner et al. 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013; Zaff et al. 2010). Moreover, early formulations of the PYD perspective (e.g., Pittman et al. 2001) contended that, as PYD would increase across adolescence, then problem behaviors would decrease across this period. However, data derived from the 4-H Study of PYD indicated that links between positive and problem or risk behaviors, although reflecting an overall inverse relationship, indicated also that the relationship was far from perfect (Gestsdottir and Lerner 2008; Jelicic et al. 2007; Lerner et al. 2005). In addition, studies of trajectories of positive and risk or problem behaviors across adolescence suggested that there were diverse patterns of change for both types of attributes and that some youth (e.g., girls) could have trajectories reflecting high levels of the Five Cs and

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Contribution and trajectories of problematic behavior and depressive symptoms (e.g., Phelps et al. 2007; Urban et al. 2009). In turn, Ma and her colleagues found that another problem behavior—bullying—was, under specific circumstances, linked to indicators of positive functioning. That is, studying youth from the first and second waves of the 4-H Study (approximately Grades 5 and 6), Ma et al. (2009a) found that the educational expectations of youth and school engagement interacted in fostering academic competence among bullies and victims of bullying. In turn, among youth from the first three waves of the 4-H Study (approximately Grades 5–7), Ma et al. (2009b) found that parent and teacher support independently and positively predicted self-perceived academic competence among both bullies and victims. The links between positive and problematic behaviors found in the 4-H Study data set have several implications for the PYD model and, as well, for applications derived from it. First, the development of positive characteristics of youth development does not imply for all youth that negative, problematic behaviors will therefore diminish in likelihood. Therefore, despite initial claims to the contrary (e.g., Pittman et al. 2001), extant data suggest that efforts to promote positive behaviors should not ignore the need to diminish problem behaviors. Youth development programs need to engage in efforts to both promote (positive attributes) and prevent (problematic attributes); prevention and promotion need to be coupled in a comprehensive approach to enhance health and psychosocial thriving among youth (Maggs and Schulenberg 2001; Schwartz et al. 2007). Therefore, the PYD model, although a strength-based conception of adolescence, does not eliminate the need to understand how the relational developmental system may function to create the basis for person–context relations that result in risk and problem behaviors in youth. Second, the nuances in connections between patterns of positive and problematic attributes across adolescence that have been found in the 4-H Study (Ma et al. 2009a, b; Phelps et al. 2007; Urban et al. 2009) suggest the need to explore further the potentially diverse ways in which positive and problematic attributes may be linked across adolescence. Indeed, such information will be vital in efforts to plan integrated promotion and prevention intervention programs derived from answers to complex questions such as ‘‘what positive attributes come together with what problematic attributes during what portions of adolescence?’’ The findings of Ma et al. (2009a, b) suggest that, at least for one problem behavior, bullying, links with indicators of positive functioning (academic performance) exist but vary in nuanced ways, that is, in regard to grade level and to facets of individual functioning (e.g., school engagement, expectations about academic success) and of

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context (e.g., social support from either parents or teachers). However, what remains unclear from the Ma et al. (2009a, b) findings regarding bullying-positive behavior links is why the links between problematic attributes and particular facets of positive attributes exist. For instance, why does bullying relate to, say, adult instances of social support but not to instances of peer social support (Ma et al. 2009b)? Other research related to risk behavior has demonstrated that problem behaviors tend to be interrelated and share common risk and protective factors (Donovan et al. 1991; Jessor 1991). The present study seeks to address this question and to extend the literature on the nature of the associations between positive and problematic attributes in adolescence. We use the 4-H Study data set and, again, focus on bullying. In turn, we assess also one specific facet of the Five Cs model of PYD—character—because we think that current scholarship about character presents the opportunity to derive hypotheses pertinent to the conditions under which the link between problematic attributes and positive attributes will exist. The Contemporary Study of the Development of Character Virtues Interest in character dates at least from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which discussed several moral virtues (e.g., courage, generosity, gentleness, honesty, justice, and fairness) associated with leading a good life. Nevertheless, scientific attention to character virtues has waxed and waned since the classic studies of honesty conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928). However, across the past 25 years there has been an increasing interest in this domain of human development (e.g., Damon 1988; Damon and Lerner 2008; Eisenberg et al. 2006; Lapsley and Narvaez 2006; Peterson and Seligman 2004). Particularly relevant for the present research is the model of character presented by Berkowitz (2011), which provides a means to differentiate among domains of character. For instance, character virtues1 such as empathy, fairness, trustworthiness, generosity, and compassion are aspects of the capacity for interpersonal relationships (Berkowitz 2011; Lickona and Davidson 2005; Nucci and Narvaez 2008). These qualities make up what Berkowitz (2011) and other researchers call ‘‘moral character.’’ In other words, moral character consists of virtues relevant to striving for ethical 1

In this article, we use the term ‘‘character virtues,’’ and not ‘‘character strengths,’’ although the latter term has been used in the literature as well (e.g., see Lapsley and Narvaez 2006). However, in the PYD literature, strengths are defined as developmental assets (Benson et al. 2011), and we elected not to assume that the attributes of character we were assessing were strengths. We chose to test their empirical relationships with indicators of positive development.

behavior in one’s relationships with other individuals and include attributes like empathy and integrity (Noddings 1994; Pratt et al. 2009; Walker and Pitts 1998). In turn, character virtues such as effort, initiative, diligence, and perseverance constitute the capacity to work well and productively (Duckworth and Seligman 2005; Farrington et al. 2012; Lickona and Davidson 2005). These qualities comprise ‘‘performance character,’’ as they enable individuals to thrive in an environment conducive to achievement (Seider et al. 2012). In other words, performance character consists of virtues that allow individuals to regulate their thoughts and actions in ways that support their personal achievement in a particular endeavor (Davidson et al. 2011; Seider et al. 2012; Sokol et al. 2010). Examples of such qualities include persistence and self-discipline. Scholars have also discussed character virtues related to civic character, that is, attributes such as social skills and social knowledge. These attributes thus enable responsible and engaged citizenship (Boston et al. 2005; Seider 2012; Shields 2011). In other words, civic character strengths consist of the qualities relevant to active and engaged citizenship and can be demonstrated through local or global community perspective and involvement (Boston et al. 2005; Seider 2012; Shields 2011). Although past research using the 4-H Study data set has studied character as part of the Five Cs, and treated this construct as global and undifferentiated, the differentiation in contemporary scholarship about character into virtues associated with morality, performance, and civic engagement enables us to suggest that there may be distinct associations between bullying and some, but not all, character virtues. As expressed by Berkowitz (2011) and Seider (2012) the attributes of performance character involve mastery and achievement by an individual and do not have the interpersonal fairness attributes associated with moral character or the interpersonal/social duty attributes associated with civic character. Indeed, Berkowitz and Puka (2009) have noted that performance character components are neither intrinsically good nor bad but rather ‘‘derivative of the ends toward which they are applied’’ (p. 108). In contrast, moral character strengths can be understood as ‘‘interpersonal ethical imperatives’’ that are intrinsically good independent of context (Berkowitz and Puka 2009, p. 108). In turn, civic character is associated with experiences that connect youth positively to others, and that can have a significant impact on youth to broaden their perspectives toward social action (Seider 2007). Thus, it may be that if an aspect of positive development is more individually oriented (as is the case with performance character) than interpersonally or socially oriented (as is the case with both moral and civic character), then links to bullying may be expected to be more

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likely. Indeed, we can hypothesize that high relationships between bullying and character virtues exist only in regard to performance virtues; there should be no or low relationships between moral or civic virtues and bullying. The nature of bulling by youth underscores the basis for these expectations. That is, youth bullying is inherently devoid of concern for the welfare of or fairness to others. Bullying constitutes peer victimization or peer harassment, and involves repeated, unprovoked, harmful actions by one youth or multiple youth towards others (Ma et al. 2009a, b; Olweus et al. 1999). The acts may be physical or psychological. Physical or direct bullying includes hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing items from other children, and engaging in very rough and intimidating play (Olweus et al. 1999). Psychological bullying includes name-calling, making faces, teasing, taunting, and making threats. Indirect or less obvious and less visible bullying includes exclusion and rejection of children from a group (Olweus 1991; Smith et al. 1999). Scholars of bullying further assert that an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim is essential to identifying bullying behavior and differentiating this behavior from other forms of aggression (Solberg and Olweus 2003). Victims are often put in a difficult position where they are unable to defend themselves or find solutions to the situations given the power imbalance. Considerations of the power dynamics in peer relationships are crucial to understanding the nature and impact of bullying behavior and victimization. Recent work has conceptualized the experience of bullying as a process, rather than isolated incidences (e.g., Espelage and Swearer 2003; Nickerson et al. 2005); this work is focused on identifying individual and contextual factors that may buffer the effects of victimization and help to understand youth who engage in bullying behavior. Although our measurement tools are limited in the current work to reported instances of behaviors, we nevertheless recognize the importance of recognizing the dynamic relationships between peers in our hypotheses and interpretations. Based on the PYD theoretical framework and the aforementioned work, we posit that scholars should aim to extend research beyond cataloguing negative outcomes of victimization, and instead, toward a more nuanced examination of youth who engage in and experience bullying behaviors.

The Current Study Accordingly, we propose to examine the links between bullying and character in adolescence by studying the development of performance, civic, and moral character in middle and high school aged youth in relation to their self-

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reported bullying status. We examined trajectories of, and possible interrelationships among, moral character, civic character, and performance character trajectories. We then assessed if bullying (or being in another category of bullying—victim, bully–victim; Olweus et al. 1999) was differentially associated with the trajectories for the three character types. We used the 4-H Study data set, assessing participants across Wave 3 (approximately Grade 7) to Wave 6 (approximately Grade 10). Bullying status from Wave 3 was used to correlate with the character trajectories. This time period of adolescence was chosen given the peak of bullying experiences in the middle school years, though persistence of bullying behavior continues throughout the high school years; that is, direct, physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school, whereas verbal abuse remains constant across high school (Robers et al. 2010). A recent nationwide survey showed that about 25 % of public schools reported that bullying occurred among students on a daily or weekly basis; middle schools reported daily or weekly occurrences of bullying, a higher frequency than primary and high schools (Eaton et al. 2010). Thus, our sample represented youth who may be likely to be engaging in and/or experiencing frequent peer victimization. We predicted that the character trajectories would vary by bully type. Specifically, it was hypothesized that bullying would be negatively associated with moral and civic character trajectories, but would be related to performance character trajectories, given the nature of this type of character and findings that bullies display performance character strengths (Sutton et al. 1999). We also expected that youth not involved in bullying would exceed bullies in civic and moral character domains. We made no predictions, however, regarding bully–victims (i.e., youth that report high levels of both bullying behavior and instances of being bullied).

Method Full details of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development have been presented elsewhere (Lerner et al. 2005, 2009a, b, 2010, 2011). Therefore, we present here only the features of the methods relevant to the present research, which includes data from Waves 3 through 6. A discussion of the overall method of the 4-H Study is provided in the introductory article of this special issue (Bowers et al. in press). Participants Our sample in Wave 3 included 713 youth, 90.4 % of whom were in 7th Grade. These youth were 63.3 % female,

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with a mean age of 12.98 years (SD = 0.51). Of the youth who reported their race, 70.4 % were European American, 8.6 % were Latino/a, 8.3 % were African American, 4.0 % were Asian American, 4.3 % were Multiracial, and 2.0 % were American Indian. An additional 24.8 % of the sample did not provide information on their race. Our sample in Wave 4 included 657 youth, 92.6 % of whom were in 8th Grade. These youth were 63.0 % female, with a mean age of 14.06 years (SD = 0.59). Of the youth who reported their race, 71.5 % were European American, 8.7 % were Latino/a, 9.8 % were African American, 4.7 % were Asian American, 3.2 % were Multiracial and 2.0 % were American Indian. Our sample in Wave 5 included 567 youth, 91.4 % of whom were in 9th Grade. These youth were 63.3 % female, with a mean age of 15.05 years (SD = 0.60). Of the youth who reported their race, 64.8 % were European American, 12.4 % Latino/a, 9.6 % were African American, 4.8 % were Asian American, 3.0 % were Multiracial and 2.8 % were American Indian. An additional 39.3 % of the sample did not provide information on their race. Our sample in Wave 6 included 580 youth, of whom 79.0 % were in 10th Grade. These youth were 67.2 % female, with a mean age of 15.98 years (SD = 0.77). Of the youth who reported their race, 74.6 % were European American, 8.0 % Latino/a, 8.0 % were African American, 2.8 % were Asian American, 3.3 % were Multiracial and .7 % were American Indian. An additional 38.0 % of the sample did not provide information on their race. Measures Bullying Status We used the two global questions from the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire (Olweus 1996) to assess an adolescent’s bullying status. The Olweus Bullying Questionnaire is, arguably, the most widely used tool for studying school bullying and has good psychometric properties (Solberg and Olweus 2003). As suggested by Olweus (1996), we provided a short and readable introductory paragraph to describe the main characteristics of bullying, including power imbalance and intention to hurt. The common formats of bullying, such as physical attack, cruel teasing, and social exclusion, were also described in the introduction paragraph. We then presented the two global questions about bullying: (1) ‘‘How often have you taken part in bullying another child or other children?’’ and (2) ‘‘How often have you been bullied?’’ in the past couple of months. Response alternatives are ‘‘never,’’ ‘‘only once or twice,’’ ‘‘two or three times a month,’’ ‘‘about once a week,’’ and ‘‘several times a week.’’

Following the ‘‘two or three times a month’’ cutoff point suggested by Solberg and (Olweus 2003), answers to these two bullying questions were recoded into two dichotomous variables: ‘‘bullying peers’’ and ‘‘being bullied by peers.’’ ‘‘Bullying peers’’ = 1, if the answer to the first bullying question is ‘‘two or three times a month,’’ ‘‘about once a week,’’ or ‘‘several times a week;’’ and if the answer to the first question is ‘‘never’’ or ‘‘only once or twice,’’ ‘‘bullying peers’’ = 0. Similarly, ‘‘being bullied by peers’’ = 1, if the answer to the second bullying question is ‘‘two or three times a month,’’ ‘‘about once a week,’’ or ‘‘several times a week;’’ if the answer to the second question is ‘‘never’’ or ‘‘only once or twice,’’ ‘‘bullying peers’’ = 0. In the 4-H Study data set, the bullying questions demonstrated good validity (Ma et al. 2009a). Higher scores on question 1 were correlated with higher problem behaviors, such as alcohol and drug use (r = .34, p \ .01); higher delinquency (r = .41, p \ .01); higher levels of depressive symptoms, as indexed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (Radloff 1977; r = .22, p \ .01); and lower sympathy, as indexed by Eisenberg’s Sympathy Scale (Eisenberg et al. 1996; r = -.16, p \ .01). In turn, higher scores on the second question were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms (r = .25, p \ .01); lower social competence (r = -.22, p \ .01); and lower self-worth, as indexed by the Self-Perception Profile for Children, (SPPC, Harter 1988; r = -.15, p \ .01). These correlations are consistent with the literature, and thus provide evidence for the validity of the two questions about experiences of bullying peers and being bullied by peers (Nansel et al. 2001; Smith et al. 1999). Three dummy variables were created to indicate an adolescent’s bullying status: Bully (being a bully vs others), Victim (being a victim vs others), and Bully–Victim (being a bully and a victim vs others). The reference group for these dummy variables is the comparison group, ‘‘none of the above.’’ Although the study of the heterogeneity of members of the comparison group, who are not directly involved in bullying, is an interesting topic (O’Connell et al. 1999; Smith 2004), it is beyond the scope of the present study. As such, there are potentially four bullying statuses measured in this study: bully, victim, bully–victim, and comparison group.

Character We selected specific scales—described below—to represent components of moral, performance, and civic character. These items reflect the RDS framework, focusing not only on person-centered attributes, but also on attributes that reflect bidirectional person–context interactions.

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Moral Character Moral character was measured by six items from the Behavioral Conduct subscale form the SelfPerception Profile for Adolescence (Harter 1988). This questionnaire assesses adolescents’ perceptions of components of self-concept. Youth are asked to record which of two statements is most like them, and then rate how true that statement is for them. Each item receives a score of 1–4, and responses are averaged within each subscale. The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.78. The Behavioral Conduct subscale measures the degree to which adolescents do the right thing, act the way they are supposed to, and avoid getting in trouble. An example of an item from the Behavioral Conduct scale is ‘‘Some teenagers usually do the right thing BUT Other teenagers often don’t do the right thing.’’ Performance Character Performance character is defined by persistence, self-discipline, and regulation; therefore, items assessing orientation to and persistence in tasks provide an appropriate index of performance character. To assess this attribute, we used the Task Orientation subscale from the child (self) version of the Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey (DTOR-S; Windle and Lerner 1986). An example item from the Task Orientation subscale is ‘‘Once I am involved in a task, nothing can distract me from it.’’ For each item, participants responded using a four-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = usually false to 4 = usually true. The sum of the items for each subscale provides three temperament subscale scores. The Task Orientation subscale has a maximum score of 32 and is coded such that a higher score indicates greater persistence and lower distractibility. Cronbach’s alpha for Waves 3 through 6 were and 0.77, .78, .81, and .80, respectively. Civic Character Civic character was measured using 12 items that were weighted and summed to create a composite score of contribution, as used in prior research derived from the 4-H Study (Bowers et al. 2011; Jelicic et al. 2007). These items were from four scales: leadership, service, helping, and ideology. Items from the leadership, service, and helping scales measured the frequency of time youth spent helping others (e.g., friends or neighbors), providing service to their communities, and acting in leadership roles; together, the leadership, service, and helping subsets comprise an action component of Contribution. The ideology scale measured the extent to which contribution was an important facet of participants’ identities (e.g., ‘‘It is important to me to contribute to my community and society’’). These items are derived from existing instruments with known psychometric properties and used in large-scales studies of adolescents, that is, the Profiles of Student Life-Attitudes and Behaviors Survey (PSL-AB; Leffert et al. 1998) and the Teen Assessment

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Project Survey Question Bank (TAP; Small and Rodgers 1992). The action and ideology components are weighted equally to calculate the civic character scores. Cronbach’s alphas range from .69 to .73. Procedure In Waves 1 through 3 of the 4-H Study, data collection from youth was conducted by trained study staff or, at more distant locations, hired assistants. A detailed protocol was used to ensure that data collection was administered uniformly and to ensure the return of all study materials. After Wave 1, youth who were absent on the day of the survey or were from schools or programs that did not allow on-site testing were contacted by e-mail, mail, or phone, and were asked to complete and return the survey to us. Beginning in Wave 5, youth completed the survey online unless they requested a paper survey. Parents completed online or paper surveys. Paper surveys were delivered to their homes by their children or through the mail (in the latter case, return postage was provided). Analyses In this article, we discuss self-reported bullying status and its relationship to the joint development of performance, civic, and moral character across four waves of the 4-H Study (Waves 3 through 6; see Lerner et al., this volume for details). We examined these relationships by fitting a three-trajectory latent growth curve model (LGCM) that specified separate quadratic growth trajectories for the three instantiations of character described above. Each trajectory included random intercepts and random linear slopes, but fixed (i.e., not random) quadratic slopes. To ensure that the fit of our model was not biased by misfit of the data covariance matrix (for a discussion, see Wu et al. 2009), we freely estimated single-lag autoregressive correlations for all indicators and estimated covariances between all indicators measured within each wave to account for potential time of testing effects (e.g., we estimated covariances between Wave 4 moral character, civic character, and performance character). We ensured that this model sufficiently fit our data before additionally modeling the items’ mean structure. Nonsignficant means and level-two variances for our growth parameters were then constrained to zero using a series of single-degree-of-freedom likelihood ratio tests. We then added self-reported bullying status at Wave 3 as a leveltwo variable to determine if bullying was significantly related to participants’ initial levels of character (as approximated by the random intercepts) or to the rate of the character measures’ development (i.e., the random linear slopes).

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Results The initial covariance structure model displayed adequate fit (v2(24) = 39.89, p = .022; RMSEA = .01, 90 % CI [.01, .02]; CFI = 1.00; TLI = .99; BIC = 85,716.09), suggesting that fit for our LGCM would not be biased by misfit of the data covariance matrix. The addition of a mean structure to this model significantly decreased model fit (Dv2(3) = 68.07, p \ .001; DBIC = 43.23), however, suggesting that quadratic growth trajectories were not sufficient to describe our data’s mean structure. Examination of the standardized residuals and modification indices suggested an additional fixed linear slope for the development of moral character during Waves 5 and 6, and a model with this additional parameter fit the data statistically as well as our covariance structure model (Dv2(2) = 0.73, p = .694; DBIC = -15.825). We then constrained the variance of the linear moral and civic character slopes to zero and constrained the mean slope of the moral character trajectory to zero without significantly altering our model’s fit (i.e., p for all Dv2(1) tests [.001; BIC decreased after each constraint was added).2 Details of our final LGCM are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 presents the estimated means and variance for our growth trajectories and supplement the visual representations of our growth trajectories presented in Figs. 1, 2, 3. As these results show, moral character was generally stable across the four years considered, whereas civic character increased slightly in Wave 6. The trajectories for performance character varied such that some individuals alternatively displayed positive versus negative growth. Table 2 complements the information in Table 1 and our figures by presenting the estimated correlations among all freely varying latent growth parameters. This table shows a relatively high correlation among all three random intercepts, which, when taking the intercepts as a rough proxy for initial standing on the three variables, suggests that participants who scored higher on one of the character measures at Wave 3 also tended to score higher on the other forms of character. Only the linear slope of performance character significantly varied across participants and, although this slope did not strongly correlate with the intercepts for civic or moral character, the random slope displayed a strong negative correlation with the random intercept of performance character. Thus, participants who started higher on performance character tended to display lower (potentially negative) linear slopes on that same variable. Similarly, participants who started lower on performance character tended to have higher slopes. These

2

All analyses initially included tests for gender differences. None were found, and therefore we report no results linked to gender.

Table 1 Means and variances for growth parameters Parameter

Mean (SE)

Variance (SE)

Intercept Moral

3.06 (.01)***

0.18 (.01)***

Performance

21.50 (.10)***

11.46 (2.59)***

Civic

55.93 (.36)***

163.82 (7.31)***

0.00 (fixed)

0.00 (fixed)

Linear slope Moral Performance

-0.89 (.16)***

1.64 (.58)***

Civic

-1.17 (.49)*

0.00 (fixed)

-0.16 (.02)***

0.00 (fixed)

0.24 (.05)*** 0.65 (.16)***

0.00 (fixed) 0.00 (fixed)

0.70 (.06)***

0.00 (fixed)

Quadratic slope Moral Performance Civic Spline slope Moral

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

Table 2 Correlations among growth parameters 1 1. Intercept—moral

2

3

1.00

2. Intercept—civic

0.53***

1.00

3. Intercept— performance

0.54***

0.42***

4. Slope—performance

4

-0.13*

-0.01

1.00 -0.57***

1.00

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

Civic Character 80 70 60 50 40 3

4

5

6

Wave Fig. 1 Development of civic character. Lines indicate the mean trajectory and trajectories with intercepts ±1 SD from the mean

results may suggest regression to the mean and should be further examined in subsequent research. In our last stage of analysis we tested whether selfreported bullying status at Wave 3 significantly correlated with the random growth parameters in our model. This final model displayed acceptable fit (v2(65) = 103.59, p \ .001; RMSEA = .02, 90 % CI [.01, .02]; CFI = .98; TLI = .97) and suggested very weak correlations between bullying status and our growth parameters. Table 3 presents all

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correlations from this model and shows that being a selfreported bully negatively correlated with overall selfreported levels of character (i.e., the random intercepts). As with the negative correlation between the intercept and slope of performance character, the slope of performance character also weakly, but positively, correlated with being a self-reported bully.

Discussion Bullying is recognized as a significant issue affecting youth, and it is thus imperative to examine youth Moral Character

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 3

4

5

6

Wave Fig. 2 Development of moral character. Lines indicate the mean trajectory and trajectories with intercepts ±1 SD from the mean

Performance Character

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 3

4

5

6

Wave Fig. 3 Development of performance character. Lines indicate the mean trajectory and trajectories with intercepts and slopes ±1 SD from the mean. Note that the intercept and slope were negatively correlated in our results and the downward trajectory shown does not necessarily reflect any single participant’s data

Table 3 Correlations between self-reported bullying and growth parameters

1. Intercept—moral 2. Intercept—civic 3. Intercept—performance 4. Slope—performance

Bully

Victim

Bully–Victim

-.22***

-.06

-.17***

**

-.11

***

-.16

.12*

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

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.00

-.09**

-.01

-.06

.00

.03

experiences and the characteristics of those affected by bullying and peer victimization. The aim of the current study was to explore the links between bullying and character in adolescence by examining the development of performance, civic, and moral character in middle and high school aged youth related to their self-reported bullying status. Specifically, we examined the trajectories and relationships among moral, civic, and performance character and if bully status was differentially associated with these character types. Bullying Status and Character Virtues Our results indicate that across middle adolescence, youth moral character was relatively stable, whereas civic character increased slightly by Wave 6, and some young people reported decreases or increases in performance character. These results indicate that in general youth consistently see themselves as relatively doing right or wrong actions across middle adolescence, but they report slight increases in behaviors reflective of active citizenship. In turn, some youth reported increases in their ability to maintain focus on a task, whereas others reported a loss in task orientation over middle adolescence. Findings showed that bullying status correlated with initial levels of all three types of character and the slope of performance character. Youth who reported being bullies reported lower initial levels of moral, civic, and performance character as compared to youth not involved in bullying. Bully–victims reported lower initial levels of moral and civic character as compared to youth not involved in bullying. Bullies, on the other hand, reported increases in performance character over time. That is, youth identified as bullies were less likely than youth not involved in bullying to report behaving well and treating others well (moral-related character), and persisting and staying focus on a task (performance-related character), and thinking and acting to contribute to their communities (civic-related character). Similarly, youth who reported being bullies and being bullied by others (bully–victims) reported lower levels of moral and contribution thoughts and behaviors than youth not engaged in bullying situations. There were no differences in initial levels or changes in moral, civic, or performance character between victims and youth not involved in bullying. Of note is the finding that bullies tended to show more positive slopes for performance character than youth not involved in bullying. It is possible that this finding reflects motivations for bullying in middle school that have been insufficiently researched in the bullying literature. Specifically, if bullies have lower performance character when they report occupying bully statuses, their bullying behaviors may be a form of externalizing negative

J Youth Adolescence

behaviors in response to poor academic skills and low achievement (Anderson et al. 2002). Moreover, as research has shown, when youth are struggling academically, they are also likely to be experiencing low self-esteem and other negative socio-emotional consequences (e.g., van Lier et al. 2012). In this study, we only captured youth bullying statuses at one time point in 7th Grade. It is therefore possible that the youth who self-identified as bullies in 7th Grade adopted more adaptive social roles and experiences later in adolescence. Thus, the 7th Grade bully with low performance character in this study may have become a mature and caring 10th Grader with high levels of performance character. The evidence of growth in performance character may very well explain the pathway to changing bullying statuses throughout adolescence—an area of bullying research that deserves further exploration. Likewise, the link between youth bullying behavior and performance character may reflect misdirected strengths in use and provide further evidence that youth can hold positive and negative characteristics simultaneously (e.g., controversial peer status; Newcomb et al. 1992; problematic behaviors; Arbeit et al., this volume). Findings related to bully status and character thus illustrate the importance of understanding the diversity of adolescence and assumptions about behavior and strengths. Given the heterogeneity of youth who report bullying, many of these youth may show high community engagement, have a high moral orientation, or show diligence in school. One might suspect that maintaining a higher peer status (a component in defining bullies; Solberg and Olweus 2003) may necessitate these high character virtues in an effort to advance themselves and gain or hold their status. Therefore, a more nuanced and comprehensive examination of these character virtues and how they are expressed is necessary. Harnessing youth performance character attributes through positive contexts, skilled mentorship, and other important non-parental adult youth relationships (e.g., with a coach, teacher, minister, aunt, uncle) may help youth use these characteristics as strengths; adult mentors may then be able to decrease the time youth spend bullying and increase youth potential to contribute positively to their contexts. Character Virtue Trajectories Regardless of whether youth reported increases or decreases in performance character over time, initial performance character at Wave 3 was significantly related to initial moral and civic character. That is, participants who reported higher levels of one type of character at Wave 3 tended to report high levels of the other forms of character as well. In turn, participants who reported higher levels of moral character

were also more likely to report lower slopes of performance character over time. Similarly, participants who reported higher levels of performance character at Wave 3 reported lower slopes in performance character. It appears that youth view whether they are behaving well or poorly, and how they treat others, as stable across these years of adolescence. This finding is potentially concerning for youth who bully as it seems that young people do not view themselves as changing in fundamental ways. The results of these trajectory analyses are consistent with prior work with data derived from the 4-H Study. For example, prior research has shown that overall PYD is relatively stable across time (Urban et al. 2009), just as youth in our study did not report significant changes in our index of moral character over middle adolescence. In addition, prior work examining trajectories of intentional self regulation (Bowers et al. 2011) found that some youth reported increases in performance character over middle adolescence, although other youth reported decreases in performance character. Further, we found that youth showed an increase in their attitudes and abilities to civically engage in their communities and to contribute positively over time. This finding is consistent with prior work on active and engaged citizenship (Zaff et al. 2011). Perhaps as youth mature, they are exposed to new ideas and opportunities to contribute to their contexts. As these experiences increase, youth may view themselves as more competent and able to effect change. Some youth also reported increases in performance character over the four waves. As these youth progressed through middle adolescence, they reported higher persistence and lower distractibility when completing tasks. Certain youth, however, reported decreases in task orientation over time. Future work should examine possible intraindividual and interindividual correlates of these changes over time. New opportunities and domains encountered by youth as they progress through adolescence may promote or hinder their ability to persist and maintain focus on their goals. Our hope would be that well-designed classroom and out-of-school time activities could be identified that promote the positive changes reported by youth in both performance and civic character. We did not find correlations between changes in the three types of youth-reported character. This finding thus poses a challenge to researchers and practitioners to describe, explain, and optimize adolescent development such that each seem to represent unique components of character. In his work with three schools that have explicit foci on moral-, performance-, and civic-related components, Seider (2012) found that each school had levels of success that differed according to the specific school-wide emphasis. These schools’ achievements demonstrate the successful promotion of positive qualities in youth through

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domain-specific initiatives, yet nonetheless highlight the challenge of developing domain-general character education programs. Our results indicated that participants who reported higher initial levels of moral character were also more likely to report a very small, but significant decrease in the slope of performance character over time. Similarly, participants who reported higher levels of performance character at Wave 3 reported smaller slopes in performance character. One could also argue that our results indicate that the three types of character are interrelated as initial levels are strongly correlated and the changes we report are minor and may be practically insignificant. Future work should examine additional indices of each type of character as the associations we see may be due to the use of instruments not designed specifically to index these types of character and that each index was based on youth selfreported items. In addition, there were no gender differences found in the present analyses. Nonetheless, future research should explore whether individual differences related to gender or background might exist in different samples, especially ones that involve measurement models other than the one involved in the present research. Limitations of and Implications Beyond the Current Study Findings showed that youth who engaged in bullying behavior demonstrated lower levels character virtues at the initial assessment. In addition, youth moral character stayed fairly constant over time, civic character showed an increase over time, and performance character was variable over time. Although findings from the current study add valuably to our understanding of the function of character virtues among youth across bully and victim subtypes, we were necessarily methodologically limited by a reliance on youth self-report. More confidence in such findings could be gained by using a multi-informant approach or qualitative methods to more fully capture both the experience of bullying, to provide a more in-depth assessment of moral, performance, and civic character, and to capture the process of bullying experiences and peer relations. Despite the limitations, the current work has important implications for programs and policies. Previous work in the study of bullying has focused on negative associations for those who engage in bullying. The current work is grounded in the positive youth development framework which, instead, posits that all youth (regardless of label) have strengths that can be leveraged toward success. Thus, findings from the current investigation suggest that work on peer relations should examine individual profiles of students related to having attributes such as being fair and just, thorough and persistent, and community- and civic-

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minded. Schools and youth programs addressing bullying behavior should use these profiles and individual characteristics to help youth develop the skills to effectively capitalize on their strengths toward behavioral change and positive peer communities.

Conclusion The aims of the current study were to examine character type trajectories and how bullying statuses may relate to these trajectories across middle to high school, a developmental period marked by high instances of bullying. Youth who reported being bullies and being bullied by others (bully–victims) reported lower levels of moral and civic character, and bullies reported more positive slopes for performance character than youth not involved in bullying. These findings highlight both the importance of further examining components of character and children’s moral, performance, and civic engagement, and the utility of optimizing such developmental assets to promoting positive development among adolescents who bully and who are bullied. In this article, we have helped to identify factors at work in exploring character strengths in youth involved in bullying behavior across adolescence. The present work builds on the principles of PYD and developmental systems approaches insofar as that all young people have strengths that may be capitalized on to promote thriving across the adolescent years. Acknowledgments This research was supported in part by grants from the National 4-H Council, the Altria Corporation, the Thrive Foundation for Youth, and the John Templeton Foundation. Author contributions L.J.H. conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript; E.P.B. participated in the design, interpretation of the data, and writing of the manuscript; K.N.G. participated in the design and helped draft the manuscript; R.M.H. participated in the design and helped draft the manuscript; G.J.G. performed the statistical analysis and helped draft the manuscript; S.A.G. helped draft the manuscript; J.V.L. is the scientific director of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, helped conceive this article, and participated in the design; R.M.L. is the PI of the 4-H Study, helped conceive this article, and assisted in drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Lacey J. Hilliard is a research assistant professor at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Her work integrates the study of positive youth development and gender roles.

and Educational Psychology from Boston College. His research interests include a focus on important non-parental adults and the various ways that these adults can promote positive development in young people. Kathleen N. Greenman is a doctoral student at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Her research interests involve the study of positive youth development and socioemotional development. Rachel M. Hershberg is a research assistant professor and qualitative methodologist in the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Her research focuses on positive development and on the development of critical consciousness in diverse and migrant youth in the US. G. John Geldhof is an assistant professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University. His research emphasizes the integration of diverse theoretical approaches to selfregulation and examines how self-regulation develops across the life span. Samantha A. Glickman graduated Tufts University with a BA in Child Development and Community Health. Samantha is currently a 2013 Teach for America Corps member working at a Headstart school and is pursuing a Masters in Special Education through Loyola Marymount University. Jacqueline V. Lerner is a professor of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology in the Department of Counseling, Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests focus on the development of children and adolescents in the contexts of family, school and community, and the embedded relationships in these contexts that contribute to positive development. Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. He received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York. His work integrates the study of public policies and community-based programs with the promotion of positive youth development and youth contributions to civil society.

Edmond P. Bowers is a research assistant professor at Tufts University. He received his doctorate in Applied Developmental

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Beyond the deficit model: bullying and trajectories of character virtues in adolescence.

Previous work on peer victimization has focused primarily on academic outcomes and negative indicators of youth involved in bullying. Few studies have...
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