BULLIED VICTIMS' COPING VIA DISCLOSURE: A PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNICATION AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Open Access
- Author:
- Matsunaga, Masaki
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 24, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Michael L Hecht, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Michael L Hecht, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James Dillard, Committee Member
Denise Haunani Solomon, Committee Member
Pui Wa Lei, Committee Member - Keywords:
- structural equation mixture modeling
Japan-U.S. comparison
family and interpersonal relationships
communication of coping
bullying
latent class/profile analysis - Abstract:
- The current research examined communication and interpersonal relationships of the individuals who have suffered from bullying, or persistent aggression or other forms of harm-doing enacted upon an individual in a powerless position, and their correlates. Specifically, how such bullied individuals share the information about their victimized status with others and the effectiveness of this disclosure as a coping strategy were investigated through three studies. Study 1 explored the assumption that parental misunderstanding of their children's experience of bullying marks a risk factor. The results showed that certain families are characterized by a larger child-parent discrepancy (i.e., children had experienced more bullying that their parents suspected) than others; moreover, such discrepancies were negatively associated with the children's post-bullying adjustment, providing evidence for the importance of disclosure to facilitate parental awareness of bullying. Study 2 more directly examined the underlying dynamics related to victims' disclosure decision-making. The analysis revealed that families' communicative orientation was related to victims' efficacy for disclosure and those efficacy perceptions are, in turn, associated with the likelihood for victims to disclose. This study also replicated past findings on the effectiveness of disclosure as a coping strategy such that those who had disclosed about bullying crisis had better subjective well-being than those who remained undisclosed. Finally, Study 3 compared the data collected from Japan and the U.S., and focused on how victims evaluate various types of support strategies elicited by their disclosure and also how this appraisal of received support lead to their subsequent motivation for further disclosure as well as post-bullying adjustment. The results suggest that emotional support is appreciated highly by both Japanese and U.S. Americans, whereas other strategies are less effective or even deteriorative. Notably, Japanese victims evaluated network support particularly negatively. These findings are discussed in the last chapter with regard to the potential contribution of the communication- and relationship-centered perceptive taken by the current research to the literature of bullying and the communication of information management. Directions for future research, as well as practical implications of the findings obtained through the three studies, are discussed along with the current studies’ major limitations.