Perception of the quality of attachment relationships, self esteem levels and bullying experiences in a sample of adolescents at social risk.

Genevieve A. Barb *

Abstract

For this study, a sample of 11 male adolescents (age 13 to 17 yrs.) at social risk that receive support from a local NGO, was selected from 24 de Diciembre county at Panama City, R.P.

The main objective of this reseach was to find an answer to the following question: ¿Is there any relationship between self-esteem levels from adolescents that have experienced bullying and the quality of their attachment relationships to their parents and peers?

Previous research in this area suggests that adolescents that report a worse perception in the quality of the attachment relationship to their parents and peers, will show lower self-esteem levels and will be more prone to suffer bullying experiences at their schools.

Introduction

Objectives

1. To determine the status of the bullying experiences lived by adolescents from the sample (victim, bully, witness, bully-victim or none).2. To measure self esteem levels in adolescents from the sample.3. To determine the quality of the attachment relationships in the adolescents from the sample with their parents and peers..4. To determine if self esteem levels and the quality of the attachment relationships are related.

Method

Instruments:1. Cuestionario de Maltrato por Abuso de Poder entre

Escolares (IDP-U, 2006) 2. Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965).3. Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden &

Greenberg ,1987/ trad. y val. Pardo et al. 2006

Procedure:

4. Six institutions that work with adolescents at social risk were contacted (2 NGO’s, 3 high schools and a church) to inform them about the study and ask for permission to work with their young.

5. Only one institution (NGO “Fundación Ayudando a Vivir”) approved the permission to start project with their adolescents. Due mainly to the researchers schedules, this was carried out on Saturday mornings during the months of August to November 2013.

6. Information from the adolescents that complied with the age and school criteria for the study (convenience sampling to ensure homogeneity) was included in a database.

7. Potential participants were appointed for group meetings in which they were explained about the objectives and purpose of the study, and emphasizing in the voluntary and non remunerable character of it. (25 adolescents expressed their interest in participating from the study.)

8. Due to logistic reasons, an assessment protocol was established for all the adolescents. It consisted of 4 sessions of 45mins. each one, once per week, for a period of four weeks.

9. At the end of every assessment session, a snack was offered to the adolescents.

Results

1. A total of 11 adolescents from an initial sample of 25 finished completing the assessment protocol in its whole (2 in a partial way and 12 did not present to any of the appointments scheduled and were considered to have abandoned the interest in participating in the study.

2. From the remaining 11 adolescents in the sample, only 9 completed answers regarding the IPPA father scale and sub scales. Due to this reason it was not considered for the data analysis for the whole group.

3. The adolescents that reported themselves as witnesses in a bullying situation, were found not to adopt a permanent witness role but to act both as a bully and a victim depending on the situation (in a lower frequency than acting exclusively as a witness, or solely as a bully or victim).

Analysis

Table 1 shows scores regarding witness (W), victim (V) and bully (B) status and self esteem (Au) for each subject respectively (n=11).Table 2 shows scores regarding IPPA subscales trust, communication and alienation for mother and peers respectively and scales for total attachment to mother (Total M) and peers (Total P).Due to sample size the data obtained were analyzed using the Spearman correlation coefficient, and the hypothesis was tested using an α=.10 for two tails.This analysis brought an r =0.7273 for the correlation existing between Total Peer attachment score and self esteem score. For the rest of the scales analyzed, r values found were in the range -0.5273 ≤ r ≤ 0.5273.

Because of the limitations of this study, it would be appropriate to recommend for future studies to use a larger sample and more diverse (attending to sex differences, schooling level, as well as considering private and public schools and instituitionalized adolescents in the sampling).Another recommendation will be to analyze if the idealized perception of the relationship of these adolescents with their mothers is related to their mind states with respect to attachment using other instruments like for example the AAI.

References

Acknowledgements

Contact Information

Balsells, M.A. (2003). La infancia en riesgo social desde la sociedad del bienestar. Teorías de la Educación en la Sociedad de la Información . 4, Artículo 4. Extraído el 25 de junio de 2013 de http://campus.usal.es/~teoriaeducacion/rev_numero_04/n4_art_balsells.htm .

Greenberg, M.T. (1999). Attachment and psychopathology in childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment theory and research pp. 469-496. New York:Guilford Press.

Herrera Santi, P. (1999) Factores de Riesgo Psicológicos y Sociales en el

Adolescente. Rev Cubana Pediatr 71(1):39-42

Immele, Annalies (2000) The Role of Adolescents’ Representatons of Attachment and Peer Relationships in the Prediction of Delinquency.Masters’ Thesis. University of Vrginia.

Olweus, D. (1998) Conductas de acoso y amenaza entre escolares. Madrid: Morata. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Violencia Escolar: El Maltrato Entre Iguales en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. 1999-2006 (2007). Defensor del Pueblo-Madrid: Defensor del Pueblo.

Weinfield, N.S., Sroufe, L.A., Egeland, B., & Carlson, E. (1999). The nature of individual differences in infant-caregiver attachment. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp.64-86). New York: Guilford Press.

To Fundación Ayudando a Vivir for their collaboration in the process of conducting this study, as well as to the following Psychology students from Universidad Interamericana de Panamá, that participated in the capture of the initial data and the assessments: Eugenia Díaz, Miroslava Ordóñez, Lilian García, Linette Govea, Karina Guizado, Gloria Reyna, Adelaida González and Katherinne Andrades.

An adolescent is considered to be at social risk if he/she belongs to an environment that presents economic, cultural, or inappropriate family climate, abnormal behaviors and other personal, social or family circumstances that affect caring and attention they receive (Herrera Santi, 1999), or if he/she is exposed to risk factors like circumstances that generate over the different socializing agents in adolescence, like for example, bullying (Balsells, 2003).

The typical bullying victim will be a more anxious and insecure student tan his/her classmates, (Olweus,1998) sensible, calm, with a low self esteem and generally with not a single good friend in class. Besides that, bullies tend to show a strong need to dominate and subdue other classmates and always get away with what they want, they’re impulsive, and easy to get angry, they don´t show any solidarity with their victimized peers and they’re defying and agressive with the adults, parents and teachers inclusive.It has been demonstrated that the quality of the attachment formed in a person will influence the appearing or not, of behavior problems in childhood and adolescence. (Immele, 2000)

Recommendations

(Table 1)Sujetos Total W Total V Total B Total Au

1 22 19 22 282 41 18 15 293 20 17 14 394 24 13 14 355 28 16 15 206 39 15 15 407 13 16 13 308 30 17 17 289 17 13 14 38

10 16 15 17 2311 21 13 15 24

(Table 2)Sujetos Trust M Comm MAlien M Total M Trust P Comm P Alien P Total P

1 37 37 16 58 36 26 23 392 42 35 22 55 43 30 21 523 46 41 21 66 44 26 25 454 41 39 25 55 37 33 27 435 46 33 20 59 35 21 29 276 46 41 22 65 50 39 16 737 30 25 24 31 34 18 27 258 45 31 22 54 38 24 18 449 40 31 26 45 50 36 23 63

10 35 35 24 46 36 15 26 2511 38 40 23 55 28 26 25 29

TestigoVíctimaAgresor

*Child and adolescent clinical psychologist / Associate professor School of Psychology UIP.E-mail: genevieve.barb@gmail.comCel. 507-6406-2327

Conclusions

The data analysis suggests a correlation existing between self esteem levels of these adolescents and the quality of the attachment reported with their peers.However the analysis between the attachment to the mother scale and its corresponding sub scales and the self esteem scores could suggest that these subjects may have an idealized perception of their relationship with their mothers.The aggressions and victimizations suffered among the subjects in a witness role in this sample could suggest that there may exist other factors besides self esteem levels in each one and the quality perceived in their relationships with their peers that can interfere in the occurrence of bully and victim behaviors.