Assessing schoolchildren's subjective well-being and how it is affected by being bullied

A Subjective Well-Being (SWB) of schoolchildren measure was developed to assess how
SWB is affected by being bullied. The design involved concurrent and longitudinal studies.
The sample for the concurrent design consisted of 390 pupils age 8-15 years. The repeated measures (longitudinal) study was carried out with 97 pupils, age 8-11 years, after a 10-month interval. The SWB questionnaire was delivered alongside pupil perception measures of being physically and verbally/indirectly bullied. The results show that levels of SWB were lower in the 'Bullied' as opposed to the 'Not Bullied' group, t (378) = 7.76, P = <.00. Within the Bullied group, increased levels of being bullied predicted lower SWB, r (300) = .32, P = .05. In the longitudinal study, Pupil's SWB was most strongly influenced by the degree and the recurrence of being bullied. Past experiences of being bullied, if not repeated, had little effect on current SWB. The nature of these relationships remained substantially unchanged when the covariates: Gender, Age, Ethnicity, Lie/Social Desirability, negative Control Beliefs about being bullied and past SWB, were included. Negative Control Beliefs refer to helpless and hopeless beliefs about being bullied. In conclusion, pupil SWB was inversely related to recent and repeated experiences of being bullied. Where the experience of being bullied was not repeated, the effect on a pupil's SWB lessened over time. Repeatedly bullied pupils are most likely to experience lower SWB.