A measure of attributions for peer victimization: psychometric properties and differences among bullying roles

ABSTRACT

Attributional processes about why outcomes occur constitute an important mediating mechanism that can explain different reactions of both the targets of harassment and their peers. The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of a measure of attributions for victimization among adolescents, using Confirmatory Factor Analyses, and to examine differences among roles (i.e., not involved, bullies, victims, bully-victims) in self-blame attributions, by means of testing invariance. The sample consisted of 1,207 adolescents (54% females; M_age = 14.89; SD = 1.39). The results showed a multidimensional structure of the scale with three factors (Characterological self-blame, Behavioral self-blame, and External Attribution). Partial invariance was found across different roles, highlighting a difference in the latent means of Characterological Self-Blame, higher in the victim group than in the other roles. The findings suggested how victims showed biases in their interpretations of social situations attributing the negative experience to internal, stable, and uncontrollable causes.

KEYWORDS:

• Attributions
• characterological self-blame
• victimization
• confirmatory factor analysis
• invariance

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the students and schools who participated in this study. Besides, the authors would like to thank Professor Sandra Graham for her collaboration in setting up the tool and for the advice given in drafting the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2024.2336333.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Additional information on instruments, and related psychometric properties, that assess attributions for peer victimization was reported in Supplementary materials.

Additional information

Funding

No external funding was received for this study.