Outside-in: How Bullying in Adolescence Gets Into The Mind and Under the Skin

Project Information

Outside-In

Grant agreement ID: 853517

DOI

10.3030/853517

Project closed

EC signature date 7 May 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 28 February 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 494 044,00

EU contribution

€ 1 494 044,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Outside-In (Outside-in: How Bullying in Adolescence Gets Into The Mind and Under the Skin)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Being bullied is a major stressor for many adolescents and it is recognized as a public health concern worldwide. Adolescents who are exposed to bullying are at increased risk for mental and physical health problems, which could even perpetuate into adulthood. Unfortunately, current understandings of how bullying can pose such deleterious effects remain poor, thus limiting our ability to inform prevention and intervention efforts. This project addresses this fundamental gap and substantially extends prior research in two unique ways. First, this project examines fine-grained processes as they occur within adolescents in real-time in their real-life as a crucial pathway for uncovering mechanisms underlying the negative effects of bullying. Second, this project adopts a multilevel perspective to examine the dynamic interplay between multiple psychological and biological processes and how they unfold over time. In this regard, we examine the possibility that bullying influences gene expression processes resulting in a gene expression profile that increases risk for health problems. In a first study, we use a longitudinal measurement burst design, allowing us to examine how bullying exposure can influence within-person processes over time at the daily level. We assess psychological (e.g. emotional) and physiological (e.g. HPA-axis) functioning in situ, and we will use transcriptional profiling to examine how gene expression changes over adolescence as a function of bullying. In a second study, we utilize data from the Netherlands Twin Register to identify monozygotic twins who differ from each other in their history of victimization in adolescence and examine their gene expression profiles in early adulthood, while accounting for genetic confounds. Together, this research will offer unprecedented insights about short- and long-term interplays between psychological, physiological and molecular processes through which bullying may get into the mind and under the skin.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Outside-In consists of 2 studies including a total of three workpackages (WPs).

- Study 1 (WP1 and 2). We have collected the first three waves of data (wave 4 is currently ongoing) in a sample of 440 adolescents from 12 secondary schools. At each wave, we have collected different types of data.
First, consistent with WP2, at each wave we have collected: a) questionnaire data, with a specific focus on peer relationships and (mental) health, b) peer nomination data and c) autonomic nervous system activity at rest. Most importantly, at wave 1 (and currently in the ongoing wave 4) dried blood spots were collected. At the end of wave 4, all these samples will be used to carry out gene expression analyses.
Second, consistent with WP1, in the first three waves, we have carried out a daily life assessment in a subsample of participants. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to assess emotional processes and social experiences in participants’ daily life, each time over the course of 2 weeks. Moreover, at wave 1 and 3, physiological processes in daily life were also assessed, including saliva samples and autonomic nervous system activity. Cortisol levels have been assayed from all saliva samples for both waves of data collection. Initial descriptive analyses support the validity of this data which are now being prepared to examine the effects of bullying victimization on changes over time in diurnal cortisol levels.

- Study 2 (WP3). We have refined the study procedures and protocol and we have submitted an application to the medical ethical committee (2nd revision has being resubmitted). We plan to start this study within the next couple of months.

- In addition to these data collection activities, we have begun to use the ESM data at wave 1 to examine within-person dynamics between emotional processes, emotion regulation and (daily) peer experiences (see https://osf.io/ba7qy/ ). Moreover, using previously collected data, we have explored, preliminary, some of the proposed associations. For example, we have observed that peer victimization was associated – concurrently – with higher levels of negative affect, inertia of negative affect and stress appraisal in daily life (manuscript currently in preparation; see https://osf.io/56vsj/).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The major goal of Outside-In is to identify psychological and biological mechanisms that may underlie the negative effects of bullying victimization exposure during adolescence on health. To be able to achieve this goal, longitudinal data are needed; this is why the initial period of the project has been primarily dedicated to set-up a longitudinal data collection. Therefore, because the first data analyses are beginning only now, it is not possible yet to be able to evaluate the current impact of this project. However, the data collection achievements, in particular the fact that, thus far, we were able to gather longitudinal biological and psychological data in the same group of adolescents, represents a fundamental milestone. Thus, we still believe that Outside-In has the potential to offer unique insights into how short-term psychological and physiological dynamics in daily life, in the longer run, could get biologically embedded.