Persistent bullying cases: towards tailored intervention approaches to maximize efficiency

Project Information

CHALLENGE

Grant agreement ID: 884434

DOI 10.3030/884434

EC signature date 23 July 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost € 2 424 001,00

EU contribution € 2 424 001,00

Coordinated by

TURUN YLIOPISTO
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CHALLENGE (Persistent bullying cases: towards tailored intervention approaches to maximize efficiency)

Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Bullying in schools is widespread, with adverse effects on youth and high costs for societies. Research on bullying prevention has so far focused on average effects of anti-bullying programs and mainly concerned universal, preventive measures. While important, this has overshadowed attempts to uncover how exactly school personnel intervene in particular bullying cases and when and why that fails. CHALLENGE will open up new research horizons by shifting the focus from average program effects to the characteristics and conditions of youth who remain victimized or continue bullying despite targeted interventions. The next big questions in the field are tackled in four work packages:
•WP1 uncovers the key features of persistent bullying, such as the extent to which it is due to school-level factors or rather varies across bullying cases (within schools).
•WP2 elucidates the plight of persistent victims by testing why victimized youth are most maladjusted in contexts where the overall level of victimization is decreasing (healthy context paradox, Garandeau & Salmivalli, 2019).
•WP3 tests the student perceptions of, and the effectiveness of different targeted interventions in 1) real-life conditions and 2) in an experimental study utilizing video vignettes, uncovering challenge factors that increase the risk of a bullying case remaining unresolved. Moreover, it tests how youth characteristics affect their cognitive, emotional and motivational responses to different interventions.
•WP4 utilizes molecular genetics to test genetic susceptibility to intervention effects at the individual level.

CHALLENGE uses quantitative, qualitative, and DNA analyses, combines longitudinal and experimental designs, and harnesses novel tools to collect real-time intervention data and to register children’s responses to interventions. It bridges the perspectives of developmental and social psychology, child psychiatry, and genetics, builds theory on persistent bullying and enables the development of tailored measures for specific target groups where available interventions have failed

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

We started data collection for WP2 (the longitudinal study across two academic years) right in the beginning of the project in October 2020. We decided to continue data collection for a third year in half of the 32 schools, to include even more real-life cases of bullying . We have also collected data fro WP 3 (experimental study with vignettes) and already published one peer-reviewed article based on that data. For WP4, we have invited about 20 000 young adults who participated in KiVa RCT in 2007-09, to a follow-up study and to provide saliva samples. So far about 3000 have responded.
WP1 is based on existing data, and some publications have came out from this WP.

WP1:
Johander, E., Turunen, T., Garandeau, C., & Salmivalli, C. (2020). Different approaches to address bullying in KiVa Schools: adherence to guidelines, strategies implemented, and outcomes obtained. Prevention Science, 22, 299–310.
Salmivalli, C., Malamut, S., Laninga-Wijnen, L., & Garandeau, C. (2021). Bullying prevention in adolescence: solutions and new challenges from the past decade. Journal of Research on Adolescence. 31, 1023-1046.
Salmivalli, C. (i2023): Prevention of scool bullying: From celebrating succes to analyzing failure. European Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Johander, Turunen, Garandeau, & Salmivalli (2023). Interventions that failed: Factors associated with the continuation of bullying after a targeted intervention. International Journal of Bullying Prevention.
Herkama, S., Kontio, M., Sainio, M., Turunen, T., Poskiparta, E., & Salmivalli, C. (2022). Facilitators and barriers to the sustainability of a school-based bullying prevention program. Prevention Science

WP2:
Pan, B., Tengfei, L., Linqin, J., Malamut, S., Zhang, W., & Salmivalli, C. (2021). Why does classroom-level victimization moderate the victimization-depression association? The “healthy context paradox” and two explanations. Child Development, 92,1836-1854.
Laninga-Wijnen, L., Yanagida, T., Garandeau, C. F., Malamut, S.T. Veenstra, R., & Salmivalli, C. (submitted, 2022). Further unraveling the healthy context paradox:classroom victimization moderates the between and within-person effect of victimization on psychological problems, but not vice versa. Child Development

WP3:
Experimental vignette study:
Johander, Trach, Turunen, Garandeau, & Salmivalli (2022). Intention to stop bullying following condemning, empathy-raising, or combined message from teacher – do students’ empathy and callous-unemotional traits matter? Journal of Research on Adolescence.
Tracking real-life interventions:
Salmivalli, C., Graf, D., & Laninga-Wijnen, L. (in press). Ecological momentary assessment of targeted interventions addressing bullying: What are the benefits?

WP4:
Data collection soon completed (DNA samples)

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)

CHALLENGE will test hypotheses that have never been tested or, for the most part, have not been considered at all in previous research. Already for some time, bullying intervention research has been stuck on evaluating the main effects of anti-bullying programs. By shedding a light on interventions targeted at specific cases of bullying, the project will build new theory and thereby direct research in new directions, while also providing evidence on which the next generation of more tailored bullying interventions can be built. The insights from the project will have a huge impact on theory, methods, and practical recommendations in the field of bullying intervention. High impact can be expected for intervention research more generally. For instance, conceptualizing intervention failure and challenge factors is a novelty in bullying research, while also enabling the use of such constructs widely in prevention science. As another example, aggregate molecular genetic analyses within a randomized controlled experimental setting (WP4) is a unique, powerful way to not only reveal risk factors for persistent bullying or victimization, but also the genetic origins of such factors. It will be first of its kind in bullying prevention research.

Work packages of CHALLENGE