Response to: Peer victimisation during adolescence and its impact on depression in early adulthood: prospective cohort study in the United Kingdom
The authors (BMJ 2015;350:h2469) overstate the amount of adult depression associated with peer bullying in adolescence due to serious limitations in their data set; the one examined here is the failure to control for the confounding variable of prior adult bullying in childhood. Adult violence and bullying against children and adolescents is widespread. In the US, authorities substantiated 120,000 physical abuses, 60,000 sexual abuses, and 60,000 psychological abuses (a criminal form of bullying) victimizing children and adolescents in 2013; more than 90% of perpetrators are parents and parents’ partners (Administration on Children Youth & Families, Child Maltreatment 2013). Parents’ bullying of children has been strongly associated with later peer bullying and bullying victimization (i.e., J Interpers Violence 2014;29:616; Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminal 2007;51:495) as well as adult depression and other distresses (J Acad Child & Adol Psych 1999;38:1490; JAMA Psychiatry 2003;65;190).
While the present authors’ employ a very broad range of peer behaviors defined as “bullying” on standard indexes, their efforts to control for the confound of child maltreatment relied on mothers’ self-reports of a narrow set of stressful events at ages 5-7, a method likely to greatly understate adult bullying (particularly by parents themselves). The result of authors’ overbroad definition of peer bullying and understated assessment of adult bullying is to greatly overestimate the contribution of peer bullying to later adult depression. In turn, that overestimate contributes to the larger unintended consequence of a singular fixation in professional, political, and popular-media arenas on peer bullying and interventions confined to adolescents (BMJ 2015;350:h2694) to the exclusion of other important, more difficult adult-imposed factors. The limitations of this study – ones that unfortunately plagues a great deal of the literature on youthful behavior – are too severe to make definitive attributions of a distinct linkage between peer bullying and adult depression
Competing interests:
No competing interests
11 June 2015
Mike A. Males
Senior researcher
YouthFacts.org and Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
1700 N.E. 67th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111 USA
Rapid Response:
Response to: Peer victimisation during adolescence and its impact on depression in early adulthood: prospective cohort study in the United Kingdom
The authors (BMJ 2015;350:h2469) overstate the amount of adult depression associated with peer bullying in adolescence due to serious limitations in their data set; the one examined here is the failure to control for the confounding variable of prior adult bullying in childhood. Adult violence and bullying against children and adolescents is widespread. In the US, authorities substantiated 120,000 physical abuses, 60,000 sexual abuses, and 60,000 psychological abuses (a criminal form of bullying) victimizing children and adolescents in 2013; more than 90% of perpetrators are parents and parents’ partners (Administration on Children Youth & Families, Child Maltreatment 2013). Parents’ bullying of children has been strongly associated with later peer bullying and bullying victimization (i.e., J Interpers Violence 2014;29:616; Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminal 2007;51:495) as well as adult depression and other distresses (J Acad Child & Adol Psych 1999;38:1490; JAMA Psychiatry 2003;65;190).
While the present authors’ employ a very broad range of peer behaviors defined as “bullying” on standard indexes, their efforts to control for the confound of child maltreatment relied on mothers’ self-reports of a narrow set of stressful events at ages 5-7, a method likely to greatly understate adult bullying (particularly by parents themselves). The result of authors’ overbroad definition of peer bullying and understated assessment of adult bullying is to greatly overestimate the contribution of peer bullying to later adult depression. In turn, that overestimate contributes to the larger unintended consequence of a singular fixation in professional, political, and popular-media arenas on peer bullying and interventions confined to adolescents (BMJ 2015;350:h2694) to the exclusion of other important, more difficult adult-imposed factors. The limitations of this study – ones that unfortunately plagues a great deal of the literature on youthful behavior – are too severe to make definitive attributions of a distinct linkage between peer bullying and adult depression
Competing interests: No competing interests