Childhood bullying and paranoid thinking

Abstract

Childhood bullying is associated with a wide variety of adverse consequences, including psychological distress and psychopathology. In this paper, the literature investigating the association between being bullied by peers in childhood and negative outcomes in adulthood will be reviewed and evaluated. Previous research largely utilising retrospective measures of bullying have found a consistent association between being bullied in childhood and experiencing a range of adverse effects in adulthood, particularly depression, body image dissatisfaction and low self-esteem. However, there are numerous methodological limitations to bullying research, including a lack of consensus over defining and measuring bullying, failure to investigate moderating or mediating variables, over-reliance on female and undergraduate populations and a lack of longitudinal research to establish if the association between being bullied in childhood and experiencing adverse consequences in adulthood is causal. Recommendations for future empirical investigations and the implications for clinical practice are suggested.

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ORCID for Nick Maguire: orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-8068

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