CONCLUSION
Contributions
This study has provided insight into understanding the complexity of verbal bullying among adolescents. Bullying is becoming increasingly common among teenagers (Crick et al., 2001; ‘Enough is Enough’, 2006; Galen & Underwood, 1997; Marr & Field, 2001; Shariff, 2008), and now there is the growing issue of cyber-bullying (Beran & Li, 2005). Developing a better understanding of how and why verbal bullying happens is necessary, when issues like depression, anxiety, decreased self-esteem, eating disorders, and suicide (Kim, 2008) result. This study addressed components of verbal bullying among adolescents including medium choices, language use, emotions and behaviors associated, and personality traits.
The case study analysis provided a valuable in-depth look at four individual perspectives of verbal bullying among adolescents. The benefit of the case study allowed unique perspective differences to be highlighted, showing how personality traits in each case became the underlying factor that influenced how media was chosen, language was employed, and emotions and behaviors were associated, within bullying occurrences.
This study extends past research by incorporating verbal bullying medium choices with language use, and emotions and behaviors. Past research has emphasized ftf bullying among peers in school (Genta et al., 1996; Kumpulainen et al., 1998; Whitney & Smith, 1993). Even the National School Safety programs (N.S.S.S.C., 2009) encourages schools to focus primarily on traditional bullying inside the school grounds, ignoring the multi-media nature of bullying. Emotions and behaviors of bullies and victims have been studied according to popularity (Putallaz et al., 2007), biological sex (Crick & Bigbee, 1998; Crick & Grotpeter, 1996), and friendship satisfaction (Gini, 2007). Yet results of this study identify trait theory (McCrae & Costa, 1997) as an approach to look at personality, and how it accounts for differences between individual perceptions and behaviors.
This study has established developmental findings, which direct future bullying research. Examining these factors in adolescent bullying provides additional knowledge of how and why verbal bullying happens. Bullying is a social problem, particularly among adolescents. Further investigation of relational aggression is needed within adolescents who identify as bullies and bullied victims. Also, differences in relational influences between mediums should also be studied. This study offers a foundation of diverse individual perspectives about verbal bullying, which offers a guide for further academic analysis. This study provides information for resources to be developed, which can aid in prevention, monitoring, and coping with verbal bulling among adolescents.
Limitations
The primary limitation of this study is due to the case-study methodology. Although it provides an in-depth look at individual perspectives of adolescent verbal bullying, it is difficult to generalize perspectives of these participants to other adolescents. Current understandings of how and why verbal bullying among adolescents happens could be enhanced with a larger pool of participants, at a variety of demographic locations.
