Is self‐esteem a predictor or outcome of bullying involvement? Longitudinal relationships between self‐esteem, physical, verbal, and relational bullying perpetration and victimization

Abstract The relationship between low self‐esteem and bullying involvement, particularly the temporal antecedence of the relationship, has been inconclusive. A potential explanation for these mixed findings is the limited consideration of bullying subtypes (i.e., physical, verbal, and relational) within longitudinal frameworks. This study examines the longitudinal relationships of self‐esteem with each type of bullying perpetration and victimization by gender. Random intercept cross‐lagged panel models were analyzed with the data from 3617 South Korean adolescents (female = 48.3%, age mean = 12.43, SD = 1.48 in the first wave) of the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study for three waves (7th to 9th grade). The results revealed that self‐esteem was an outcome of both bullying perpetration and victimization. That is, it is not personal traits such as self‐esteem that lead adolescents to engage in or become victims of bullying, but rather, involvement in bullying results in a subsequent decline in self‐esteem. When all three subtypes of bullying involvement were considered simultaneously, only physical perpetration and relational victimization negatively predicted subsequent self‐esteem. These findings underscore the importance of differentiating bullying subtypes in longitudinal analyses of self‐esteem and point to the need for closer attention to the possibility that physical perpetration and relational victimization may be associated with subsequent decreases in self‐esteem.