Susan M Swearer

University of Nebraska–Lincoln | NU · Department of Educational Psychology

Establishing and maintaining social relationships is a critical developmental milestone for adolescents and young adults and can be disrupted by childhood adversities. Adverse and positive childhood experiences (ACEs, PCEs, respectively) represent independent, yet critical, domains that support the exploration of positive and adverse childhood expe...

Bullying among school-age children continues to be a public health concern and is associated with a host of short- and long-term psychosocial and academic challenges for all youth involved, including youth who are victimized, those who bully, and those who witness bullying. In this chapter, we provide current prevalence rates for bullying involveme...

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal disorder associated with numerous physical stigmata. Children with NF1 are at known risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), academic struggles, and significant social difficulties and adverse social outcomes, including bullying victimization. The primary aim of this study was to ident...

Children and adolescents with the genetic, tumor predisposition syndrome neurofibromatosis type I (NF1) have varying degrees of physical stigmata characteristic of the disease and experience high rates of social difficulties. The present study was the first to formally examine the rate (i.e., percentage of participants) and frequency of bullying vi...

We evaluated the dimensionality and measurement invariance of the Spiritual Values/Religion (SVR) subscale from the Self-Description Questionnaire III across heterosexual and non-heterosexual young adults. We found a one-factor model provided adequate fit to the data for each group, with the SVR items exhibiting configural, metric, and scalar invar...

Applications of latent transition analysis (LTA) have emerged since the early 1990s, with numerous scientific findings being published in many areas, including social and behavioral sciences, education, and public health. Although LTA is effective as a statistical analytic tool for a person-centered model using longitudinal data, model building in...

This study sought to advance the authors’ understanding of the relationship between traditional bullying (i.e., verbal and physical) and cyberbullying. Data were collected from 1,182 participants, ages 13 to 25 (M = 19.66; SD = 3.03) from 75 different countries via an on-line, world-wide survey. Results found that participants experienced both in-p...

As in cross sectional studies, longitudinal studies involve non-Gaussian data such as binomial, Poisson, gamma, and inverse-Gaussian distributions, and multivariate exponential families. A number of statistical tools have thus been developed to deal with non-Gaussian longitudinal data, including analytic techniques to estimate parameters in both fi...

To examine the experiences of victimization and bullying among gifted students and their general education peers, we applied a latent transition analysis with longitudinal data from 299 gifted and 689 general education students (fifth to ninth graders). We identified 4 latent statuses for victimization (4.8%–5.2%, frequent victims; 7.4%–12.2%, freq...

Moral disengagement is a series of cognitive processes used to disengage moral standards to achieve absolved guilt and permit immoral conduct and has been found to be an important connection to bullying and aggressive behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the longitudinal relationship between moral disengagement and bullying behavior amo...

This study sought to advance the authors' understanding of the relationship between traditional bullying (i.e., verbal and physical) and cyberbullying. Data were collected from 1,182 participants, ages 13 to 25 (M = 19.66; SD = 3.03) from 75 different countries via an on-line, world-wide survey. Results found that participants experienced both in-p...

This article reviews current research on bullying during adolescence. The complexity of bullying behaviors during the adolescent time period are discussed and a review of the developmental literature on adolescence provides suggestions for why current bullying prevention and intervention programs are less effective for this age group. Current anti-...

Restorative justice (RJ) in schools is an increasingly popular approach to responding to discipline issues including bullying and aggressive behaviors. However, RJ research in schools is dramatically lagging behind its practice. Specifically, there is a large void within the school consultation literature that examines the use of RJ and the role of...

This commentary reviews the four articles included in a special issue of the School Psychology Review that address factors related to the bullying and discrimination among youth. The articles explore rather diverse topics within the broader literature on youth interpersonal violence, but each adds to our understanding of the very complex nature of...

This study investigated how bystanders, who have and have not been bullied, perceive their social and emotional maladjustment depending on the form of bullying (physical or verbal) they witness. Using propensity score matching, equivalent groups of 270 victimized and 270 non-victimized bystander groups were created based on middle school students'...

This study investigated the influence of student-teacher relationships and attitudes toward bullying on middle school students' bullying behaviors. Gender and grade differences were also examined. Data were collected from 435 middle school students. Results indicated that students' attitudes toward bullying mediated the relationship between student...

With growing recognition that bullying is a complex phenomenon, influenced by multiple factors, research findings to date have been understood within a social-ecological framework. Consistent with this model, we review research on the known correlates and contributing factors in bullying/victimization within the individual, family, peer group, scho...

This article provides an introductory overview of findings from the past 40 years of research on bullying among school-aged children and youth. Research on definitional and assessment issues in studying bullying and victimization is reviewed, and data on prevalence rates, stability, and forms of bullying behavior are summarized, setting the stage f...

Research has demonstrated a link between internalizing factors and bullying perpetration and peer victimization; however, few studies have examined predictors of cognitive and psychosocial factors, such as locus of control and hopelessness. The current study examined cognitive and psychosocial factors in bullying perpetration and peer victimization...

Social cognitive theory (SCT) is an important heuristic for understanding the complexity of bullying behaviors and the social nature of involvement in bullying. Bullying has been heralded as a social relationship problem, and the interplay between the individual and his or her social environment supports this conceptualization. SCT has been used to...

Involvement in bullying and victimization has been mostly studied using cross-sectional data from 1 time point. As such, much of our understanding of bullying and victimization has not captured the dynamic experiences of youth over time. To examine the change of latent statuses in bullying and victimization, we applied latent transition analysis ex...

This chapter focuses on the issue of bullying, which has grown as a significant concern among school personnel, students, and parents in the past few decades. The literature on school disciplinary procedures, social-emotional learning approaches, positive behavioral interventions and supports, and cognitive-behavioral treatment for aggressive behav...

Research has shown a negative association between positive school climate and bullying behavior. This article reviews research on school climate and bullying behavior and proposes that an unhealthy and unsupportive school climate (e.g., negative relationship between teachers and students, positive attitudes towards bullying) provides a social conte...

According to the Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General an estimated 21 % of children and adolescents aged 9–17 in the U.S. have a diagnosable mental health or addictive disorder. However, according to the same report approximately 70 % of children and adolescents who need mental health services do not receive them (U.S. Department of Healt...

Significant gaps in the bullying research literature remain, calling for an urgent need for empirical studies across a number of areas. These include the need for studies to address conceptual, definitional, and measurement issues; the social and psychological processes related to the development and persistence of bullying; and the intersection of...

This introduction announces a Journal of School Violence (JSV) special issue and describes a new partnership between JSV and the Bullying Research Network (BRNET). This partnership was formed to promote and support high-quality empirical research that can be disseminated in school contexts and ultimately lead to the reduction and prevention of bull...

This online resource for mental health practitioners presents a variety of information required in daily practice in one easy-to-use resource. Covering the entire spectrum of practice issues–from diagnostic codes, practice guidelines, treatment principles, and report checklists, to insight and advice from today's most respected clinicians–this peer...

The documentary Bully was released nationwide in theaters in March 2012. Originally titled The Bully Project, the filmmakers followed five families whose lives had been turned upside down by bullying. Two of the families in the movie lost their sons, Tyler and Ty, to suicide, and three of the youth in the movie,Alex, Kelby, and Ja'Meya, were bullie...

The documentary Bully was released nationwide in theaters in March 2012. Originally titled The Bully Project, the filmmakers followed five families whose lives had been turned upside down by bullying. Two of the families in the movie lost their sons, Tyler and Ty, to suicide, and three of the youth in the movie,Alex, Kelby, and Ja'Meya, were bullie...

Students in general and special education experience bullying. However, few empirical investigations have examined involvement in bullying along the bully/victim continuum (i.e., as a bully, victim, or bully-victim) among students with disabilities. A total of 816 students, ages 9 to 16, participated in the present study. From this total sample 686...

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, brav...

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, brav...

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, brav...

Date revised - 20121001, Language of summary - English, Number of references - 112, Pages - 333-355, ProQuest ID - 1081620730, PubXState - NY, SubjectsTermNotLitGenreText - 142 3804 2206; 6401; 8689 7662 7631 853; 1105 6912 221 7631 853; 265 2422 857 2320 2455 270 2409 853; 2185 2680 2687; 2422 857 2320 2455; 3051 4236; 3825; 5964 4232 7662 7631 85...

Bullying is a phenomenon that occurs across cultures, gender, ages, and races. The behaviors that constitute bullying are widespread, and they are characterized by an imbalance of power, the intent to harm, and repetition over time. Individuals involved in bullying experience negative short- and long-term effects including internalizing and externa...

Individuals exist within multiple environments: home, school, neighborhood, church, community, and society. Within the interaction between individuals and these environments are risk factors for bullying and victimization. In this paper research on risk factors for bullying and victimization across multiple contexts-- individual, peer, school, fami...

In this chapter, we will review the literature on internalizing problems in youth who are involved in bullying. Involvement in bullying occurs along a continuum (i.e., the bully- victim continuum), meaning that students can participate in multiple roles, including bullying others, being bullied, both bullying others and being bullied, witnessing bu...

When the first edition of this book was published in 2004, we argued that bullying had to be studied across individual, peer, family, school, community, and cultural contexts. Like discrimination, bullying is a complex phenomenon, with multiple causal factors and multiple outcomes. We and other authors have continued to frame bullying among school-...

In this article, the authors review research on individual, peer, and school contributions that may be critical factors for enhancing efforts to address bullying among students. Methodological challenges are delineated, with an emphasis on how bullying is defined and assessed and the subsequent implications for bullying prevention and intervention...

Nearly one in three public school students in the United States attends school in a rural area. A rural area is defined as an area with a population of 25,000 people or fewer. Rural America has often been portrayed as an idealized life that involves intact families, close ties with neighbors, low crime levels, and relatively stress free in comparis...

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on the role of cognition in the expression of emotions and behaviors. CBT assumes that maladaptive feelings and behaviors develop through cognitive processes which evolve from interactions with others and experiences in the environment. The goal of therapy is to identify the...

In this issue of Social Policy Report, authors Russell, Kosciw, Horn, and Saewyc review the research on LGBTQ youth and illuminate a fundamental challenge facing researchers, educators, students, families, and policymakers. They write that “homophobia and LGBTQ prejudice are daily experiences” and that the challenge facing educators is to “design s...

Once thought to be rare, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is currently recognized as the fourth most common psychiatric disorder among adults, following only phobias, substance abuse and major depression. It has been estimated that 1 in 50 adults in the United States currently has OCD. Covers epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment.

It has only been within the past two decades that the majority ofclinicians and researchers reached agreement that children can experience a depressive disorder. Initially, researchers believed children’s lack of psychosexual development prohibited development of depression in childhood. There has also been disagreement regarding which symptomatolo...

Defines bullying: Bullying may be the most prevalent type of aggression experienced by school-aged youth. Bullying has been defined as any form of aggression in which one student or group of students repeatedly harasses a target (i.e., victim) verbally or physically. The three key components or characteristics of bullying behaviors are (1) the beha...

A safe school is a school where the educational climate fosters a spirit of acceptance for all children. It is a place where students can learn and teachers can teach in an environment free of intimidation and fear of violence. Over the past decade, school shootings have increased anxieties about the safety of our schools. As a result of highly pub...

Responding to international concerns regarding childhood bullying and a need to identify a common bullying measure, this study examines the comparability of children’s self-reports of bullying across five countries. The Pacific-Rim Bullying Measure, a self-report measure of students’ experiences with six different types of bullying behavior and vic...

Date revised - 20090706, Language of summary - English, Number of references - 79, Pages - 151-170, ProQuest ID - 621984574, PubXState - NY, SubjectsTermNotLitGenreText - 2530; 5964 4232 7662 7631 853; 8289; 8689 7662 7631 853; 1105 6912 221 7631 853; 5013; 7643 7679, Target audience - Psychology: Professional & Research, Last updated - 2012-09-10,...

Date revised - 20090525, Language of summary - English, Number of references - 272, Pages - xix, 170, ProQuest ID - 621828836, PubXState - NY, SubjectsTermNotLitGenreText - 6252; 6401; 7219 4256; 1105 6912 221 7631 853; 662; 7992; 8689 7662 7631 853, TOCDataText - (Abbreviated); List of figures, tables, and appendices; Bullying behaviors in element...

In recent decades, relational aggression has been type-cast as a female form of aggression and the literature has focused on the “gender dichotomy” in our understanding of aggressive behaviors. Girls have been characterized as more relational aggressive (e.g., threatening to withdraw from a relationship and manipulating relationships to damage othe...

In recent years, bullying has begun to receive serious research attention within the scientific community, with the first systematic studies on bullying emerging in the 1970s by Norwegian researcher, Dan Olweus. Today, bullying is recognized as a worldwide issue for children and youth around the globe, and research on the topic increasing exponenti...

Main questions: What are students’ attitudes toward bullying? Do those attitudes differ when students are involved in bullying? If students are involved in bullying, do they have different perceptions of school climate compared to those students not involved in bullying? Lastly, are students’ attitudes toward bullying related to their perception of...

A common misconception about bullying is that this phenomenon does not result in negative long-term consequences. In reality, children and adolescents who are involved in bullying face a host of psychological difficulties. Oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression have been identified as mental health d...

This study examined effects of adolescent males' perceptions of being bullied because of verbal taunts related to gender nonconformity (i.e., "They say I'm gay"). Participants included 251 ninth-(n 77), tenth-(n 96), and eleventh-(n 78) grade students in a private, all-male college preparatory school. Participants were divided into two groups based...

Bullying, aggression, and peer victimization among adolescents are significant public health concerns. Recent research has demonstrated that bullying and peer victimization sometimes include homophobic epithets directed at heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. It appears that being at the receiving end of homophobic...

Over the last decade, the Target Bully research team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has collaborated with many schools and school districts to identify where bullying occurs and how to reduce its prevalence. As our experience has grown, we have developed methods and instruments to identify critical concerns of staff members and students. The...

In the prevention literature, the terms “primary,” “secondary,” and “tertiary” refer to specific prevention and intervention strategies designed to reduce problem behavior in youth. Perhaps the most widely recognized model that embraces this three-tiered model is Positive Behavior Supports (PBS; Sprague & Golly, 2004; Sprague & Walker, 2005). PBS i...

The Nebraska Internship Consortium in Professional Psychology (NICPP) is a group of outpatient, inpatient, and school agencies in both rural and urban settings in southeastern Nebraska. The mission of NICPP is to provide an integrated, individually tailored and coordinated series of learning experiences that provide interns with opportunities to (a...

Date revised - 20060424, Language of summary - English, Number of references - 73, Pages - 257-273, ProQuest ID - 621141924, PubXState - NJ, SubjectsTermNotLitGenreText - 5097; 6661; 7252 8699 518 853 1774 4232 7662 7631 221; 864; 1105 6912 221 7631 853; 141 704; 2158; 6024; 6401; 7219 4256; 8689 7662 7631 853, Target audience - Psychology: Profess...

Depression is one of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders among school-age youths. As such, school personnel should play an important role in the identification, assessment, and treatment of depression and related problems in school. School-based treatment of depression is especially relevant for students with emotional and behavioral...

GLOSSARY collaboration Working together toward a common goal or set of goals. educators General education instructors, special education in-structors, leaching aides, classroom volunteers, adminis-trators, support staff, school psychologists, and any other persons within a school setting who contribute to the edu-cation of students within that envi...

Review of Marion K. Underwood, Social Aggression among Girls. New York: Guilford Press, 2003, 300 pp. $44.00, ISBN: 1572308664 (cloth). $24.00, ISBN: 1-57230-865-6 (paper).

Much of our knowledge about bullying behaviors comes from research conducted over the past several decades in Europe, Australia, and Canada. This book seeks to advance the research about bullying in the United States. In this chapter, we will propose a social-ecological framework within which bullying occurs. We will argue that bullying has to be u...

Reviews the book "Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder," by T.E. Chansky (see record 2000-16012-000). This is a concise and helpful resource for parents who are seeking active participation as an agent in their child's treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It is likely that one book alone will never be sufficient to he...

Date revised - 20050906, Language of summary - English, Number of references - 82, Pages - 15-35, ProQuest ID - 620278266, PubXState - NJ, SubjectsTermNotLitGenreText - 3825; 7219 4256; 7226 31 7653 2768; 7660; 1105 6912 221 7631 853; 221 7631 853, Target audience - Psychology: Professional & Research, Last updated - 2012-09-10, docISBN - 080584559...

We examined middle school students' attitudes and perceptions of bullying during their middle school years. Participants were categorized along the bully/victim continuum as bullies, victims, bully-victims, and no-status students based on their self-nomination from a survey that queries students about their experiences with bullying (either as a bu...

This special issue on bullying and victimization in School Psychology Review, highlights current research efforts in American schools on bullying and peer victimization, and how this research can inform prevention and intervention planning. This introductory article provides a brief overview of several major insights gained over the last decade fro...

Sexual abuse research has traditionally focused on adult, retrospective accounts of potential correlates of abuse and their impact on functioning. However, only a few studies have examined sexually abused adolescents' perceptions of their families, and results have proven inconclusive. This study examined whether family factors would differentiate...

Reviews the book, Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized edited by J. Juvonen and S. Graham (see record 2001-00685-000). Peer Harassment in School: The Plight of the Vulnerable and Victimized is a timely volume dedicated to understanding the correlates and consequences of chronic victimization in children and adol...

Examined differences between bullies, victims, and bully-victims on internalizing psychopathology (depression and anxiety). Participants included 133 (66 male and 67 female) sixth-grade students from a Midwestern middle school, ages ranging from 11 to 13 years old. The data presented are from the first two years of a five-year longitudinal study th...

Basic research into the prevalence, natural course, and phenomena of comorbidity of depressive disorders during childhood are reviewed and implications of this research for treating depressed youths are noted. Results of investigations into the biological aspects of depression are integrated into a multifactorial model of depressive disorders durin...

To determine if primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) is accompanied by significant behavioral comorbidity. A survey design using a standardized behavioral rating scale. Behavioral pediatric clinics in the Midwest. Subjects with PNE (n=92) were selected from 122 consecutive referrals for enuresis. Criteria included age 5 years or older, PNE status, and...

We evaluated the effectiveness of an abbreviated habit reversal procedure to reduce maladaptive oral self-biting in an adolescent boy in residential care. Treatment involved a combination of relaxation and two competing responses. Results of a withdrawal design and two posttreatment medical evaluations indicated that the intervention eliminated the...

Review of A Mind of Its Own. Tourette’s Syndrome: A Story and a Guide. By R. D. Brunn and B. Brunn. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 174 pp.

Basic research into the cognitive, behavioral, familial, and physiological disturbances associated with depressive disorders during childhood is reviewed. Implications for the development of a treatment program are discussed and a comprehensive treatment model is proposed. The proposed model includes intervention strategies for the child, parents,...

proposes a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment program for depressed youths / the proposed intervention program evolved out of our early treatment outcome research . . . and a program of basic research on childhood depressive disorders / the proposed treatment model represents an attempt to describe a potentially more effective treatment p...

In this paper, we will argue that careful examination of research on bullying and victimization establishes that these are ecological phenomenon that emerge from social, physical, institutional and community contexts as well as the individual characteristics of youth who are bullied and victimized. Consequently, we will use an ecological framework...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1997. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-288).