Wendy Craig

Queen's University | QueensU · Department of Psychology

Background: The development of healthy relationships and connections is of fundamental importance to adolescent well-being. The use of social media plays a vital role in the lives of young Canadians, yet the association between different types of social media use and the quality of relationships and connections remains unknown, and most existing a...

Purpose Social patterns in bullying show consistent gender differences in adolescent perpetration and victimization with large cross-national variations. Previous research shows associations between societal gender inequality and gender differences in some violent behaviors in adolescents. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond individual associat...

Purpose Adolescents' mental well-being has become a growing public health concern. Adolescents' daily lives and their engagement in risks have changed dramatically in the course of the 21st century, leading to a need to update traditional models of risk to include new exposures and behaviors. To date, studies have examined the relationship between...

Purpose Social media use (SMU) has become an intrinsic part of adolescent life. Negative consequences of SMU for adolescent health could include exposures to online forms of aggression. We explored age, gender, and cross-national differences in adolescents' engagement in SMU, then relationships between SMU and victimization and the perpetration of...

Objectives This study explores recent cross-national trends over time (2002–2014) in the occurrence of victimization by bullying; then it documents the overlap between cybervictimization and traditional bullying in 2014 among adolescents in 37 countries. Methods Data from four cycles (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014) of the cross-national Health Behavi...

Importance While the association between income inequality and interpersonal violence has been attributed to the psychosocial effects of inequality (eg, increased class anxiety, reduced social capital), longitudinal evidence for this pathway is limited by a reliance on small ecological studies and cross-sectional data. The developmental consequence...

Exposure to violence is recognized as a major health concern among adolescent populations. The evidence base that links religious involvement with risks for child violence is inconsistent. In a national analysis involving a weighted sample of 24,307 young people, we studied the perpetration of violence (fighting and bullying), as well as victimizat...

Cyberbullying is a significant problem in Canada, with high prevalence rates that have remained stable over the past decade (Boak et al. 2016; Craig et al. 2016). In this chapter, we discuss the prevalence of cyberbullying and cybervictimization in Canada, which ranges from 4.5% of university aged youth engaging in cyberbullying at any time (Cunnin...

We investigated the relation between relative deprivation (RD)-disparity in affluence between adolescents and their more affluent schoolmates-and involvement in bullying among 23,383 students (aged 9-19) in 413 schools that participated in the 2010 Canadian Health Behavior in School-Aged Children survey. Students reported family affluence and frequ...

Background: While the online environment may promote important developmental and social benefits, it also enables the serious and rapidly growing issue of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying constitutes an increasing public health problem - victimized children and youth experience a range of health and mental health concerns, including emotional and psyc...

In this chapter we discuss what schools can do about bullying, and what the evidence base is for the effectiveness of such actions in western countries. We draw on findings internationally but focus primarily on England,, other countries in Europe, The United States and Canada and Australia and New Zealand. We mention what legal provisions there ar...

The purpose of this article is to report on a study that explores the linkages among self-perception, perceptions of social support, and bullying involvement among children and youth, with a focus on how bullying victimization mediates the association of social support and self-perception. We employ Harter's multidimensional model of selfesteem (19...

Bullying is a recognized social problem within child populations. Engagement in childhood bullying often occurs in settings that are away from adult supervision, such as en route to and from school. Bullying episodes may also have a negative impact on school childrens' decisions to engage in active transportation. Using a cross-sectional design, we...

Longitudinal data from 746 adolescents in Toronto, Canada (54% females), was gathered in eight waves over seven years (1995 through 2001), beginning when the youths were 10 to 12 years old (mean age = 11.8, SD = 1.2 years). Five trajectories of substance use were identified: chronic-high, childhood onset-rapid high, childhood onset-moderate, adoles...

Objective: Developmental theory suggests romantic relationships present unique demands when adolescents transition from the interaction patterns of same-sex friendships to cross-gender interactions. A possible response is to incorporate behaviours of the other gender: girls adopting aggressive strategies and boys adopting affiliative ones. The goal...

Background: Although neighbourhood factors have been proposed as determinants of adolescent behaviour, few studies document their relative etiological importance. We investigated the relationship between neighbourhood crime and cannabis use in a nationally representative sample of Canadian adolescents. Methods: Data from the 2009/10 Canadian Hea...

To examine the impact of electronic media (EM) use on teenagers' life satisfaction (LS) and to assess the potential moderating effect of supportive communication with parents (SCP). Data were drawn from the cross-national Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study (2009/2010) in Canada, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Israel, The Nethe...

Importance This study presents evidence that cyberbullying victimization relates to internalizing, externalizing, and substance use problems in adolescents and that the frequency of family dinners attenuate these associations.Objectives To examine the unique association between cyberbullying victimization and adolescent mental health (after contr...

Normative romantic development is theorized to progress through a series of stages: affiliative activities, group-based dating, and romantic relationships. The objectives of this research were threefold: empirically examine this progression of romantic stages during adolescence, determine normative and atypical trajectories, and examine links with...

Background Positive emotional well-being is fundamentally important to general health status, and is linked to many favorable health outcomes. There is societal interest in understanding determinants of emotional well-being in adolescence, and the natural environment represents one potential determinant. Psychological and experimental research have...

Then aims of the current study were 1) to provide cross-national estimates of the prevalence of physical fighting and weapon carrying among adolescents aged 11-15 years; (2) To examine the possible effects of physical fighting and weapon carrying on the occurrence of physical (medically treated injuries) and emotional health outcomes (multiple heal...

Background and objectives: No recent international studies provide evidence about its prevalence, trends, or social determinants of physical fighting in adolescents. We studied cross-national epidemiologic trends over time in the occurrence of frequent physical fighting, demographic variations in reported trends, and national wealth and income ine...

Purpose: To examine the association between the frequency of family dinners and positive and negative dimensions of mental health in adolescents and to determine whether this association is explained by the quality of communication between adolescents and parents. Methods: A community sample of 26,069 adolescents (aged 11 to 15 years) participat...

Objectives: To examine the relation between income inequality and school bullying (perpetration, victimisation and bully/victims) and explore whether the relation is attributable to international differences in violent crime. Methods: Between 1994 and 2006, the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study surveyed 117 nationally representative...

Although evidence links increased adiposity status with bullying involvement, it is unknown whether this leads to behaviors such as weapon carrying. The purpose of this study was to: (1) analyze relationships between adiposity status and risks for weapon carrying among Canadian school children, and (2) whether this relationship was mediated by repo...

Obesity can have negative effects in terms of stigma and discriminatory behavior. Past cross-sectional analyses have shown that overweight and obese youths are more likely to be involved in bullying. Here, we examine such relationships in a longitudinal analysis. Study outcomes were self-reports of: i) physical bullying victimization and perpetrati...

The Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet) involves Canadian researchers and national organizations working to promote healthy relationships and prevent bullying. In this paper, we provide the rationale for establishing PREVNet, a description of the work of the network, and an assessment of the success of PREVNet. PREVNe...

The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (HBSC) is a continuing, cross-national research project conducted in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe. There are now 43 participating countries and regions from North America and Europe. The study aims to contribute to new knowledge about the health, well‑being, and health beha...

Over the past 25 years, concern has been growing for children's bullying. We now recognize that bullying is wrong and hurtful. Research has fuelled a growing understanding that persistent bullying may be an indication of significant psycho-social problems. In this paper, we describe our longitudinal research on the development of bullying, examine...

In this article, the authors review research to identify bullying as a critical public health issue for Canada. Drawing from recent World Health Organization surveys, they examine the prevalence of Canadian children and youth involved in bullying others or being victimized. There is a strong association between involvement in bullying and health pr...

The Nature of Aggressive Girls' RelationshipsThe Link between Unhealthy Development and Unhealthy Parent–Daughter RelationshipsImplications for Prevention and Interventions to Promote Healthy DevelopmentConclusion References

In this article, the authors review research to identify bullying as a critical public health issue for Canada. Drawing from recent World Health Organization surveys, they examine the prevalence of Canadian children and youth involved in bullying others or being victimized. There is a strong association between involvement in bullying and health pr...

Everyday many students face bullying situations that they are ill equipped to manage. E-learning has recently emerged as a potentially effective tool in teaching children social skills, in addition to academic subject matter. Quest for the Golden Rule is one of the first bullying prevention e-learning programs available, designed by the Practi-Ques...

The present study aims to investigate the latent structure of a Physical Dating Aggression Scale in Italian and Canadian adolescents and to evaluate the measurement invariance across gender and country. Participants involved 1,628 adolescents (704 Italians and 924 Canadians; 800 males and 828 females) aged 14–16 years. A revised version of the CTS...

Cross-national analyses explore the consistency of the relationship between negative school experiences and involvement in bullying across 40 European and North American countries, using the 2006 (40 countries n = 197,502) and 2002 (12 countries, n = 57,007) WHO-HBSC surveys. Measures include two Cumulative Negative School Perception (CNSP) scales,...

Numerous individual factors, including race, have been identified to date that may place children at risk for bullying involvement. The importance of the school’s environment on bullying behaviours has also been highlighted, as the majority of bullying occurs at school. The variables associated with racial bullying and victimization, however, have...

Prior research has indicated that family experiences, including parental divorce, family conflict, and parental monitoring, play an important role in adolescent relationships (e.g., Mahl, 200120. Mahl , D. 2001 . The influence of parental divorce on the romantic relationship beliefs of young adults . Journal of Divorce & Remarriage , 34 : 89 – 118...

Using an ecological systems perspective, 627 Canadian adolescents (297 boys, 330 girls) with romantic partners were evaluated longitudinally to determine how risks across multiple contexts (individual, relationship, sociocultural or popular media, socio-demographic) collectively contribute to dating aggression. Two models were tested. The results i...

This study compared rates of dating aggression among 16-year-old adolescents in Canada and Italy, as well as differential associations with dyadic risk factors. 664 Canadians (297 boys, 367 girls) and 578 Italians (315 boys, 263 girls) indicated the frequency of physical aggression towards a romantic partner. They also rated the level of conflict a...

This study compared the romantic involvements of Canadian and Chinese adolescents as well as linkages with friend and parental relationships. Participants were 496 Chinese adolescents and 395 Canadian adolescents, aged 16—17 years. Chinese adolescents were less likely to have any form of romantic involvement, including a romantic relationship, disp...

To examine the association between income inequality and school bullying in an international sample of preadolescents and to test for mediation of this association by the availability of social support from families, peers, and schools. The study used economic data from the 2006 United Nations Development Program Human Development Report and survey...

To identify trends over 12 years in the prevalence of bullying and associated victimization among adolescents in North American and European countries. Cross-sectional self-report surveys were obtained from nationally representative samples of 11-15 year old school children in 21 countries in 1993/94 and in 27 countries in each of 1997/98, 2001/02...

(1) To compare the prevalence of bullying and victimization among boys and girls and by age in 40 countries. (2) In 6 countries, to compare rates of direct physical, direct verbal, and indirect bullying by gender, age, and country. Cross-sectional self-report surveys including items on bullying and being bullied were obtained from nationally repres...

To review the epidemiology, identification, and management of bullying and victimization among children in the primary care setting. Information was obtained from PsycINFO and MEDLINE databases, as well as the authors' own clinical and research experience. Information is based on levels II and III evidence. Involvement in bullying is a destructive...

This study examined the association between conflict negotiation and the expression of autonomy in adolescent romantic partners. Thirty-seven couples participated in a globally coded conflict interaction task. Actor-partner interdependence models (APIM) were used to quantify the extent to which boys' and girls' autonomy was linked solely to their o...

The present study examined physical dating aggression in different adolescent relationships and assessed linear, threshold, and moderator risk models for recurrent aggressive relationships. The 621 participants (59% girls, 41% boys) were drawn from a 1-year longitudinal survey of Canadian high school youths ranging from Grade 9 through Grade 12. Ap...

The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study is a continuing, cross-national research project conducted in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe. There are now 41 research teams from WHO Europe countries and regions and from North America. The study aims to contribute to new insight and increased understand- ing with regards t...

Trajectories in bullying through adolescence were studied along with individual, family, and peer relationship factors. At the outset, participants' ages ranged from 10 to 14; 74% identified as European Canadian with the remainder from diverse backgrounds. With 8 waves of data over 7 years, 871 students (466 girls and 405 boys) were studied to reve...

Children who are bullied are often told to `solve the problems themselves'; however, when bullying is repeated over time, it becomes increasingly difficult for victimized children to stop the torment because of their relative lack of power. We examine the ways in which children respond to bullying and their evaluations of the effectiveness of vario...

Based on theories suggesting that frequent television viewers act and react in hostile, malicious, malevolent, or verbally aggressive ways rather than being physically violent, the present study investigates relationships between television viewing and different forms of bullying. Multilevel regression models were estimated based on cross-sectional...

The authors examined whether perceptions of parents and personal mental health significantly influenced perceptions of school achievement and enjoyment in a large sample of Canadian adolescents. Responses from more than 10,000 Canadian adolescents in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey were used to create a Parental Support I...

This study examined correlates of different types of bullying and victimization relevant to the adolescent context. Of particular interest was the importance of risk factors that emerge and/or undergo significant changes during adolescence. Logistic regressions were performed using a representative sample of approximately 6,500 Canadian adolescents...

The social etiology of adolescent injury remains poorly understood. The Population Health Framework suggests that the etiology of adolescent injury involves interactions between individual risk factors and the natures of adolescent environments. The purpose of this study was to apply this framework to examination of relationships between adolescent...

Este trabajo explora las experiencias de victimización entre los jóvenes inmigrantes en Canadá. Más concretamente, su implicación en la victimización general y étnica -ser víctima de abusos debido al color, raza, etnia- se examinó utilizando una muestra de alumnos de Educación Primaria y Secundaria de diferente etnias. No hubo diferencias significa...

We sought to (1) compare estimates of the prevalence of fighting and weapon carrying among adolescent boys and girls in North American and European countries and (2) assess in adolescents from a subgroup of these countries comparative rates of weapon carrying and characteristics of fighting and injury outcomes, with a determination of the associati...

The present study examined the link between sexual orientation and adjustment in a community sample of 97 sexual minority (gay male, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning) high school students, taking into account their experiences of peer victimization and social support within peer and family contexts. Adolescents were identified in a large-scale su...

To determine whether the relationship between bullying and psychosocial adjustment is consistent across countries by standard measures and methods. Cross-sectional self-report surveys were obtained from nationally representative samples of students in 25 countries. Involvement in bullying, as bully, victim, or both bully and victim, was assessed. S...

Objective To determine whether the relationship between bullying and psychosocial adjustment is consistent across countries by standard measures and methods. Design Cross-sectional self-report surveys were obtained from nationally representative samples of students in 25 countries. Involvement in bullying, as bully, victim, or both bully and victi...

Objective To determine whether the relationship between bullying and psychosocial adjustment is consistent across countries by standard measures and methods. Design Cross-sectional self-report surveys were obtained from nationally representative samples of students in 25 countries. Involvement in bullying, as bully, victim, or both bully and victi...

This study examined dating-stage and developmental-contextual models of romantic relationships during early adolescence. Same-gender friendships, affiliation with mixed-gender groups, dating, and romantic relationships were investigated in a sample of 1,284 young adolescents of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds. Data were collected cross-sectionall...

Using a subset of youth from a sample of 3,636 Canadian adolescents, the present study examined sexual orientation and victimization experiences in high school. A total of 130 adolescents indicated they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or questioning their sexual orientation. Significantly more adolescents identified as bisexual (N = 50) or questioning...

This study explored the interpersonal context of romantic autonomy in mid adolescence by examining within-relationship links with romantic intimacy and affiliation, links across relationships with mothers and friends, and individual differences due to age and gender. Two hundred and thirty adolescents in grades 9, 10 and 11 with a current romantic...

In this study, 196 young adolescents who reported that they bullied their peers were identified out of a sample of 1,758 students in Grades 5 through 8. After selecting from the total sample a group of nonbullying youth who were matched on gender, school, and grade, a comparison was made of the groups' dating experiences, quality of friend and boyf...

The present study employed naturalistic observations to compare bullying and victimization in the playground and in the classroom. The results indicated that there were more opportunities to observe aggression and receive and initiate aggression in the playground than in the classroom. The frequency of bullying was higher in the playground (4.5 epi...

The purpose of this research was to examine the peer processes that occur during bullying episodes on the school playground. These processes were examined from a social learning perspective, allowing us to consider the effects of various types of reinforcement among bullies, victims, and peers. Fifty-three segments of video tape were examined. Each...

Adolescents' conceptions of cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships were explored in a sample of 1755 adolescent boys and girls ranging in age from 9 to 14 years. These adolescents uniquely characterized romantic relationships in terms of passion and commitment whereas cross-sex friendships were largely characterized by affiliation. Even t...

Little is known about for whom treatment is most effective and how to match adolescent clients to substance-abuse treatment. 280 adolescents treated in a multifaceted program participated. Of these, 128 did not complete treatment prior to termination of the 2-mo. inpatient phase. They were significantly different from clients who completed treatmen...

This research program assessed the effectiveness of a broad-based skills training program that targeted children's aggressive behaviors within the family, school, and peer systems. Children in Grades 1 to 6, referred by teachers, participated in 12 to 15 weeks of social skills training. Nine basic skills were targeted: listening, knowing your feeli...

Children must learn to act appropriately, in ways that differ from society to society and from context to context. The question of how best to socialize children so that they can function successfully has fascinated educators and psychologists for centuries. In a world in which children exhibit levels of violence that are strikingly un-childlike, t...

Prevention experiments with children have targeted the development of antisocial behavior and confirm the hypothesis that early childhood factors are important precursors of delinquent behavior and that a cumulative effect model best fits the data. Experiments have aimed to prevent criminal behavior or one of three important delinquency risk factor...

Source: Bullying Special Edition Contributor Bullying is a relationship problem that requires relationship solutions. Over the past 20 years, the dominant perspective has been to view bullying as an aggressive behaviour problem that requires consistent punishment of those who bully (1, 2). Recent research has demonstrated considerable diversity amo...