Title:	Mapping the Social Ecology of Bullying: A Social Network Analysis of Moral, Social, and Contextual Factors in Adolescent Peer Groups
DNr:	LiU-compute-2025-39
Project Type:	LiU Compute
Principal Investigator:	Xingna Qin <xingna.qin@liu.se>
Affiliation:	Linköpings universitet
Duration:	2025-09-20 – 2026-01-01
Classification:	50910
Keywords:

Abstract

Background: Bullying is a complex social phenomenon deeply embedded within peer contexts. While individual factors like moral disengagement and contextual factors like parenting are known correlates, their interplay within the dynamic structure of adolescent friendships is not fully understood. Objective: This study employs longitudinal Social Network Analysis (SNA) to investigate how moral disengagement, bullying attitudes, and involvement in bullying (as a perpetrator, victim, or defender) are shaped by and shape adolescents' friendship networks. It further examines how parenting practices and perceived teacher responses moderate these relationships. Methods: This project will use a dataset, which is called “anti-bullying Xi’an”, including six waves of data from both primary school and middle school in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China. This project draws on six waves of data from both primary and middle schools in China. Primary school students were followed from Grade 4 to Grade 6, and middle school students from Grade 7 to Grade 8. The sample includes approximately 3,200 primary students across 70 classrooms and 3,500 middle school students across 76 classrooms. This project uses questionnaires assessing moral disengagement, bullying attitudes, bullying roles, parenting styles, and teachers’ responses to bullying. In addition, sociometric nominations are employed to capture friendship, bullying perpetration, victimization, and defending networks. Analysis: Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOMs) will be used to analyze the longitudinal social network data. This method allows for the simultaneous testing of social selection (e.g., whether adolescents befriend peers with similar levels of moral disengagement) and social influence (e.g., whether friends influence each other's bullying behaviors over time), while controlling for network structural effects. Expected Results: We hypothesize that (1) moral disengagement, bullying attitudes, and defending behaviors will spread through friendship networks via social influence; (2) parents’ moral disengagement induction helps in shaping adolescents’ friendship networks: and (3) perceived effective teacher responses will buffer the negative effects of associating with morally disengaged peers.