PERCEIVED PARENTAL RESPONSIVENESS AND NEUROTICISM AS PREDICTORS OF BULLYING BEHAVIOUR AMONG IN-SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN IBADAN, OYO STATE

Abstract

Bullying has been considered a public health issue because it causes psychosocial and academic problems in thousands of children worldwide. This study investigated how perceived parental responsiveness and neuroticism predict bullying behaviour among in-school adolescents in Ibadan, Oyo State. This was a cross-sectional study involving 428 purposively sampled participants from both private and public secondary schools whose mean age was 15.06±1.52 years. A 37-item self-report questionnaire comprising sociodemographic, perceived parental responsiveness (α=.93), neuroticism (α=.68), and bullying behaviour (α=.86) was administered. Four hypotheses were tested using multiple regression, independent t-tests and one-way ANOVA at the 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that perceived parental responsiveness and neuroticism jointly predicted bullying behaviour [F(2,363)=56.40, R=.49, R2=.24, p<.001]. Independently, perceived parental responsiveness (β = -.46; t = -8.89; P<.001) and neuroticism (β = .14; t = 2.92; P<.05) significantly predicted bullying behaviour. The results further revealed that male adolescents ( X = 13.12) reported significantly more bullying behaviour than female adolescents ( X = 10.31). Furthermore, the results revealed a significant difference in the mean score of parental marital status on bullying behaviours [F (4, 422) = 4.41; P<.01]. Adolescents whose parents were divorced (x̅ = 19.73) reported more bullying behaviour. Moreover, the results show that bullying is more common in private schools than in public schools. In conclusion, bullying behaviour differs by gender, type of school, level of parental responsiveness, neuroticism and marital status of their parent.