From Social Harm to Neural Scars
By UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS
ANGELES HEALTH SCIENCES
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The study, published today (February 13) in
the journal Nature Mental Health, is believed
to be the first to examine the link between peer bullying, interpersonal
distrust, and the subsequent development of mental health problems, such as
anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, and anger.
The Link Between Bullying and Mental Health
Researchers used data from 10,000 children in
the United Kingdom who were studied for nearly two decades as part of the
Millennium Cohort Study. From these data, the researchers found that
adolescents who were bullied at age 11 and in turn developed greater
interpersonal distrust by age 14 were around 3.5 times more likely to
experience clinically significant mental health problems at age 17 compared to
those who developed less distrust.
The findings could help schools and other
institutions to develop new evidence-based interventions to counter the
negative mental health impacts of bullying, according to the study’s senior
author Dr. George Slavich, who directs UCLA Health’s Laboratory for Stress
Assessment and Research.
Addressing Youth Mental Health
“There are few public health topics more
important than youth mental health right now,” Slavich said. “In order to help
teens reach their fullest potential, we need to invest in research that
identifies risk factors for poor health and that translates this knowledge into
prevention programs that can improve lifelong health and resilience.”
The findings come amid growing public health
concerns about the mental health of youth. Recent studies by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention found that 44.2% of sampled high school
students in the U.S. reported being depressed for at least two weeks in 2021,
with one in 10 students who were surveyed having reported attempted suicide
that year.
In this new study, the researchers viewed
these alarming trends from the perspective of Social Safety Theory, which
hypothesizes that social threats, such as bullying, impact mental health partly
by instilling the belief that other people cannot be trusted, or that the world
is an unfriendly, dangerous or unpredictable place.
Prior research has identified associations
between bullying and mental and behavioral health issues among youth, including
its impact on substance abuse, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal
thoughts. However, following youth over time, this study is the first to
confirm the suspected pathway of how bullying leads to distrust and, in turn,
mental health problems in late adolescence.
Slavich said when people develop clinically
significant mental health problems during the teenage years, it can increase
their risk of experiencing both mental and physical health issues across the
entire lifespan if left unaddressed.
In addition to interpersonal distrust, the
authors examined if diet, sleep or physical activity also linked peer bullying
with subsequent mental health problems. However, only interpersonal distrust
was found to relate bullying to greater risk of experiencing mental health
problems at age 17.
Conclusion and Recommendations
“What these data suggest is that we really
need school-based programs that help foster a sense of interpersonal trust at
the level of the classroom and school,” Slavich said. “One way to do that would
be to develop evidence-based programs that are especially focused on the
transition to high school and college, and that frame school as an opportunity
to develop close, long-lasting relationships.”
Reference:
“Bullying fosters interpersonal distrust and degrades adolescent mental health
as predicted by Social Safety Theory” 13 February 2024, Nature Mental Health.
DOI:
10.1038/s44220-024-00203-7
The study was co-authored by Dr. George
Slavich, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, and Dr.
Dimitris Tsomokos, a researcher at the University of Glasgow.