FREQUENCY AND INTENSITY IN SCHOOL BULLYING: WHAT IS WHAT IN THE VICTIMIZATION?

The study of school bullying from a forensic point of view requires of a continuous on time and frequency i.e. intensity of the bullying behavior. Furthermore, the legal concept of school bulling also entails victimization. Additionally, as for a damage forensic proof to be admissible and valid, this must establish a causal relationship between the school bullying behaviors suffered and the damage. As for the psychological damages, the literature has identified that the school bullying victimization is related with both external and internal symptoms. Nevertheless, the forensic evidence of damage only rest on the internalizing, because from the externalizing the causal relationship may not be established. With the aim of knowing the effects of the intensity and continuity of bullying behaviors on the internalizing symptoms, a field study was designed. 110 adolescents, aged from 14 to 16 (M = 14.85) endorsed the Spanish adaptation of the MMPI-A (Butcher et al., 2003) for measuring the victimization and the AVE inventory (Pinuel and Onate, 2006) The results showed differences, and with a large effect size, in the psychological injury mediated by both, the frequency and intensity of the suffered bullying behaviors. The implications of these results as for the mental health and youngster development are discussed.