Chip Chick
So many of us have been victims of bullying as adolescents. Whether it’s in your neighborhood, school, home, or online, bullying can happen anywhere and finally can be proven to cause long-term effects.
One of the most significant factors determining long-term effects depends on the perception or meaning of the experience or event has to an individual, or in this case, the victim of bullying.
Other factors include the variables of frequency and intensity of each occurrence.
Since everyone is different, whether driven by hormones, history, or who we are genetically, we can have different experiences from a similar event.
There can be positive and or negative effects. These effects impact overall mental health and well-being during childhood, adult self-esteem, adult social behavior or interaction anxiety, and overall satisfaction with adult life in general.
It isn’t easy to quantify and set standards on emotions when researchers cannot measure perceptions on precise scales.
However, researchers have been attempting for years to link the psychological effects of bullying to mental health and well-being in adults decades after victimization.
Dutch and Flemish researchers from Tilburg University, University of Antwerp, and Open University Heerlen surveyed 1,660 adults aged 18 to 26-years-old, in two separate groups focusing on their individual bullying experiences between the ages of 10 and 18 and the effects on their current perceived mental health status.
Their results varied between positive and negative impacts associated with the bullying. While there were similar results in both the Dutch and Flemish groups, the negative effects were more significant than positive effects in both.
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