Bullying and Psychological Dating Violence: The Relation Between two Aggressive Peer-Behaviours.

Background Previous research has suggested that bullying could be related to teen dating violence; there may be a psycho-developmental transition between bullying and other forms of violence during adolescence as an evolution of the aggressive pattern. This study attempts to identify the role of bullying as a risk factor for psychological violence in adolescents' dating relationships, and the relationship between these two aggressive behaviours. Method The participants were 3,144 adolescents from Valencia (50.6% girls), enrolled in Primary Education (50.4%) and Secondary Education (49.6%). Results The results showed rates of involvement in bullying as high as 46.2%, while the rates of psychological dating aggression were 31.4%. The multinomial logistic regression analysis identified aggression in bullying as a predictive variable for psychological aggression during dating, while the predictors of victimization were also linked to those for victimization in bullying. After analysing the interactions, the results showed that particularly in boys, previous experience of indirect perpetration of bullying is a risk variable of later psychological dating aggression, and that this kind of experience in Primary School is a significant predictor variable for both aggression and victimization in dating. Conclusions The results are discussed in terms of the psycho-developmental pattern of these aggressive behaviours.