Why Do They Bully? The Factors Behind Bullying Behavior Among Students

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-595-9_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Students; Bullying Behavior; Parenting Styles; Social-Media; Social Interaction

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether internal and external environments influence teenagers’ propensity to bully their peers. We propose three variables to predict bullying behavior in high school students, namely parenting styles, peer interaction and social media. Data were collected through questionnaires from 763 students of SMAN 2 Kotabaru, South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. We employ SEM-PLS to examine the relationship among variables. The results indicate that parenting styles significantly influence bullying behavior among students, suggesting that parents are responsible to shape their children’s behavior at home. Parents are the role model for their children which spend their time most with and most likely adopt their parent values. Furthermore, peer interaction also influences student’s propensity to bully their peers. The circle of friends determines how students treat their peers or people outside their circle. Peers may directly or indirectly form a supportive or resistant climate for bullying behavior among their circles. It is not surprising that the results also found that social media significantly influences bullying behavior among students. Social media delivers various forms of content, ranging from educational, entertainment to violent. Students need to be guided and supervised regarding their use of gadgets and social media. The results suggest the role of all parties including parents, school authorities and government to discourage bullying behavior among teenagers. A comprehensive education and socialization are needed to provide understanding of bullying behavior and its effect on social milieu as preventive action.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Firda Nosita
AU  - Novita Kumalasari
AU  - Noor Ritawaty
AU  - Siti Marfuah
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/08
TI  - Why Do They Bully? The Factors Behind Bullying Behavior Among Students
BT  - Proceedings of the  International Conference on Contemporary Risk Studies (ICONIC-RS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 230
EP  - 240
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-595-9_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-595-9_18
ID  - Nosita2026
ER  -