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Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

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Mediating and moderating role of

attributional style in the association
between victimisation and wellbeing
a b
Susan Goldsmid & Pauline Howie
a
Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
b
School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
Published online: 14 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Susan Goldsmid & Pauline Howie (2013) Mediating and moderating role
of attributional style in the association between victimisation and wellbeing, Emotional and
Behavioural Difficulties, 18:4, 423-434, DOI: 10.1080/13632752.2013.803682

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 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2013
Vol. 18, No. 4, 423–434, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2013.803682

Mediating and moderating role of attributional style in the association

between victimisation and wellbeing
Susan Goldsmida and Pauline Howieb*
a
Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT, Australia;
b
School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

This study examined whether attributional style for negative events plays a mediating
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or moderating role in the association between victimisation by bullying and psycho-

logical distress in young adults. A total of 127 undergraduate students completed
the Attributional Style Questionnaire, a newly developed Victimisation and Bullying
Inventory and the Psychological Distress subscale from the Mental Health Inventory.
As expected, the tendency to attribute negative events to internal, stable and global
causes predicted higher psychological distress. There was also a positive association
between extent of victimisation and psychological distress. Although attributional style
did not mediate in this relationship, there was evidence of moderation. Individuals with
more negative attributional styles showed a clear association between victimisation and
psychological distress, while those with less negative styles showed no association.
These results suggest that a tendency towards a negative attributional style may increase
the risk of psychological distress in victims of bullying.
Keywords: bullying; victimisation; attributional style; psychological distress

Introduction
Research has consistently shown a robust association between being bullied and an
increased risk to emotional and physical health (Williams et al. 1996) across both sexes,
across a wide range of ages and using various methods of assessment (for a review see
Hawker and Boulton 2000). However, there is much still to be known about the mechanisms
underlying this relationship. It has been noted that individual responses to comparable lev-
els of victimisation vary greatly, possibly due to individual vulnerabilities (Rigby 1997).
Identification of variables that may explain such individual differences has become a goal
for many researchers of bullying. This is important both for theoretical and for practical
reasons, as intervention and support for victims is unlikely to be effective unless it is based
on a sound understanding of the routes by which different individuals might respond to and
deal with victimisation. One individual difference variable that deserves consideration, but
which has received very little attention, is attributional style.
Attributional style is a cognitive personality variable that reflects how individuals habit-
ually explain events in their lives (Sanjuan et al. 2008). Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale
(1978) and Peterson et al. (1982) have proposed that negative outcomes following uncon-
trollable negative events are more pronounced if an individual’s causal attributions show

*Corresponding author. Email: pauline.howie@sydney.edu.au

© 2013 SEBDA
 424 S. Goldsmid and P. Howie

three characteristics: first, the individual perceives the event as caused by something about
themselves, such as lack of effort (internal attribution), rather than something about the
situation, such as task difficulty (external attribution); second, the individual attributes the
event to a non-transient factor (stable attribution), such as lack of ability, as opposed to a
transient factor (unstable attribution), such as luck; third, the individual attributes the event
to a global factor that is present in a variety of situations (global attribution), rather than
a specific or circumscribed cause (specific attribution). A relatively consistent tendency to
make such causal attributions (i.e., internal, stable and global) has been labelled a negative
attributional style (Sanjuan et al. 2008). This has been argued to underpin learned helpless-
ness, in that it engenders the expectation that similar negative events will reoccur, which
in turn generates helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale 1978). Consistent with
this account, a negative attributional style has been shown to be associated with depression
(e.g., Calvete, Villardon, and Estevez 2008), anxiety (e.g., Ralph and Mineka 1998), higher
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negative affect and lower positive affect (e.g., Sanjuan et al. 2008).
There are three ways in which attributional style might impact upon the association
between level of victimisation and psychological outcomes. First, severity of victimisation
and attributional style may simply make independent contributions to wellbeing outcomes.
Second, the strength of the association between severity of victimisation and outcomes may
depend on the extent to which the individual makes internal, stable and global attributions.
That is, attributional style may moderate the association between victimisation and its psy-
chological outcomes. If so, the association would be expected to be stronger in individuals
with high internal/stable/global attributions. Third, a negative attributional style may play
a mediating role. That is, rather than directly impacting on psychological outcomes, the
experience of victimisation might elicit maladaptive negative attributions, which in turn
impact adversely on psychological outcomes.
The role that attributional style plays in the association between victimisation by bul-
lying and psychological outcomes has not, to the authors’ knowledge, been previously
examined. However, research in related areas provides some relevant evidence. For exam-
ple, Sanjuan et al. (2008) reported that within an early post-school sample, individuals
expressing negative attributional styles—that is, a tendency to explain a set of hypothetical
negative events through internal, stable and global causes—reported higher negative affect
and lower positive affect. Consistent with this finding, research on abused children and
adolescents suggests that the victim’s perception of their abuse has an impact on the devel-
opment of symptoms. Negative attributional style in abused children has been reported to
be associated with wellbeing deficits, such as post-trauma distress and depression (Feiring,
Taska, and Lewis 1998; Kress and Vandenberg 1998; Runyon and Kenny 2002), and Brown
and Kolko (1999) found that in physically abused children, attributional style contributed
to the prediction of outcomes independently of severity of abuse.
There do not appear to have been any studies that have directly investigated whether
attributions play a moderating role in the association between severity of negative events
and psychological outcomes. However, evidence suggesting mediation was reported by
Feiring, Taska, and Lewis (1998), who found that when predicting depression in sexually
abused children and adolescents, adding attributional style as a predictor reduced the pre-
dictive power of frequency of abuse, a key criterion for the presence of mediation (Keith
2006). This finding suggested that the association between abuse frequency and depres-
sion was not direct, but was rather the result of an association between frequency of abuse
and negative attributional style, which in turn predicted depression. A recent study on
domestic violence provides further evidence of the potential mediating role of attributional
 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 425

style. In a sample of battered women, Bargai, Ben-Shakhar, and Shalev (2007) examined
a number of psychological components of learned helplessness, including perceptions of
degree of control over problems and beliefs about self-efficacy. They found that learned
helplessness mediated domestic violence exposure’s contribution to the prediction of post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression. That is, similar to the findings
of Feiring, Taska, and Lewis (1998), the association between severity of violence and
risk of PTSD and major depression appeared to be indirect, the result of an association
between severity of violence and learned helplessness, which in turn predicted increased
risk. It is not known whether a similar association exists for more general forms of bully-
ing, such as might occur in school-age or young adult populations. Nevertheless, Bargai
et al.’s (2007) finding emphasizes the importance of understanding how perceptions and
beliefs may modulate the relationship between aggression and psychological outcomes.
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Purpose of the study

The main objective of the present study was to examine the possible mediating or mod-
erating role of negative attributional style in the association between victimisation by
bullying and psychological distress, in an Australian early post-school sample. Based
on previous research and the theoretical accounts proposed by Abramson, Seligman, and
Teasdale (1978) and Peterson et al. (1982), it was hypothesized that a tendency to attribute
negative events to internal, stable and global causes would be associated with increased
psychological distress. It was further expected that if attributional style acts as a media-
tor between victimisation and psychological distress, greater victimisation would predict a
greater tendency towards a negative attributional style, which in turn would predict greater
psychological distress. Following Keith’s (2006) criteria for mediation, it was expected
that level of victimisation would be positively associated with psychological distress, but
after controlling for attributional style in a regression analysis, victimisation would show
no or reduced predictive power. Alternatively, if attributional style acted as a moderating
variable, it was expected that an interaction between attributional style and level of vic-
timisation would occur, in that the greater the individual’s tendency to show a negative
attributional style, the stronger the association between victimisation and psychological
distress would be.

Method
Participants
Participants were 127 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the
University of Sydney, Australia in their second semester of study. They were participat-
ing in a large-scale study of victimisation and bullying behaviour in multiple post-school
contexts (Goldsmid 2011). There were 32 males and 94 females (1 gender not indicated),
aged between 17 and 24 years (M = 18.66, SD = 1.05).
Participants were recruited via an advertisement, as part of a wide range of research
projects in which students could participate in exchange for partial fulfilment of their
course requirement. The study was described as concerning ‘life as a student’. No mention
of bullying or victimisation was made in the advertised description, in order to avoid any
self-selection by bullies or victims of bullying. Ethical approval for the study was obtained
from the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee.
 426 S. Goldsmid and P. Howie

Measures
Attributional style
This was assessed using the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ). This measures self-
reported individual differences in the three attributional dimensions noted earlier: internal–
external, stable–unstable and global–specific (Peterson et al. 1982). The ASQ presents six
hypothetical ‘bad’ events appropriate to young adults (e.g. ‘You go out on a date and it
goes badly’), then asks respondents to generate a cause for each event and then rate that
cause on seven-point scales of internality, stability and globality (Hewitt, Foxcroft, and
MacDonald 2004). Attributional Style for Negative Events (ASNE) scores are calculated
by averaging the three ratings for each of the six events, resulting in a composite score with
a potential range from 3 to 21. High scores reflect an internal, stable and global style and
low scores reflect an external, unstable and specific style (Sanjuan et al. 2008). The ASQ
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has good internal consistency (Peterson et al. 1982), test-retest reliability (Golin, Sweeney,
and Shaeffer 1981) and construct validity (Hewitt, Foxcroft, and MacDonald 2004). In the
current sample, the alpha coefficient for the ASNE scale was .83.

Victimisation score
Exposure to specific bullying acts was measured using the Victimisation and Bullying
Inventory (VBI). This was developed by Goldsmid (2011) for use with young adults in
post-school settings. It has been used in a large-scale research project designed to address
the nature of involvement in victimisation and bullying behaviour across several contexts
(contact author for details), of which the present study forms a small part. The measure con-
sists of 29 items that describe verbal, physical, relational and property-related behaviours
that could be perceived as bullying if they occurred on a regular basis (e.g. ‘I have been gos-
siped about’; ‘I have been verbally threatened by someone’). Each item is presented once
from the victim’s perspective and once from the bully’s perspective, resulting in two 29-
item scales. There is no explicit use of the term ‘bullying’. Table 1 shows example items.
Respondents are asked how frequently they have experienced/engaged in each behaviour
in the preceding six months. Responses are coded 0 (‘never’), 1 (‘almost never’), 2 (‘once
in a while’), 3 (‘often’) and 4 (‘almost always’).
A particular strength of the VBI is that it generates separate measures of concurrent
victimisation and bullying involvement in three post-school contexts (tertiary educational
institution, home and workplace). Participants completed the victimisation and bullying
scales first in reference to the university context, then the work context and finally the

Table 1. Example victimisation and bullying items from the Victimisation and Bullying Inventory.
Victimisation Item

I have been deliberately ignored

Never Almost never Once in a while Often Almost always
0 1 2 3 4

Bullying item

I have intimidated someone

Never Almost never Once in a while Often Almost always
0 1 2 3 4
 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 427

home context. The order was the same for all participants, to allow comparability between
participants. The measure yields separate victimisation and bullying scores for each con-
text. Following the procedure commonly used in the literature (e.g. Bosworth, Espelage,
and Simon 1999; Marsh et al. 2004), the victimisation score was calculated as the sum of
frequency ratings across all 29 victimisation items and the bullying score as the sum of
frequency ratings across all 29 bullying items. The maximum score in both cases was 116.
A composite victimisation score was calculated by averaging the victimisation scores for
all three contexts. A corresponding composite bullying score was also calculated. Thus the
composite scores reflect both the frequency and the variety of victimisation (or bullying)
behaviours experienced across the university, work and home contexts in the preceding six
months.
In the present study, only the composite victimisation score was used. Correlations
between victimisation scores for all three contexts were significant (r = .32, .16 and .24 for
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home with work, home with university and work with university, respectively, all p < .05).
Internal consistency was high (Cronbach’s alpha = .84, .74 and .86 for university, work
and home respectively; Goldsmid 2011).

Psychological distress
This was measured using the Psychological Distress subscale from the Mental Health
Inventory (Hays, Sherbourne, and Mazel 1995). This consists of 22 items measuring anxi-
ety, depression and loss of behavioural/emotional control in the previous month (e.g. ‘How
often has feeling depressed interfered with what you usually do?’: 1 = Always to 6 =
Never). The ratings were summed and then transformed following Hays, Sherbourne, and
Mazel’s (1995) procedure, resulting in a possible range of 0–100. The subscale has good
validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability (Hays, Sherbourne, and Mazel 1995;
Veit and Ware 1983). In the current sample, the alpha coefficient for this subscale was .94.
Higher scores on the scale represent greater levels of wellbeing. This is somewhat counter-
intuitive, as high scores correspond to low psychological distress. However, given that this
is an established measure, the scoring was not reversed for the present study.

Procedure
Participants completed the questionnaire battery online using a home or campus com-
puter at a convenient time within a two-week period. The online delivery was programmed
such that the ASQ was completed first, followed by the Psychological Distress scale, and
lastly the three scales of the VBI. After consenting to participate, students were sent access
instructions, a URL and password. To allow allocation of course credit, students entered
their identification numbers and email addresses in such a way that they were clearly
separate from the responses to the questionnaire. In addition, students were assured that
their responses were completely confidential and that all identifying information would be
removed prior to data inspection and stored separately.

Results
Table 2 shows descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for the analysed variables.
Although scores on the three ASQ dimensions were not included in the main analysis, they
are of interest and are therefore included here. There were no significant gender differ-
ences in any of the variables. Victimisation and ASNE scores were significantly negatively
 428 S. Goldsmid and P. Howie

Table 2. Means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations for the variables.
Mean SD 2. PD 3. ASNE 4. ASNE I 5. ASNE S 6. ASNE G

1. Victimisation 4.34 4.06 −.26∗∗ .06 .15 .10 .15

2. Psychological 70.88 15.40 − −.54∗∗ −.38∗∗ −.39∗∗ −.46∗∗
distress
3. ASNE 57.61 11.55 − .67∗∗ .75∗∗ .71∗∗
4. ASNE internality 4.62 .76 − .61∗∗ .54∗∗
5. ASNE stability 4.10 .95 − .75∗∗
6. ASNE globality 3.67 1.08 −
∗∗ Significant at the 0.01 level.
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correlated with psychological distress. That is, both victimisation and a stronger tendency
towards a negative attributional style were significantly associated with higher reported
levels of psychological distress (lower psychological distress scores).
In order to test for moderation and mediation, we conducted a hierarchical regression
analysis, with psychological distress as the dependent variable. In the analysis, gender and
victimisation score were entered in Step 1, ASNE score in Step 2 and interaction effects
(Gender × ASNE and ASNE × victimisation) in Step 3. All variables were mean-centred
and gender was contrast coded (male –.5, female .5). Preliminary analyses showed no inter-
action between gender and victimisation, so this interaction term was not included in the
main analyses.
Table 3 shows the results of the regression predicting psychological distress. R2 for
the third model was significant, with 39% of the variance in psychological distress scores
accounted for, F(5, 114) = 14.75, p < .001. The inclusion of interaction terms in the
model significantly increased the variance accounted for (R2 = .04, p < .05). In Model 3,
both victimisation and ASNE scores made independent contributions to the prediction of
psychological distress. That is, participants who reported a tendency to attribute nega-
tive events to internal/stable/global causes reported greater psychological distress (lower

Table 3. Regression analysis predicting psychological distress from victimisation, negative

attributional style (ASNE score) and gender.

Independent variables b SEb β t R2 R2

Model 1 .07∗ .07∗

Gender −2.85 3.14 −.08 −.91
Victimisation −1.00 .34 −.27∗∗ −2.99
Model 2 .35∗∗ .28∗∗
Gender −3.46 2.64 −.10 −1.31
Victimisation −.88 .28 −.23∗∗ −3.11
ASNE −.70 .10 −.53∗∗ −7.09
Model 3 .39∗∗ .04∗
Gender −3.80 2.58 −.11 −1.47
Victimisation −.88 .28 −.23∗∗ −3.17
ASNE −.74 .13 −.56∗∗ −5.89
Gender × ASNE .32 .24 .12 1.33
Victimisation × ASNE −.04 .02 −.17∗ −2.20

Notes: Lower psychological distress scores correspond to higher levels of psychological distress; ∗ significant at
the 0.05 level; ∗∗ significant at the 0.01 level.
 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 429

Attributional Style
100.00
ASNE: Below Mean
ASNE: Above Mean
ASNE: Below Mean
ASNE: Above Mean

80.00
Psychological Distress

60.00
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40.00

R Sq Linear = 0.003
R Sq Linear = 0.169

20.00

0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00

Victimisation Score

Figure 1. Plot of the effects of victimisation scores on psychological distress for participants with
ASNE scores above and below the sample mean.

scores). In addition, higher victimisation scores were associated with greater psychological
distress. There was also a significant interaction between ASNE and victimisation. In order
to examine the nature of this interaction, victimisation scores were plotted against psycho-
logical distress scores for participants falling above and below the ASNE sample mean (i.e.
those reporting a relatively high and a relatively low negative attributional style). Figure 1
shows the resulting scattergram, with lines of best fit for the two ASNE groups. Higher
victimisation scores were associated with greater psychological distress (lower scores) for
individuals above the ASNE mean (r = −.41, p < .01), but not for those below the mean
(r = −.05, p > .05). This supports the prediction that ASNE plays a moderating role in
the association between victimisation and psychological distress. Gender did not predict
distress, and did not interact with ASNE.
There was no evidence that negative attributional style mediated in the association
between victimisation and psychological distress, based on Keith’s (2006) criteria. That
is, inclusion of ASNE scores in Model 2 did not result in a substantial reduction in the
contribution of victimisation to the prediction of psychological distress (Model 1).
Given the finding that ASNE moderates the association between victimisation and psy-
chological distress, a post-hoc analysis was conducted to explore the relative contributions
of each of the three attributional style dimensions (internality, stability and globality) to this
interaction effect. Bivariate correlations between the dimensions are shown in Table 2. All
three dimensions showed positive correlations with victimisation, but none reached statis-
tical significance. There were significant positive correlations between internality, stability
and globality. Stability and globality were highly related (r = .75), and thus for the purposes
of regression analysis they were summed to form a single stability/globality score in order
to avoid multicollinearity.
 430 S. Goldsmid and P. Howie

Table 4. Regression analysis predicting psychological distress from victimisation, internality and
stability/globality attributional dimensions and gender.

Independent variables b SEb B t R2 R2

Model 1 .08∗∗ .08∗∗

Gender −4.87 3.20 −.14 −1.52
Victimisation −.98 .34 −.26∗∗ −2.89
Model 2 .29∗∗ .21∗∗
Gender −4.87 2.83 −.14 −1.72
Victimisation −.72 .30 −.19∗ −2.37
ASNE internality −4.12 2.26 −.17 −1.82
ASNE stability/globality −3.12 .82 −.35∗∗ −3.80
Model 3 .36∗∗ .07∗∗
Gender −4.70 2.72 −.13 −1.73
−.38 −.10 −1.22
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Victimisation .31
ASNE internality −3.20 2.18 −.13 −1.47
ASNE stability/globality −3.08 .78 −.35∗∗ −3.92
Victimisation × ASNE internality −1.84 .61 −.35∗∗ −3.00
Victimisation × ASNE .20 .24 .09 .82
stability/globality
∗ significant at the 0.05 level; ∗∗ significant at the 0.01 level.

The regression analysis predicting psychological distress was then rerun, but with
scores on the internality and stability/globality ASNE dimensions entered in Model 2
rather than the total ASNE score, and interactions between victimisation and the two
ASNE variables were entered in Model 3. Due to power constraints, it was not possible
to include interactions with gender. As in the previous regression analysis, all variables
were mean-centred and gender was contrast coded.
Table 4 shows the results of the regression analysis. The addition of interactions into
the model (Model 3) significantly increased the variance accounted for (R2 = .07, p <
.01), resulting in 36% of the variance in psychological distress scores being accounted for,
F(6, 110) = 10.54, p < .001.
In Model 3, the combined attributional dimension of stability/globality (b = –3.08,
SEb = .78, β = −.35, p < .05) was a unique predictor of psychological distress, but inter-
nality was not. That is, a higher tendency to attribute negative events to stable and global
factors was associated with greater psychological distress when gender, victimisation and
internality were controlled.
Although victimisation was a significant predictor in Model 2, it no longer predicted
psychological distress when the interaction terms were added in Model 3. However, the
interaction between victimisation and internality was significant (b = –1.84, SEb = .61, β
= −.35, p < .05). That is, internality moderated the effect of victimisation on psychological
distress. Higher victimisation scores were associated with greater psychological distress
(lower scores) for individuals above the internality mean (r = −.42, p < .05) but not for
those below the mean (r = .03, p > .05). There was no evidence of an interaction between
victimisation and the combined stability/globality variable.

Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether negative attributional style
played a mediating or moderating role in the association between victimisation by bullying
 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 431

and psychological distress, using an early post-school sample. This is the first study to
examine this issue. It was expected that negative attributional style would be associated
with increased psychological distress. The results revealed that this was indeed the case.
Further, as expected, higher levels of victimisation were predictive of greater levels of
psychological distress.
Importantly, the present study also revealed the novel finding that negative attributional
style moderated the relationship between victimisation and psychological distress. That
is, individuals who reported more negative attributional styles showed a clear association
between extent of victimisation and psychological distress, while individuals who reported
a lesser tendency towards negative attributions showed no association. This provides an
unique insight, suggesting that an individual’s risk of psychological distress following vic-
timisation is increased by a tendency to attribute negative life events to causes that are
always present (stable causes), reflect something about the person (internal causes) and/or
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apply across all situations (global causes), as opposed to a tendency to attribute nega-
tive events to unstable, external and more specific causes. Given that the present study
employed a cross-sectional design, causality cannot be assessed. It will be important to
determine whether moderation would also be observed in a longitudinal study, in which
prior attributional style and level of distress could be related to later occurrence of victimi-
sation. If confirmed, the finding has the potential to impact upon intervention programmes,
suggesting that psychological outcomes for victims of bullying may be improved through
altering their perception of the cause of negative life events. The finding also has a num-
ber of potential theoretical implications, suggesting a possible explanation for why some
individuals are more vulnerable to victimisation across multiple contexts or across time, or
display greater psychological vulnerability in the face of ill-treatment.
It appears that the three attributional dimensions do not contribute equally to the
moderating influence of attributional style on the victimisation–psychological distress
association. The exploratory analysis revealed that the moderating effect was due to the
influence of internality, rather than stability or globality. This is an interesting finding, as
it suggests that the tendency to self-blame for victimisation is the key attributional fac-
tor affecting individuals’ sensitivity to the extent of victimisation they experience. There
was no evidence that the stability/globality combined variable played a similar moderat-
ing role, although, interestingly, it did predict distress in its own right. As this was only
an exploratory analysis, these novel findings require replication. One reason for the par-
ticular influence of the internality dimension may be that attribution to a cause that is
stable or global is inherently influenced by whether the victim first makes an internal attri-
bution – that is, whether they blame themself, rather than the bully or the context (e.g.,
school or workplace). This finding has implications for the treatment of victims, suggest-
ing that life outcomes may be improved through the alteration of victims’ perceptions.
Further, as causal attributions have been reported to determine the chronicity of a vari-
ety of deficits, including helplessness and self-esteem (Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale
1978), the present findings suggest that the role of attributional dimensions in predicting
other psychological outcomes for victims of bullying will be a fruitful area for further
investigation.
It is important to note that the attributional measure used in this study reflected attribu-
tions concerning a broad range of events (e.g., unsuccessful public speaking, work stress,
failure of a date) and did not specifically address victimisation or bullying. This is a clear
strength, as it enabled general attributional style to be measured prior to any reference
to victimisation behaviour, minimising shared method variance. Nevertheless, it would be
 432 S. Goldsmid and P. Howie

of interest to examine whether attributional style for specific victimisation accounted for
further variance in psychological outcomes.
We did not find that attributional style mediated in the association between victimisa-
tion and psychological distress. That is, there was no evidence that victimisation influences
distress indirectly through eliciting a negative attributional style. In contrast, Bargai, Ben-
Shakhar, and Shalev’s (2007) research on battered women, described earlier, did find
that learned helplessness mediated in the association between violence exposure and psy-
chopathology. One reason for these inconsistent findings may be that Bargai et al. focused
on extremely negative attributions. Second, the studies differed in the measurement of
victimisation: that is, our measure incorporated frequency and variety of victimisation,
whereas Bargai et al. (2007) incorporated number of occurrences, extent of injury and
duration of exposure. It may be that severity of harm experienced (i.e., injury) is the partic-
ular aspect of victimisation that affects psychological outcomes through attributional style.
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Last, domestic violence victimisation is likely to be more severe and intense and to involve
a more intimate relationship than victimisation by bullying. These issues highlight avenues
of research that are yet to be explored.
Some limitations of this study should be noted. First, the undergraduate university sam-
ple cannot be assumed to be representative of the wider early post-school population, in
terms of educational level and socioeconomic status. Although one of the strengths of this
study is its contribution to the very limited body of research on bullying in post-school
populations, the nature of the current sample means that caution is needed in generalising
these findings to the greater post-school population. It would also be of interest to replicate
these findings in children and adolescents. Although we did not find any gender effects,
larger sample sizes will be needed before we can conclude with confidence that similar
patterns are present in both males and females.
Second, since all our variables were measured via self-report, shared method variance
may have inflated the associations, and socially desirable responding may be a concern.
However, this potential limitation should be minimised by the fact that participants com-
pleted the attributional style and distress measures prior to reporting on victimisation.
As noted earlier, the self-report measures of psychological distress and victimisation used
in this study have demonstrated reliability and validity, but further research using inde-
pendent measures would be of value. Self-reports of victimisation were deemed to be
the most appropriate and practical method of measurement in this study. Peer or parent
reports were unlikely to be reliable or available, given that in this post-school sample there
was no common peer structure, and the majority of participants resided outside the fam-
ily home. Ahmad and Smith (1994) have argued that anonymous self-report is the method
best suited to examination of the incidence of bullying and victimisation as it elicits greater
candour and higher disclosure of involvement, compared with teacher nominations, peer
nominations and individual interviews.
The necessity to collect student identification numbers and email addresses was a
potential threat to anonymity in this study. However, Chan, Myron, and Crawshaw (2005)
showed that self-reports of bullying or victimisation did not differ based on whether identi-
fying information was requested. Consistent with this finding, in another as yet unpublished
study conducted by the present authors, where no identification data was collected, levels
of victimisation were similar to those observed in the present study.
A clear strength of the newly developed VBI is that it allows concurrent measurement
of victimisation in three contexts. However, in the present study a limitation was that the
contexts were always presented in the same order. This does not appear to have had undue
influence, as prevalence rates did not consistently decline across order of presentation.
 Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 433

However, this is an issue that should be considered in future studies. It would also be
of interest to examine the effect of context on the role of attribution, and in particular
whether the role differs when victimisation is predominantly peer-to-peer versus superior-
to-subordinate.
In conclusion, the present findings demonstrate the potential importance of
attributional style in explaining individual differences in psychological outcomes for vic-
tims of bullying. They also provide evidence of the predictive validity of the Victimization
and Bullying Inventory (VBI), further demonstrating the potential of this newly developed
multi-context measure to explore post-school victimisation and bullying. In addition, the
results make a substantial contribution to bullying theory, demonstrating for the first time
that the tendency to attribute negative events to internal, stable and global causes increases
the risk of psychological distress when victimized. These findings represent an interesting
new direction for research and point to potential gains for interventions that aim to lessen
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the devastating impact of bullying on victims.

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