Cultural values as mediators between parenting styles and bullying behavior at school

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parenting styles, cultural values and bullying behavior at school. The main objective was to test the mediating role of cultural values in these relationships. The participants were 985 pre-adolescents, aged 10-12 years old (M = 10.95, SD = .75) from Cyprus and Greece who completed the Parental Authority Questionnaire, the Cultural Values Scale and the Bullying Victimization Questionnaire. Structural equation models were applied to test the interrelations between the latent factors. It was found that horizontal individualism was positively related to victimization, whereas vertical individualism was positively related to bullying. Furthermore, cultural values partially mediated the relationships between parental styles and bullying behavior. The contextual mechanisms explaining bullying and victimization were similar for males and females. The findings support the contextual conceptualization of bullying and point out the need to consider the mediating role of cultural values in order to understand the differential pathways between familial factors and child outcomes.