Posttraumatic Growth and Meaning in Life Mediate the Relationship between Severity of Adolescent Bullying Victimization and Adulthood Health Outcomes.

Abstract

Bullying victimization afflicts adolescents at high rates and predicts negative health sequelae into adulthood. Park's (2010) meaning-making model theorizes protective pathways following traumatic experiences and has been applied to a variety of traumas, but not yet bullying victimization. Consistent with Park's model, the present work assessed both meaning-making efforts-operationally defined as posttraumatic growth (PTG), or positive changes perceived to have resulted from a traumatic experience-and meanings successfully made-operationally defined concurrent presence of meaning in life-as factors mitigating adverse psychological and physical health outcomes in adulthood among targets of adolescent bullying victimization. Using path modeling with the MPlus v5 macro, the hypothesized serial process model was tested in two samples of adults who had experienced adolescent bullying (Sample 1: US adult convenience sample [N = 125]; Sample 2: International sexual minority adult sample [N = 137]). Participants reported the severity of their adolescent bullying victimizations, resulting PTG, concurrent presence of meaning in life, severity of psychological distress, and frequency of physical illness symptoms, as well as demographics. Supporting Park's (2010) model across samples, the severity of adolescent bullying victimization predicted greater PTG, and, in turn, the presence of meaning in life, ultimately predicting mitigated psychological and physical health outcomes in adulthood. As such, the results highlighted the importance of meanings successfully made per se, underscoring the attendant risks generated by the meaning-making efforts that appear necessary but insufficient to mitigate negative health sequelae. Practical implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.