Citation

Dong Y, Liu F, Jiang Y, Wei S. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 19(17): e11072.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph191711072

PMID

36078790

Abstract

When children are "left behind", aggressive behavior is a common manifestation of problem behaviors, and several previous studies suggested that neuroticism has characteristics such as oversensitivity and impulsivity, which may be important predictors of aggressive behavior. However, the mediating mechanisms underlying this relationship are unknown. This study is designed to analyze how neuroticism leads to left-behind children's aggressive behaviors through mediators of interpersonal sensitivity and bullying victimization. A sample of 1478 Chinese children (67.72% left-behind children; 37.28% non-left-behind children) through whole-class contact and voluntary participation completed measurements of neuroticism, interpersonal sensitivity, bullying victimization, and aggressive behavior.

FINDINGS from the mediation analysis show that interpersonal sensitivity and bullying victimization could mediate the relationship between neuroticism and aggressive behavior among left-behind children separately and sequentially. These findings suggest helpful ways to reduce the aggressive behaviors of left-behind children by decreasing interpersonal sensitivity and bullying victimization.

Language: en

Keywords

aggressive behavior; neuroticism; bullying victimization; interpersonal sensitivity; left-behind children