Introduction

It is now widely accepted among scientists, policymakers, and the general public that youth who are victims of bullying are more susceptible to experience a wide range of difficulties, including poor health and somatic complaints, low academic achievements as well as socioemotional problems (Arseneault, Bowes, & Shakoor, 2010; Craig et al., 2009; Sourander et al., 2016). The immediate suffering, along with the potential lingering impacts of bullying victimization, has exerted a powerful incentive to pass legislation sanctioning bullying behavior and asserting the responsibility of certain institutions, such as schools, to provide a safe environment for their students. Indeed, these policies appear to be associated with lower prevalence rates of bullying (Hatzenbuehler, Schwab-Reese, Ranapurwala, Hertz, & Ramirez, 2015). School- and community-wide interventions also hold the promise of making stable and positive changes in attitudes, social norms, and behavior toward bullying, which may benefit all youth. Most existing interventions have, however, not been empirically tested and only a minority has shown positive effects of, at best, a moderate size (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). These interventions may not offer the extent of support needed by the 15% and 35% of youths who are involved in traditional bullying and cyberbullying, as victims or perpetrators (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014).

Targeted interventions designed to reach and help these youth have, to date, concentrated their efforts almost exclusively on the bullies, perhaps because of the long and rich history of research on childhood aggression (Olweus, 2013). While these interventions are necessary and may reduce bullying experienced by many victims, they may not be sufficient. Victims have, in some cases, experienced bullying for quite some time before actions have been taken to stop it and may be bullied by other peers. It thus also appears desirable to help victims acquire the skills to reduce these experiences and to foster resilience against subsequent difficulties. Surprisingly, relatively few interventions targeting victims of bullying have been empirically validated. This is certainly consistent with the perceptions of educators and parents who identify as problematic the lack of validated tools to help youth involved in bullying (Beran, 2006; Farrington & Ttofi, 2010).

Numeric platforms: A new opportunity to help bullying victims

The use of new technologies, including smartphones, is widespread in the general population—a trend that is even more prevalent among teens. About three-quarters of them own (or have access to) a smartphone (Lenhart et al., 2015). Specifically, while about half of middle school children own a smartphone, this proportion raises to 85% by the end of high school (Steeves, 2014). Not only do teens often own a smartphone, they also tend to prefer them to computers for a wide range of personal uses, including connecting with friends, playing games, and getting information about fashion, health, and entertainment (Connected Generation Report, 2010; Lenhart et al., 2015). While being present online may increase the risk of being bullied, these technologies also offer new opportunities to provide youth with more targeted health care services (Cuijpers, van Straten, & Andersson, 2008).

Accordingly, numeric platforms represent a new way to help bullying victims. Not only do they feel more confident talking or disclosing sensitive or embarrassing issues online or via an electronic device (Bradford & Rickwood, 2015; Jacobs, Vollink, Dehue, & Lechner, 2014; Webb, Burns, & Collin, 2008; Ybarra & Suman, 2006), these resources do not require them to disclose their experiences directly to someone, which many refuse to do out of fear of retaliation or embarrassment (Newman, Murray, & Lussier, 2001; Rigby, 2011; Webb et al., 2008). Mobile applications thus constitute a promising complementary platform to help youth (Havas, de Nooijer, Crutzen, & Feron, 2011), especially those who are not receiving help because of their reluctance to break their silence about their experiences.

This chapter outlines the development of Stronger than Bullying, a mobile application designed to help youth victims of bullying reduce their experiences and to foster their resilience in the face of mental health problems. We will first present an overview of Stronger than Bullying along with a brief description of its theoretical underpinnings, explain how Stronger than Bullying will be used, report the preliminary evidence of usefulness and outline future research and developments.

Overview of Stronger than Bullying

Stronger than Bullying has three specific objectives: (1) inform youth about bullying in an original, dynamic, and interactive manner; (2) help youth better understand their experiences and; (3) promote the experimentation of strategies to reduce bullying. Stronger than Bullying targets adolescents between 12- and 16-years-old because of the remaining high prevalence of bullying victimization at this age, the relative complexity of the tasks proposed by the application, and the reluctance of older youths to divulge their experiences to an adult. Fig. 12.1 offers a visual presentation of the application.

Conceptual framework

In addition to refining the description of the impact of bullying on functioning, longitudinal studies comprising population-based cohorts of children have shed light on large individual differences in difficulties experienced by victims. One hypothesis to explain this heterogeneity lies in the way youth respond to bullying, both emotionally and behaviorally. Consistent with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) Transactional model, youth who suffer the most from bullying may be those who are more inclined to use ineffective coping strategies (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Coping is generally defined as the individual’s efforts to deal with the perceived threats and their immediate consequences (e.g., negative emotions; Lazarus, 2006). Little empirical work has been done so far to test the relevance of this conceptual model for bullying victimization [for an exception, see Hampel, Manhal, & Hayer, 2009]. Indirect evidence, however, shows that more often than not bullying victims select ineffective, emotion-focused strategies, such as distraction and denial, than nonvictims would (Cassidy, 2009; Hudson, Lambe, Committee, Pepler, & Craig, 2016). Additionally, victimized youth who chose poor coping strategies (e.g., aggression, self-blame) to deal with bullying also exhibit more externalizing problems (Dooley, Shaw, & Cross, 2012; Garnefski & Kraaij, 2014). Importantly, the Transactional model does not state that individuals’ coping styles and skills are set in stone. Accordingly, one way to help youth reduce bullying victimization may be to facilitate the learning of better problem-solving techniques and to support the experimentation of more adaptive coping strategies when confronted with bullying (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2014; Jacobs, Dehue, Vollink, & Lechner, 2014).

Description of Stronger than Bullying

The structure and content of Stronger than Bullying were developed according to a coordinated sequence of four mechanisms of action considered to be at the core of problem-solving techniques. The first mechanism of action is to learn empirically based and relevant information about bullying to raise awareness about its occurrence and consequences. We included ten short videos featuring public figures popular with youth along with a virtual city map inviting users to identify places where bullying may occur, where it happened, and where to get help. Acquiring a better understanding of what bullying entails is thought to help users shift their causal attributions about victimization from being internal (due to themselves) to external [e.g., related to the situation; Juvonen & Graham, 2014]. They may then reconsider their perceived responsibility and become hopeful that it may eventually stop.

The application promotes a second mechanism of action involved in problem-solving techniques to come about—the idea that they can take a more active role in reducing the bullying. This is consistent with previous findings suggesting that future and prosocial orientations may help to buffer the negative impact of bullying (Griese & Buhs, 2014; Hamilton et al., 2015; Rudolph, Troop-Gordon, Monti, & Miernicki, 2014). For example, in the videos, youth personalities take a stand against bullying, show empathy regarding the victims’ experiences, explain that other people like them were once victims of bullying and have gone on to have successful lives, and that a number of resources and tools exist to help them.

The third mechanism of action in problem-solving techniques embedded in this application is to help bullying victims to clearly define the bullying problem in order to adopt better strategies to respond to it. Some victims minimize their experiences (or think that they do not consist of bullying) while others overestimate them. Either way, these biases may affect their motivation to take steps to end bullying. To help victims define the problem more objectively, Stronger than Bullying collects information about bullying on a regular basis (every day, every other day, or once a week) using the items adapted from the Olweus bullying Questionnaire (Olweus, 1996) and compiles them in easy-to-understand graphs. These graphs illustrate which forms of bullying they experience the most, where it happens, and whether these experiences are increasing or decreasing over time. They can be shared with someone trustworthy, via email or in person, to facilitate breaking the silence about the victimization. Better understanding one’s own experiences is hypothesized to help identify clear targets, a key step to display more effective strategies in response to bullying and to reduce victimization.

The fourth and final mechanism of action in problem-solving techniques targeted by Stronger than Bullying is to brainstorm and evaluate the selected solutions. By definition, victims of bullying come to think that it would be very hard for them to end it (Olweus, 2013), especially so if they have already tried a number of strategies that were not deemed useful or effective. Stronger than Bullying readily offers dozens of strategies along with a list of online and telephone resources to help them expand the pool of strategies to choose from. Each strategy includes a short description of what it entails and, if relevant, words of caution. The users are also invited to add their own strategies, which may stimulate further brainstorming, make them adapt to their situation, personal strengths, and limitations. Stronger than Bullying invites users to experiment with strategies and to evaluate them based on four dimensions of emotions (anger-serenity, sadness-happiness, insecure-confidence and anxiety-calmness) and the overall perception of usefulness. The goal is to promote experimentation of strategies in order to find which are most effective so they use them more often (e.g., talk to someone they trust) and that they gradually abandon those that do not work (e.g., crying alone, lashing out). Of note, the strategies included in Stronger than Bullying reflect prior work enquiring youth about the strategies they use (or would use) when confronted with bullying (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005; Hudson et al., 2016; Parris, Vayjas, Meyers, & Cutts, 2012; Slonje, Smith, & Frisén, 2013; Tenenbaum, Varjas, Meyers, & Parris, 2011; Weinstein et al., 2016) or are based on empirical work identifying factors shown to mitigate the impact of bullying on health and functioning [e.g., social support (Bowes, Maughan, Caspi, Moffitt, & Arseneault, 2010; Brendgen et al., 2014, 2013; Fridh, Lindstrom, & Rosvall, 2015)]. Less effective strategies have also been included (with words of caution) because they are often used by victims who could, through experimentation, recognize their relative ineffectiveness.

More generally, problem-solving techniques imply breaking down a problem into a small number of achievable steps in order to facilitate taking action to solve the larger problem without feeling overwhelmed or incapable to carry these tasks. Stronger than Bullying’s layout mirrors this approach, dividing the content of the application into a number of menus and functions (see Fig. 12.1).

How the intervention is delivered?

Stronger than Bullying was developed to help youth reduce their experiences being bullied, even for victims who initially prefer not to disclose this information. This application can be downloaded, free of charge. Accordingly, the dissemination of this tool is expected to take place through features in the mainstream media, posters in schools, Facebook posts and marketing, word of mouth, etc. Alternatively, Stronger than Bullying could also be used by teachers or health care professionals (e.g., social workers, nurses or psychologists) to facilitate the disclosure of bullying experiences or as a complementary tool to help victims acquire or improve their problem-solving skills to reduce bullying victimization. At the time of this writing, the French-language version of Stronger than Bullying had been available for 2 months in the province of Québec, Canada. Despite the reception of many positive responses of youth, parents, educators and health care professionals about the perceived usefulness of this tool, it is still unknown whether Stronger than Bullying is as useful as a standalone tool as when it is used in the context of professionally-lead interventions. Similarly, future studies should also examine whether training professionals to use this tool in their interventions improves the effects of Stronger than Bullying on victimization.

Evidence for the program so far

Stronger than Bullying has been the object of one pilot study and two initial empirical investigations. The aims of the pilot study were to obtain a first indication of the perceptions of usefulness, attractiveness, and acceptability from youth, parents, and educators and to identify the weaknesses that required our attention while the application was still under development. The empirical investigations aimed to test, using a qualitative and quantitative design, whether the application was associated with a decrease in bullying victimization or changes in other areas of functioning relevant to these experiences, including the disclosure of victimization to someone they trust.

The pilot study

When a first version of Stronger than Bullying was completed, two groups of participants were invited to use the application during a 4-week period. The first comprised youth between the ages of 12 and 16 (n = 8). The second group included parents and educators (n = 5). Once the test period ended, we held two separate focus groups to gather the participants’ general perceptions about Stronger than Bullying and to identify which features of the application they thought were the most helpful or needed improvement. Youth and adult participants unanimously stated that Stronger than Bullying may be useful to victims. They said it could also help to better inform youth in general (not just victims) about bullying. “We talked about it (bullying) during three hours at school and I learned more about it with Stronger than Bullying in five minutes”—14-year-old boy. Youth particularly appreciated the confidentiality (e.g., password), the number and diversity of proposed strategies, the virtual map, and the videos. The regular evaluation of bullying experiences was also reported to be a strength of the application “It is like a personal diary”—15-year-old girl. Of note, neither parents nor educators expressed concerns regarding the possibility that Stronger than Bullying could jeopardize (or be in conflict with) existing services. Like the younger participants, adults thought they could learn from it “It is also a tool for the parents”—a mother. Finally, a number of improvements were suggested by the participants, such as the visual presentation of the graphs.

The first investigation: A qualitative study

A qualitative study was preferred to first test Stronger than Bullying’s usefulness considering how little we know about the tools and services perceived as useful by victims (Levant & Hasan, 2008). Taking an inductive perspective, this methodology aimed to help understand how Stronger than Bullying may be of assistance to the victims by starting from their point of view.

The second investigation: A quantitative study in schools

In this study, we examined the potential usefulness of Stronger than Bullying in reducing bullying victimization over time. To do so, we first tested, using a pretest- post-test control group design, whether the use of Stronger than Bullying was associated with a decrease in bullying experiences. Second, we explored whether the same patterns of findings could be detected in the data directly recorded by the application over the 4- to 6-week test period.

Results of Study 2

Fig. 12.2 illustrates the experiences of bullying reported before and after using Stronger than Bullying for the victims (excluding and including the occasional victims), the nonvictims, and the controls. Repeated measures ANOVA showed that victims had greater levels of change in bullying victimization over time than nonvictims [F(1, 34) = 38.87, p < 0.001]. This pattern of finding remained when occasional victims were considered along with the moderate-to-high victims [group x time: F(1, 37) = 30.71, p = 0.001]. Specifically, a significant decrease of bullying experiences was reported by moderate-to-high victims [F(1, 21) = 70.48, p < 0.001; Eta² = 0.77] as well as when all victims of bullying were considered [F(1, 26) = 70.29, p < 0.001; Eta² = 0.73]. No difference was detected, however, for nonvictims [F(1, 11) = .03, p = 0.86; Eta² = 0.00]. These findings suggest that Stronger than Bullying may have played a role in the decline of bullying experiences over time. The effect size could tentatively be qualified of strong using Cohen’s thresholds (Cohen, 1988). Fig. 12.2 also showed that the level of victimization remained relatively stable for the control group despite the fact that the repeated measures ANOVA pointed to a trend for lower levels of victimization over time [F(1, 169) = 3.36, p = 0.07; Eta² = 0.02]. The 16 time-fold larger decrease of victimization over the test period noted for the victims (or 11 time-fold when including the occasional victims) suggests, however, that the trend for reducing levels noted in the control group may not be clinically relevant nor comparable in magnitude to those noted for victims who used Stronger than Bullying.

Second, we explored whether the decreasing level of victimization noted using the paper questionnaire could also be detected using the data recorded repeatedly by the application during the same time period. We tested this possibility using a general linear mixed model with factorial effect of time and victimization. Victims and nonvictims differed in respect to their initial levels of bullying victimization [F(1, 60.62) = 6.20, p = .02], which suggests that Stronger than Bullying can distinguish victims from nonvictims. We did not, however, detect a statistically significant difference in the decline of victimization over time between the victims and nonvictims [F(5, 151.65) = 0.51, p = .77] nor a significant decrease for the victims [F(5, 110.80) = 1.77, p = .13]. A visual inspection of Fig. 12.3 suggests nonetheless that bullying levels seemed to decrease over time in victims, especially so between weeks 4 and 5. To test this latter possibility, a pairwise comparison was conducted between these two time points. A trend for a significant decline of victimization between weeks four and five was noted [mean difference (standard error) = 1.72 (0.59), degree of freedom = 155.27, p = 0.06]. While the statistical analyses conducted with this second set of data did not offer convincing evidence of a decrease of bullying experiences over time, the magnitude of the estimated effect size could be tentatively qualified as moderate [Cohen’s d = 0.5; (Cohen, 1988)], which is somewhat consistent with the large effects noted when using the data collected with the paper questionnaires. Of note, the app was asking participants to specify whether bullying was taking place online and/or offline. The visual inspection of the data reported for specifically traditional and cyberbullying suggested a similar pattern of findings, although the low prevalence rates of cyberbullying during the 4 to 6 weeks testing period precluded separate analyses. Indeed, only 14 participants (35% of this selected sample) reported having been the victim of cyberbullying at least once during this period, and the vast majority (12 out of 14) reported cyberbullying at only one occasion.

Discussion and conclusion

The preliminary findings provided by the pilot study and the two initial investigations suggest that Stronger than Bullying may constitute a useful tool to help youth who are bullied to initiate actions to reduce these experiences. Three findings deserve attention. First, the qualitative and the quantitative studies offered preliminary evidence suggesting a decrease of victimization experiences during the test period. Specifically, using Stronger than Bullying was associated with more than a two-fold decrease of bullying experiences among moderate-to-high victims, an effect that remained of similar magnitude when occasional victims were also considered. These findings may indicate that, in addition to youth who are severely or frequently victimized, youth who are confronted with bullying on a more infrequent basis may also benefit from using the application. In the same way, the participants of the pilot study reported that Stronger than Bullying may help all youth, adults working with teens and parents learn more about bullying and become a source of reference when helping a friend, a student, or a child.

These preliminary findings depend, however, on the absence (or minimal influence) of measuring bias in the data collected using the paper questionnaires, notably social desirability and recall errors (Pellegrini & Bartini, 2000). To offer a complementary test of the possibility that using Stronger than Bullying is associated with a decrease of victimization over time, we examined in parallel the victimization information directly reported to the application. While these data are still self-reported, the nature of how they were collected may have tempered the impact of social desirability and recall errors because of the confidentiality offered by Stronger than Bullying and the completion of the evaluations on a regular basis (Bradford & Rickwood, 2015; Pellegrini & Bartini, 2000). In addition, the use of a pretest- post-test control group design revealed that the magnitude of the changes in victimization reported by the victims was several times higher than those noted for the nonvictims or the controls. Caution is nevertheless advised in interpreting these preliminary findings until the hypothesized effect of Stronger than Bullying in reducing bullying is properly tested with an experimental design including randomization of the participants, a larger sample size, multiple informants (e.g., teachers, parents), and follow-up data points examining the mid- and long-term gains associated with its use. Moreover, the findings provide no clear indication of the usefulness of Stronger than Bullying for cyberbullying because of the low incidence rate of online bullying reported in this sample. Future studies should thus attempt to replicate the present findings in larger samples (or by using oversampling techniques to ensure sufficient variance of cyberbullying victimization). Future studies should also attempt to evaluate how each four proposed mechanisms of action work together (or against each other) to decrease bullying and foster well-being. The preliminary findings cannot offer insights regarding these important questions at this point.

Furthermore, the preliminary findings suggest that Stronger than Bullying may need to be used for a certain amount of time before any meaningful change (statistically and clinically) in bullying could be detected. Based on the visual inspection of the data, we speculate at least 5 weeks may be required before a clear attenuation on victimization is noticeable. These findings, however, relied on just 17 participants who were allowed to use Stronger than Bullying for more than 4 weeks for logistical reasons. Future studies should thus examine more closely the question of dosage, which should also be extended to the time spent on the application, the number of completed evaluations and of experimented strategies.

Finally, the mixed methodology used in the two initial investigations allows us to go beyond the quantitative description of change in victimization and guide the formulation of specific hypotheses for future studies regarding the mechanisms that may underline the effect of Stronger than Bullying. In the qualitative study, the participants reported that Stronger than Bullying matched their wish of confidentiality and privacy, along with their initial preference of keeping these experiences secret. Most of them have nonetheless broken the silence with someone they trusted at the end of the 4-week test period. We speculate that this change may have been partly enabled by gently encouraging the users to reach out for help (in the videos and strategies, for example) and, more practically, by facilitating doing so with the graphs. The participants also identified two main functions of the application they stated helped them the most in taking actions to reduce bullying. Of note, these referred to the mechanisms of action involved in problem-solving techniques: seeing more objectively their own bullying experiences and realizing that they have a wide range of strategies to choose from and to experiment with. Altogether, they expressed that Stronger than Bullying made them believe that they could eventually end bullying and that they have the ability to do so. Importantly, future studies should, in addition to studying potential mediators, test more systematically possible moderators. For example, which strategies are associated with the greatest reduction in bullying experiences and for whom? Are some strategies more or less useful for boys in comparison to girls? Previous research suggests indeed that seeking social support may be more effective for girls while this strategy is less liked by peers for boys (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Skinner, 2002; Tenenbaum et al., 2011). All these fundamental questions deserve attention.

In conclusion, the preliminary investigation of the usefulness of Stronger than Bullying in reducing the experiences of bullying over time suggests that this tool is promising, although much remains to be done to test more rigorously its usefulness. As the development of English-language and Android versions are underway, we will consider the possibility of adapting Stronger than Bullying to other countries to increase the number of available and free of charge tools that may help youth who are bullied to reduce and overcome these experiences.