Association Between Child Maltreatment and Children's Bullying Perpetration: A Meta-Analysis

Family context plays a pivotal role in shaping children and adolescents, and child maltreatment in the family context serves as a notable contributor to their psychological and behavioral problems, including bullying perpetration. Although many reviews have synthesized the risk factors for bullying perpetration, little attention has been devoted to family-specific maltreatment. Additionally, prior syntheses often combined bullying perpetration and victimization, potentially obscuring the distinct psychological mechanisms between these two processes. To address these gaps, we conducted a meta-analysis with 52 estimates from 50 eligible studies to examine the association between child maltreatment in the family context and bullying perpetration by victimized children and adolescents. The results revealed a relatively medium overall effect for the aforementioned relationship, Pearson's r = .241, 95% CI [0.196, 0.284]. We also found that this effect stays consistent across the gender proportion of participants, development stage of participants' regions (developed regions vs. developing regions), regions where the studies were conducted, types of maltreatments, maltreatments perpetrators, research designs, sample sizes, and publication year. Comparatively, studies in which parents (vs. victimized children) serve as the maltreatment reporters yielded smaller effect sizes. In sum, our findings underscore the robust association between child maltreatment in the family context and bullying perpetration by victimized children and adolescents and highlight the factors that may influence the overall relationship. We also outline implications for future research and practice, including updating prevention and intervention strategies to reduce bullying among children and adolescents.