著者

松永 正樹

出版者

日本コミュニケーション学会

雑誌

日本コミュニケーション研究 (ISSN:21887721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.42, no.Special, pp.51-78, 2014-03-31 (Released:2017-05-17)

参考文献数

96

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This paper reports two studies on the sexual risk of female victims of bullying in Japan and the effects of supportive communication for them. Study 1 utilized the survey data collected from 182 Japanese undergraduates and explored the associations among bullying, support, and sexual risk. Latent profile analysis (LPA) detected five distinct profiles of victims and non-victims. LPA also revealed that the victims who had received less support had higher sexual risk (i.e., earlier sexual debut and a larger number of sexual partners), whereas the type of bullying made little differences. Study 2 utilized the online survey data collected from unmarried female full-timers working at companies in Japan (N=439) and examined a mediational model wherein victims' avoidant-coping tendency and communication efficacy mediate the effects of bullying and social support on sexual risk. Victims' sexual risk was operationalized by their lifetime number of sexual partners, the experience of unplanned sex, and the experience of unprotected sex. SEM revealed that: (a) bullying was positively associated with avoidant-coping tendency and negatively with communication efficacy; (b) stronger avoidant-coping tendency and weaker communication efficacy were associated with higher sexual risk (i.e., a larger number of sexual partners, higher likelihoods of having had an unplanned sex and/or an unprotected sex); and (c) social support showed protective effects to reduce sexual risk, both directly and indirectly (via mediation by the two psychological factors). These results were discussed with reference to the literature on bullying and victims' readjustment. Theoretical speculations about the mechanism underlying the effects of bullying and support were presented in regards to the structure of the bullying phenomenon, reappraisal-based theory of social support, and the importance of the communicative environment surrounding bullied victims. Practical implications and limitations of the current research, as well as the directions for future studies, were also discussed.