MULTIDIMENSIONAL SOCIAL COMPETENCE IN RESEARCH ON BULLYING INVOLVEMENT: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY

This study tested the cross-cultural robustness of the Adolescent Multidimensional Social Competence Questionnaire (AMSC-Q) and examined the relationship between social competence (SC) and bullying involvement. The sample was composed of 4207 secondary school students from Spain, Colombia and Ireland. The analyses revealed that the AMSC-Q showed five factors (social and normative adjustment, prosocial behaviour, social efficacy and cognitive reappraisal) which were invariant across participants in the three countries. SEM revealed an inverse relationship between normative and social adjustment and a direct relationship of social efficacy with bullying aggression. Victimization was explained by the direct influence of prosocial behaviours and social efficacy and the inverse influence of social and normative adjustment. Although the models were homogeneous between countries, the relationships between SC dimensions and bullying aggression and victimization were stronger in Colombia.