The initial construction of a roasting measure and examination of the associations among roasting, verbal bullying, social anxiety, and depression

The current study reported on the initial construction of a roasting measure. Roasting (a Black oral tradition) is a form of teasing that can be defined as making fun of someone in dyads or in groups of three or more people using clever metaphors (Foster, 1974; Smitherman, 1977, 2000). Although bullying is receiving much attention in news and scholarship, what is largely overlooked among developmental scholars that might provide insight into the bullying behavior of school-age youth is roasting. Roasting and verbal bullying are not identical, but the possibility of internalizing and externalizing problems having statistically significant associations with roasting, along with roasting possibly being an omitted variable in extant bully studies, skewing verbal bullying prevalence rates among adolescents, justifies the development of a roasting measure. Using items in an exploratory factor analysis that only loaded in interpretable Mokken scale analysis subscales yielded 5 roasting subscales. Internal consistency and construct validity supported the use and development of this measure. Implications for bully research, prevention and intervention programs, teacher education, and school policy are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Rivers, Tyrone

Contributors dc:contributor

• Espelage, Dorothy L.
• Neville, Helen A.
• Anderson, Carolyn J.
• Larson, Reed W.

• roasting
• ritual insults
• playing the dozens
• verbal bullying
• social anxiety
• depression

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Tyrone Rivers

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78493

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/78493