LAUSR

AIMS To examine the moderating effects of individual, family, and social factors on the relationship between adolescent exposure to media violence and attitudes towards school bullying. DESIGN A cross-sectional study. METHODS A total of 473 middle and high school students participated in a self-reported survey between August and October 2016. Self-reported questionnaires were used to measure perceived aggression, resilience, parental violence experience, parenting styles, satisfaction with school life, teacher attitudes towards school bullying, media violence exposure, and adolescent attitudes towards school bullying. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and hierarchical multiple regression. RESULTS Resilience (an individual factor; β = -0.48, p = .049) and parenting styles (a family factor; β = -0.77, p = .045) moderated the negative influence of media violence exposure on adolescent attitudes towards school bullying. The findings indicated that higher individual resilience and parents with more positive parenting styles could reduce the harmful effects of media violence exposure on adolescent attitudes towards school bullying. The teachers' attitudes towards school bullying (a school factor) contributed to predicting the adolescents' attitudes towards school bullying. However, no moderating effect of school factors was found. CONCLUSION Resilience and parenting styles are important socio-ecological factors influencing the relationship between adolescent exposure to media violence and attitudes towards school bullying. IMPACT Three types of intervention programmes can be suggested based on the results of this study. Reinforcing individual resilience and positive parenting styles should be considered important in developing intervention programmes targeted at eliminating the adverse effects of media violence exposure. Intervention programmes to develop parenting styles to increase the resilience of adolescents can also be considered. Lastly, programmes to screen for adverse outcomes of media violence exposure, low resilience, and poor parenting styles need to be developed.