The Relationship between Volunteer Experience Quality and Adolescent Bullying

This study investigated the relationships among students' perceptions of their prior volunteer experiences, current involvement in bullying behaviors, and emotional and social intelligence. A sample of 361 high school students completed questionnaires about the quality of their prior volunteer experiences, as well as the Olweus Bully/Victim, and the BarOn EQi:YV scales. Results indicated that, for the subset of 71 adolescents who evaluated the quality of their middle school volunteer activities, greater perceived quality explained nearly 12% of the variance in self-reported interpersonal relationship skill scores in high school (p = .01). Students who perceived their volunteer activities as having been of higher quality were also less likely to have bullied (p = .032, d = .586), and a causal steps mediation analysis suggested that this relationship was partially driven by their enhanced interpersonal skills