Bullying 1 Flashcards
definitions
- Bullying - Strategic aggressive behaviour that the perpetrator repeatedly inflicts on a victim with the intention to cause harm, and occurring within a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power (Olweus, 2013).
- Physical bullying - e.g., hitting, kicking, pushing, damaging property etc
- Verbal bullying - e.g., name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation etc
- Social/relational/covert bullying - e.g., lying and spreading rumours, nasty jokes, encouraging others to socially exclude, damaging reputation
- Cyber bullying - e.g., abusive DMS, online exclusion, irritating others online - verbal and/or social bullying vis digital technology
measurement of bullying behaviour - informant
self report:
+ individual view of bullying events
+ converts experiences tjay others may or may not observe or may not consider bullying
- inherently subjective
peer report:
+ more objective
+ multiple raters
+ classmates typically have access to information that is hidden from adults
- tendency for peers to underreport bullying behaviours
parent/teacher report:
+ can get information on bullying behaviour for a whole class (teacher)
+ useful when children are young
- bullying is not always reported or observed by parents/teachers
how do we measure bullying behaviour?
- Different informants
- Single item questions (with or without definition of bullying)
- Behaviour-based scale with multiple items
- Specific bullying behaviours (verbal, physical, social, cyber)
- Different frequency - scale and cut-off threshold
prevalence of bullying
- Design = cross-sectional across 25 countries in 11- to 16-year-olds
- Measured bully, victim (and bully-victim status)
- N = 113,200
- Standard definition of bullying presented
- Single item for bully and victimisation
- Cut off = 2 times or more per current academic term
- Nansel et al. (2004) Ped Adolesc Med
- on average:
- 11% of children were victims of bullying
- 10% of children admitted bullying others in the current school term
- 6% report being both bullies and victims
understanding why individuals bully - a cognitive/individual approach
- US tradition - based in research on childhood aggression
- Cognitive/individual origins of bullying:
1. Social information processing biases
2. Socio-cognitive strengths and/or weaknesses
3. Social goals
- Cognitive/individual origins of bullying:
cognitive approach - social information processing
- Measured using ambiguous and non-ambiguous vignettes
- Links between social adjustment and social information processing
- Aggressive children show distinct pattern of biases in their social information processing:
- Attend to fewer social cues
- More inclined to attribute hostile intentions to others
- Goals of social dominance
- Choose an aggressive solutions to a social problem
cognitive approach - theory of mind
Strategic aggressive behaviour that the perpetrator repeatedly inflicts on a victim with the intention to cause harm, and occurring within a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power
· Bullying may be best achieved when the perpetrator has a strong grasp of the internal mental states of victims ?
cognitive approach - moral understanding and engagement
- A) Moral sensitivity = Happy Victimiser task: understanding of right and wrong and the emotional repercussions of moral transgressions
- Gasser & Keller, 2009 compared moral sensitivity in 7- to 8-year-olds categorized as bullies, victims, and bully-victims, and found: bullies (and bully-victims) both showed low moral sensitivity
2. (B) Moral disengagement = tendency to use cognitive mechanisms that can disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviors (e.g., kids can’t be blamed for misbehaving if their friends pressured them into it). - Gini (2006) looked at the association between moral disengagement and bullying à bullies engaged in significantly more moral disengagement compared to non-bullies.
- Gasser & Keller, 2009 compared moral sensitivity in 7- to 8-year-olds categorized as bullies, victims, and bully-victims, and found: bullies (and bully-victims) both showed low moral sensitivity
understanding why individuals bully - a social approach
- Historical roots:
- Early work on bullying used the Swedish term mobbning - a group of children ganging up on a victim
- The group is now seen as including many different actors or roles
social approach - diversity of roles
· Bully/victim/bully-victim
· Assistant
· Reinforcer
· Defender
· Outsider/bystander - peers present in 85% of incidents; Pepler, 2010
· Studied young adolescents and found:
- 17-20% identified as defenders
- 20-29% reinforced or assisted the bully
- 10% of children had no role
social approach - social goals
· Three key social goals have been studied:
1. Agentic - i.e., striving for dominance and leadership
2. Communal - i.e., striving for positive relationships with others
3. Submissive goals - i.e, keeping a low social profile
· Bullying as a strategy to meet specific social and dominance goals
· Interpersonal goals tend to be associated with bully-related behaviour
- Bullies -> greater identification with agentic goals
- Victims -> greater identification with submissive goals
- Defenders -> greater identification with communal goals
social approach - peer status
· Bullying has been linked to peer rejection
· Some bullies have high social standing in the peer group
· Perceived popularity - children are asked who is the most popular child in the class, with bullies often nominated as popular (even if not well-liked). Dominance and visibility in the peer group.
social climates
· School/classroom climate - the extent to which students feel connected to/safe in their school and have positive perceptions of their teachers and school
- “At this school we care about each other”
- “We can talk to our teachers about our problems”
· Malleable and a good target for intervention
social approach - school climate
· Poor school climate is consistently linked to greater bullying and victimisation in school
· Large Uk based study:
- 23,215 children (51% boys) recruited from year 4 or year 5 9m = 9.06 years, SD = .56 years) from 648 primary schools in England
· Found that school climate explained bullying behaviour over and above any individual characteristics of the child and school demographics e.g., level of school deprivation
social approach - societal inequality
· Bullying wasn’t associated with economic level of the country
· Bullying was associated with country-level income inequality
