Psychological processes in young bullies versus bully‐victims

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11107533
AutoresAnouk van Dijk (0000-0002-6186-0181, Department of Psychology Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands, autor de correspondencia), Astrid M G Poorthuis (0000-0002-6541-5288, Department of Psychology Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands), Tina Malti (0000-0001-8241-1230, Department of Psychology University of Toronto Mississauga Ontario Canada)
Año2017
Volumen43
Número5
Páginas430-439
Fecha de publicación2017-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAggressive Behavior (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0096-140X • E-ISSN: 1098-2337
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ab.21701
PMID28181256
OpenAlexW2587307888
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas45

Some children who bully others are also victimized themselves ("bully-victims") whereas others are not victimized themselves ("bullies"). These subgroups have been shown to differ in their social functioning as early as in kindergarten. What is less clear are the motives that underlie the bullying behavior of young bullies and bully-victims. The present study examined whether bullies have proactive motives for aggression and anticipate to feel happy after victimizing others, whereas bully-victims have reactive motives for aggression, poor theory of mind skills, and attribute hostile intent to others. This "distinct processes hypothesis" was contrasted with the "shared processes hypothesis," predicting that bullies and bully-victims do not differ on these psychological processes. Children (n = 283, age 4-9) were classified as bully, bully-victim, or noninvolved using peer-nominations. Theory of mind, hostile intent attributions, and happy victimizer emotions were assessed using standard vignettes and false-belief tasks; reactive and proactive motives were assessed using teacher-reports. We tested our hypotheses using Bayesian model selection, enabling us to directly compare the distinct processes model (predicting that bullies and bully-victims deviate from noninvolved children on different psychological processes) against the shared processes model (predicting that bullies and bully-victims deviate from noninvolved children on all psychological processes alike). Overall, the shared processes model received more support than the distinct processes model. These results suggest that in early childhood, bullies and bully-victims have shared, rather than distinct psychological processes underlying their bullying behavior

Aggression · Attribution · Attribution bias · Developmental psychology · Injury prevention · Poison control · Suicide prevention · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Psychology · Social Psychology