aggressive behavior

8/2/2019 Aggressive Behavior

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Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: Whats wrong?

This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in Aggressive Behaviorcopyright 2005 Wiley-Liss Inc.

Gianluca Gini

Department of Developmental and Socialisation Psychology

University of Padova

via Venezia 8

35131, Padova - Italy

e-mail: [email protected]

Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to all schools, teachers and pupils who

participated in the study. Moreover, I wish to thank Francesca Happ and Jon Sutton for

their stories, translated and utilized in this study, and Elena Arimondo, Alessia

Bortoloso, Giuseppe Carli and Simona Pischetola for their help in data collection.

Finally, I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on

an earlier version of the manuscript.


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Abstract

Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a

child lacking in social skills (Crick & Dodge, 1994), or as a cold manipulative

individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham,

1999a). The present study examined the performance of 204 8-11-year-olds in a set of

stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their

Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, childrens understanding of moral emotions and

proneness to moral disengagement was assessed. Victims showed some difficulties in

the social cognition task, whereas bullies did not. Aggressive children, instead, were

found to be more ready to show moral disengagement mechanisms, whereas defenders

showed higher levels of moral sensibility. Results are discussed in relation to the two

models, and the need for further research into empathy and moral cognition of children

involved in bullying episodes is highlighted.


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Over the last twenty years, the literature about the development of aggressive

behavior showed an increasing interest in the study of the relations between cognition,

social information processing and social interaction in children and adolescents (e.g.,

Crick & Dodge, 1994; Harvey, Fletcher, & French, 2001). In particular, several authors

studied how the social information processing strategies used by children and the way in

which they interpret situational cues and use their previous experiences can influence

their aggressive conduct (Dodge & Price, 1994; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Randall,

1997). One of the most important results of this field of research has been the possibility

to identify the presence of specific deficits and systematic biases in some components of

the social cognition of aggressive children. These results led Dodge and colleagues to

formulate the Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980).

According to the first formulation of this model, in which reactive and proactive

categories of aggression were not clearly distinguished, aggressive children show some

difficulties in one or more phases of their social information processing. For example,

these authors found that aggressive children tend to interpret ambiguous situations in an

aggressive way more than their non aggressive peers (hostile attributional bias) (Dodge

& Frame, 1982; Dodge & Somberg, 1987). Another difference between aggressive and

non aggressive children refers to the selection of the behavioral response in a social

situation: the former, in fact, seem to have a more limited range of non aggressive

answers than the latter and, for this reason, they are more inclined to choose and perform

aggressive behaviors, especially in the case of interpersonal conflicts (Dodge, 1980;


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Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Dodge & Newman, 1981). According to the same

approach, victims, who are shy and withdrawn and lack social skills of assertiveness,

show high levels of anxiety and loneliness, and have less experience in social interaction

and play fighting (which may enhance social skills), as well as control and interpretation

of emotional expression (Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997; Smith, Bowers, Binney, &

Cowie, 1993).

Some authors tried to apply this model to a particular kind of aggressive

phenomenon: school bullying (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Slee, 1993; Smith et al., 1993).

However, despite the popular view of the bully as an oaf boy, that is an intellectually

simple or backward boy (Besag, 1989), very few studies confirmed that Dodges model

can be applied to bullies in exactly the same way as to aggressive children (e.g., Hazler,

1996; Randall, 1997). On the contrary, some other authors stressed the role of adaptive

motivation to explain bullying behavior, arguing that bullying may be seen as an

inappropriate way to reach a socially effective goal, such as leadership within a group.

As a consequence, these authors stated that the bully should not necessarily to be seen as

an individual with specific difficulties. On the contrary, he or she may sometimes be a

skilled individual who takes advantage of his/her high social-cognitive competence to

reach personal benefits, such as interpersonal dominance, through a Machiavellian

conduct (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999a).

Some data presented by Sutton and colleagues (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham,

1999b) empirically support this view; in fact, they found that 7-10-year-old bullies

performed better than other classmates in a social cognition task that required the

understanding of mental states and emotions of the main character of a story (theory of


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mind task). The relevance of these results, above all, lies in the fact that, in a bullying

situation, having a grasp of the mental states of those involved, along with an ability to

manipulate these thoughts and beliefs, may be crucial for the bully in developing and

maintaining such inter-role relations (Sutton et al., 1999b, p. 437). In previous studies,

therefore, bullies social cognitive skills, such as social perspective taking and decoding

of emotional information, may have been underestimated (Sutton et al., 1999a, 1999b,

1999c). However, some bullies may possess a different conception of the costs and

benefits of aggression, and they may lack in empathic understanding of the victims

suffering. Therefore, it appears more adequate to regard social skills as a neutral tool,

which may be used for both prosocial and antisocial purposes (Bjrkqvist, sterman, &

Kaukiainen, 2000; Hawley, 2003). From this perspective, the crucial point to understand

bullying behavior refers to the kind of values that guide bullies conduct, rather than

their higher or lower ability in social information processing (Arsenio & Lemerise,

2001).

Following this line of research, the present paper focuses on cognitive and

emotional understanding of social situations in bullying, using a theory of mind task

with children who assume different participant roles during a bullying episode. In the

above mentioned study, however, Sutton and colleagues (1999b) did not explicitly

consider a particular kind of emotion found to be important to account for aggressive

and antisocial behaviors: moral emotions (in particular, guilt and shame). If bullies are

cold, manipulative experts in social contexts, their behavior may be related to emotions

surrounding moral transgression. These emotions are important because, as Hoffman

(1976, 2000) pointed out, they are closely connected with empathy and they can be


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considered mediators of conscience. Other authors suggested that moral development

plays a major role in behavioral regulation (Arsenio, 1988; Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 1995;

Turiel, 1998) and that guilt is an interpersonal phenomenon aimed at avoiding the

disruption of relationships and bonds (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994;

Tagney, 1992). Moreover, individuals who are more prone to guilt are less aggressive

and less likely to act out behaviors (Harpur, Hakstian, & Hare, 1988; Quiles & Bybee,

1997). In contrast, if children had lower feelings of guilt, this could enable them to act

aggressively without feeling guilty. However, the reverse causal link could be true, in

that children who repeatedly commit acts of aggression may become inured to this type

of behavior, exhibiting dulled emotional responses.

Moral disengagement and aggressive behavior

A useful contribution to the analysis of some social-cognitive components of

aggressive behavior is made by the Social Cognitive Theory of the Moral Self (Bandura,

1986, 1990, 1991). According to this theory, moral reasoning is linked to moral action

through affective self-regulatory mechanisms by which moral agency is exercised. In

their development, children need to develop standards of right and wrong and to adopt

these standards as guides and deterrents for their conduct. This self-regulatory process

implies that individuals usually act in ways that give them satisfaction and a sense of

self-worth, whereas, on the other side, they tend to avoid behaviors that violate their

moral standards in order to avoid self-condemnation.

Moreover, Bandura (2002) claimed that the construct of moral disengagement

could be considered as a mediator between the individuals moral principles and his/her


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real conduct, which may not necessarily be coherent with those principles. Internal

controls, in fact, are not fixed, and several psychological and social processes can

contribute to their selective deactivation. In particular, Bandura described eight different

mechanisms through which moral control can be disengaged. One set of disengagement

practices operates on the reconstruction of the behavior itself. For example, an immoral

conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of

moral purposes (moral justification) or self-deplored acts can be made to appear

righteous by contrasting them with worse conducts (advantageous comparison).

Moreover, in some circumstances, activities can take on different appearances

depending on what they are called (euphemistic labeling). The second set of

disengagement practices operates by obscuring or minimizing the agentive role in the

harm one causes (displacement of responsibility and diffusion of responsibility). Other

ways of weakening moral control operate by minimizing, disregarding or distorting the

effects of ones action; if minimization does not work, the evidence of harm can be

discredited (minimizing or misconstruing consequences). Finally, disengagement

practices may operate on the recipients of detrimental acts by stripping them of human

qualities (dehumanization) or considering aggression as provoked by the victim

(attribution of blame). These mechanisms can lead to aggressive behaviors through a

process of moral disengagement, that is a partial gap between the abstract personal

idea of moral behavior and the individuals behavior in real life. In this way, the

individual protects him/herself from negative feelings, such as guilt or shame, that

usually follow an immoral conduct (Bandura, 1991).


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Different studies showed a positive relation between aggressive behavior and the

activation of one or more of these mechanisms in both adults and children (Bandura,

Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Bandura, 1995;

Caprara, Barbaranelli, Vicino, & Bandura, 1996; Yadava, Sharma, & Gandhi, 2001). In

particular, Caprara and colleagues (1995) confirmed the strong link between moral

disengagement and physical and verbal aggression, both self- and peer-evaluated,

especially in male children. More recently, Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli,

and Regalia (2001) have replicated these results. They found a positive relation between

moral disengagement and transgressive behavior, and a negative relation between moral

disengagement and self-regulatory efficacy and prosocial behavior.

The above mentioned studies actually referred to aggressive individuals, but a

similar pattern of data has been found in school bullying research, as well. Bacchini,

Amodeo, Ciardi, Valerio, and Vitelli (1998) and Menesini, Fonzi, and Vannucci (1997),

for example, found that male bullies utilized the moral disengagement mechanisms more

than did other peers and, most of all, they seemed to use the mechanisms of

Dehumanization and Moral Justification. A confirmation of these results emerged in a

cross-national study, involving Italy and Spain, conduced by Menesini and colleagues

(Menesini, Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003), who assessed moral reasoning of bullies,

victims and children who assumed the role of the defender, using the Scan Bullying test

(Almeida, del Barrio, Marques, Gutierrez, & van der Meulen, 2001). These authors

confirmed the tendency of bullies to show higher levels of moral disengagement, and the

presence of a profile of egocentric reasoning in these pupils.


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Quite recently, the traditional classification of schoolchildren into bullies,

victims and controls has been criticized and several authors stressed the importance of

considering bullying a group process (Sutton & Smith, 1999). The empirical

confirmation of the importance of peer ecology applied to bullying phenomenon derives

from several observational studies carried out during periods of free interaction among

children in unstructured contexts, such as during recess and outdoor play. These studies,

in fact, consistently found that peers are involved in 85% of bullying episodes (Atlas &

Pepler, 1998; Craig & Pepler, 1997; Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000; Pepler & Craig,

1995). Moreover, Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Bjrkqvist, sterman, and Kaukiainen (1996)

identified six different participant roles taken by individual children in the bullying

process (i.e. victim, bully, reinforcer of the bully, assistant to the bully, defender of the

victim, and outsider). Another study by Salmivalli, Huttunen, and Lagerspetz (1997) has

also revealed a strong influence of how the members of a group behave in bullying

situations on an individual childs behavior in such situations.

In line with this approach that considers bullying as a group phenomenon, all

distinct roles within the class were considered in the present study. Not only bullies and

victims participated, but also those pupils who, in different ways, act important roles in

reinforcing bullying behavior (the so-called Followers: the Assistants of the bully and

the Reinforcers) or, in contrast, intervene to defend the victim (the Defenders). Finally,

Outsiders, that is children not directly involved in the phenomenon, were considered.


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Aims of the study and hypotheses

The first aim of the present study was to assess the performance of these pupils in

a social-cognition task similar to the one used by Sutton et al. (1999b). In this task, the

same two typologies of stories used by Sutton and colleagues were used: cognitive and

emotion stories. The cognitive stories, in particular, assessed the childs ability to

understand mental states, beliefs and intentions of the character of the story. The

emotion stories, instead, assessed the ability to understand emotional states of the

character and the possibility that an emotion could be dissimulated to influence and

modify others knowledge. Contrary to the idea of the bully as a social oaf, it is

hypothesized that the Bully group will perform better than, or at least at the same level

as, other pupils in a theory of mind task that requires understanding the thoughts, beliefs,

intentions that guide others behavior.

Moreover, in addition to these two kinds of stories, a third category (moral

stories), not used by Sutton et al. (1999b), was designed in order to explore the role of

moral emotions in the context of aggressive conduct. The second aim of the present

study, therefore, was to analyze the ability to understand moral emotions (guilt and

shame) within hypothetical social scenarios by children who assume different roles.

Considering the literature about moral cognition in aggressive behavior (e.g., Hoffman,

2000; Quiles & Bybee, 1997; Tagney, 1992), it was expected that Bullies would perform

worse than non-aggressive mates in moral stories, that is be less likely to make the

correct attribution of moral emotions to the character of the story owing to his/her

negative behavior. In contrast, Defenders should be particularly sensitive to this kind of


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emotion as an expression of what is right and what is wrong and, therefore, we expected

this group of children to perform better than any other in this type of stories.

Finally, the third aim of the study was to consider the relation between moral

disengagement and bullying behavior (e.g., Caprara et al., 1995; Menesini et al., 1999).

The comparison among pupils who assume different roles may lead to a deeper

understanding of the importance of these mechanisms in bullying episodes. Specifically,

we expected that the tendency to activate moral disengagement mechanisms would be

higher in aggressive children (the Bullies and their Followers). In contrast, we

hypothesized that Victims and those children who frequently intervene to defend their

victimized classmates (Defenders) would show a higher moral sensibility and,

consequently, a lower level of moral disengagement.

Method

Participants

The initial sample comprised 581 Italian primary-school children (295 boys and

286 girls) aged between 8 and 11 years (mean age = 9;7 years, s.d. = 11 months).

Although socio-economic status was not directly measured, our sample included

students from a wide range of social backgrounds (low and working classes through

upper middle class). In terms of racial/ethnic background, the sample was predominantly

Caucasian (96%), with a small proportion of Asian (2%) and North African (2%) origin.

All children received school and parental permission to participate prior to the collection

of the data.


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On the basis of peer nominations, children were first assigned to one of the

following Role groups: Bully, Assistant, Reinforcer, Defender, Outsider and Victim,

based on the procedure described below. Seventy-three children did not receive a

specific role because they did not satisfy the classification criteria proposed by

Salmivalli et al. (1996) and were not included in the final sample. The distribution of

Participant Roles for the whole sample is reported in Table I.

As can be seen in Table I, cell sizes are rather unequal for both Participant Roles

and gender. In order to handle problems connected with strongly unbalanced factorial

designs (Cramer, 1998), especially with small cell numbers, we decided to balance our

Role groups for number and gender. Therefore, a total of 204 children, divided into 6

Role group (n=34; 17 males and 17 females for each one), were randomly selected and

participated to the second phase of the study. The analyses presented in the result section

have been conducted on this sample with equalized groups.

--- Insert Table I about here ---

Material

Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ)

The Italian version (Menesini & Gini, 2000) of the Participant Role Questionnaire

PRQ (Salmivalli et al., 1996; Sutton & Smith, 1999) was used to collect peer

nominations. Children were asked to nominate up to five boys and/or girls in their class

who fitted each of the 21 behavioral descriptions of bullying situations that compose the

questionnaire. In the present study, self-nominations were not considered. The items are


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divided into six scales, which refer to six different Participant Roles: Bully (4 items,

e.g.: Starts bullying), Assistant (2 items, e.g.: Helps the bully, maybe by catching or

holding the victim), Reinforcer (5 items, e.g.: Laughs at people getting bullied),

Defender (5 items, e.g.: Stick up for the victim), Outsider (4 items, e.g.: Isnt usually

there, stays away) and Victim (1 item, Gets bullied). Menesini and Gini (2000)

reported a good internal reliability of these scales for the Italian population ( = .78 to

= .94). In Table II, correlations between different role scores are reported.

Roles1 were assigned according to the original procedure, proposed by Salmivalli

et al. (1996):

- for each child a Role Score is calculated in each of the six scales of the

questionnaire. A nomination for sometimes showing a behavior is scored as

1, and often is scored as 2. Then, the nominations were summed, divided

by the number of nominators and multiplied by 100;

- a Participant Role is assigned on the basis of the childs highest standardized

role score. No role is assigned if the childs score is below the mean (Z


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Social Cognition Task: The Stories

A set of 15 short stories was designed to test childrens understanding of mental

states and emotions. Some of these stories were translated from Happ (1994) and

Sutton et al. (1999b), and additional stories were created reflecting the same structure of

the pre-existent stories. Even though some stories (e.g., the army/war story) are less

relevant for children than others, they all seemed to be understandable and valid for

primary school pupils.

The 15 stories were divided into three categories, five stories for each category:

a) Cognitive stories: these stories require the understanding of mental states,

thoughts, beliefs, intentions of characters, which determine their behavior.

Example of cognitive story (Happ, 1994):

During the war, the Red army captures a member of the Blue army. They

want him to tell them where his army's tanks are; they know they are either by

the sea or in the mountains. They know that the prisoner will not want to tell

them, he will want to save his army, and so he will certainly lie to them. The

prisoner is very brave and very clever, he will not let them find his tanks. The

tanks are really in the mountains. Now when the other side ask him where his

tanks are, he says, "They are in the mountains";

b) Emotion stories: in these stories the understanding of what kind of emotion is

appropriate within a specific situation is crucial. Moreover, the child needs to

understand that emotions can be clearly shown or, on the contrary, dissimulated,

to influence and modify others knowledge. In order to facilitate participants

answers, children were presented with drawings of faces representing different


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emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, and a neutral face). An example of an

emotion story taken from Sutton et al. (1999b) is:

Mike wants to go out with his friends, but he has a really bad tummy ache. He

knows that if his Mum notices he is ill, she wont let him go out to play. Mike

goes downstairs and asks his Mum, Can I go out to play please?;

c) Moral stories: in these stories the appropriate emotion is a moral emotion

because some wrongdoing has happened. In these stories children were also

helped with the drawings. An example of moral story (new) is as follows:

Claudia has just moved to her new school. She has brown hair, green eyes and

she is a little bit shorter than her classmates. During the maths class, without

being noticed by her teacher, Susan, who sits behind Claudia, sends her a

written note like Pigmy, dwarf. Claudia reads this note and starts crying in

front of all her mates.

Each story was followed by a control question based on the content of the story to

verify that the child understood it; then, an experimental question assessing the

understanding of mental states or emotions was asked. For the cognitive stories, an

answer was considered correct if the child referred to the mental state, thoughts, or

beliefs of the characters (e.g. critical question: Where will the Red army look for the

Blue army and why?; answer: They will look by the sea because they think that the

prisoner is lying to them). For the emotion stories, a correct answer included both the

identification of the appropriate emotion (positive or negative) and the reference to the

intention/wish of the main character to hide his/her own real emotion to the other

characters, for example when a character is sad but he or she appears happy (e.g.


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Mike has a bad tummy ache, but he appears happy, otherwise his Mum notices that he

is feeling bad and won't let him go out). Finally, for the moral stories, an answer was

considered correct if the child recognized the fact that, in the situation described, the

character of the story should have felt a moral emotion (guilt or shame) for his/her own

behavior (e.g. She (Susan) feels guilty because she shouldnt have said that bad things

to her mate Claudia).

Moral Disengagement Scale

This scale measures the individuals tendency to use cognitive mechanisms that

can disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviors. This

version of the scale (Caprara et al., 1995), designed for primary school children, consists

of 14 items describing individuals readiness to construe injurious conduct as serving

righteous purposes, masquerading censurable activities by palliative language or

rendering them benign by advantageous comparison, minimizing the harmful effects of

ones detrimental conduct, and devaluing those who are maltreated (example items:

Some kids deserve to be treated like animals; Kids cannot be blamed for misbehaving

if their friends pressured them to do it). Children were asked to rate the strength of their

endorsement or rejection of moral exoneration of detrimental conduct on a 5-point

Likert-type scale (from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree). Therefore, higher

scores in this scale indicate a higher tendency to engage in one or more of these

mechanisms. Even though the items of the scale describe different mechanisms, previous

studies using this scale with Italian samples (Caprara et al., 1995; Caprara et al., 1996;

Menesini et al., 1997) have demonstrated a unidimensional structure of the scale,


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especially for younger children. This was also confirmed in our sample. Therefore,

following the suggestions of the authors of the scale, analyses was conducted on the total

score and not on separate subscales in the present study. The reliability of the scale was

= .69.

Procedure

Stage 1. The PRQ and the Moral Disengagement Scale were completed during a

single classroom session and the order of presentation of the two measures was

counterbalanced. This session began by introducing the general purpose of the study.

Then, the following definition of bullying (Whitney & Smith, 1993) was presented and

discussed with the class:

We say a child or young person is being bullied, or picked on when

another child or young person, or a group of children or young people,

say nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. It is also bullying when a

child or young person is hit, kicked, threatened, locked inside a room,

sent nasty notes, when no one ever talks to them and things like that.

These things can happen frequently and it is difficult for the child or

young person being bullied to defend himself or herself. It is also

bullying when a child or young person is teased repeatedly in a nasty

way. But it is not bullying when two children or young people of about

the same strength have the odd fight or quarrel.


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Stage 2. When the data from Stage 1 had been analyzed, children selected through

the PRQ were tested individually in an area of the school that afforded privacy. During

this session, the stories were presented in a randomized order and the childrens answers

were audio-recorded to facilitate the successive transcription and coding procedure. In

order to avoid any possible influence upon their responses, the experimenter who

interviewed children did not know their Participant role.

Results

Results are presented using the categorical measure of Participant Roles to

compare group means in social cognition and moral disengagement with independent 6

(Roles) x 2 (Gender) ANOVAs. The continuous measure Role Scores is used to test

for correlations between the extent of different types of behavior in the whole sample

and the social cognition and moral disengagement measures

Preliminary analysis

A preliminary one-way ANOVA was performed to investigate the possible effect

of Participant Roles on the answers to the control questions. No statistically significant

differences emerged among the different roles [F(5, 192) = 0.962, p = n.s.], thus

confirming that the level of comprehension of the stories presented was similar for all

Participant Roles.

Moreover, in order to control for inter-rater reliability, two independent judges

coded the 30% of all childrens answers. Their level of agreement reached 96%. Cohens

kappa was also calculated, resulting in K=.91. Disagreements were due to those answers


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in which the reference to mental states was not completely clear. All discrepancies were

resolved by consultation between the coders.

Participant Roles and social cognition

As the three categories into which our stories were divided (cognitive, emotion

and moral stories) are different from each other, three separate ANOVAs were

conducted on the mean performance in the three sets of stories, with Role and Gender as

between factors. From the analysis, a statistically significant main effect of Role

emerged only for the cognitive stories [F(5, 192) = 2.376, p = .04, p2 = .058]. Post hoc

analyses revealed that Victims performance (M=2.88, s.d.=1.61) was significantly

lower than Defenders (M=4.03, s.d.=1.38), whereas other groups did not significantly

differ from each other (Bonferroni comparisons). The main effect of Gender and the

Role x Gender interaction were not statistically significant.

These data do not support the prediction of Hypothesis 1 that bullies should

perform better than other people in the theory of mind tasks, but they also fail to show

social deficits among bullies. In contrast to Hypothesis 2, bullies did not do worse than

the other groups in the moral stories.

--- Insert Table III about here ---

Role scores and social cognition

A partial correlation analysis between social cognition and the actual extent of

different types of behavior (the role scores) was performed. Considering the fact that the


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scales are correlated with each other, to examine the relation of each role with the

cognitive, emotion and moral information processing skills, in the correlation analysis

the remaining PRQ scales and age were partialled out. Moreover, considering the high

number of comparisons, in order to avoid the increase of type 1 error, Bonferronis

correction was used (adjusted level of: 0.05/24=.002). Correlation coefficients are

shown in Table IV. In line with Hypothesis 1 Bully role is positively correlated with the

total social cognition score and with the cognitive score (the ability to understand

thoughts, intentions, beliefs, etc.) and the emotion score. Moreover, in accordance with

Hypothesis 2, the Defender score is positively correlated with all social cognition scores.

--- Insert Table IV about here ---

Participant Roles and moral disengagement

As concerns the third aim, a two-way ANOVA on the mean score in the Moral

Disengagement Scale was performed with Role and Gender as between factors. A

statistically significant main effect of Role emerged [F(5, 192) = 9.269, p


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level of moral disengagement than both Outsiders (M=30.35, s.d.=7.63) and Victims

(M=32.41, s.d.=8.12). These findings support Hypothesis 3.

--- Insert Figure 1 about here ---

Role scores and moral disengagement

A partial correlation analysis, controlled for age of participants, between the score

in the moral disengagement scale and the role scores was performed. Results showed a

positive correlation between moral disengagement and the role scores in Bully

(r(204)=.26, p


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models have been proposed in the literature to explain the Bullys behavior in terms of

social information processing. The first model hypothesizes the presence of deficits in

the social information processing of bullies, similar to those found for aggressive

children (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980). This model, therefore, proposes the idea

of bullies as oaf children. They are considered deficient in their social intelligence,

that is their ability to interpret and manage information deriving from social interactions

with peers and to produce adequate social responses. The second model, in contrast,

states that bullies are quite skilful in understanding social cues (e.g., others mental

states) and that they exploit this ability to their own advantage, acting as skilled social

manipulators (Sutton et al., 1999a; 1999b). However, according to these authors,

bullies may lack the empathic reactivity towards their mates emotions and, in particular,

towards victims suffering.

In the first two hypotheses of the present study, it was anticipated that bullies may

have a good theory of mind, but they may be deficient in moral cognition. The analysis

of variance, indeed, indicated that the bully group did not show any difficulty, compared

to non-aggressive peers, in the understanding of cognitive stories, which required them

to assume the cognitive point of view of another person, that is to understand intentions,

beliefs and goals that guide a determinate behavior. Moreover, correlations between the

scores in each scale of the PRQ and the performance in the social cognition task

indicated a positive relation between bullying behavior and the ability to understand

others mental states. As regards the two models, therefore, our results are closer to what

would be expected by the Skilled Manipulator model (Sutton et al., 1999a). The fact that

our bullies did not show particular deficits in this specific area of social cognition does


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not suggest a direct application of the Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, 1994)

to bullying behavior. Further analyses are needed into the social cognitive competence

of children involved in bullying episodes. This is particularly important because theory

of mind explanations per se are not likely to be very helpful for understanding the

unique nature of bullying, in that having a sophisticated theory of mind can lead to

highly prosocial behavior or to bullying behavior. In other words, having a superior

theory of mind says nothing about how that knowledge will be utilized in social

interactions (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001).

As regards the two other types of stories used in the present study, bullies

performance in emotion stories and also in moral stories, a category not used by Sutton

and colleagues (1999b), was found to be slightly, but not significantly lower, than the

performance obtained by other groups. Contrary to our second hypothesis about the

possible difficulties of bullies in moral cognition, our results do not completely confirm

the literature on moral development in aggressive children and bullies (e.g., Bandura,

1991; Hart, Burock, London, & Atkins, 2003). In our sample, in fact, the bullies and

their followers did not show a significant lack of ability in the attribution of appropriate

moral emotions to the characters of the stories. These emotions, such as guilt and shame,

play an important role in the recognition of the damage suffered by another person and

are closely connected to the sense of responsibility of the person who shows the harmful

behavior. Moreover, these emotions imply the need of reparation as a consequence of a

negative outcome produced by ones behavior (Bybee, 1998; Hoffman, 2000).

However, for both emotion and moral stories, it is important to note that they

actually assess the cognitive ability to process emotional information in social


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24

interactions rather than an emotional or empathic comprehension of others feelings.

Therefore, the positive performance shown by aggressive children in these kinds of

stories may misrepresent or underestimate the real deficit of these children in emotional

understanding of others. In other words, what bullies may lack and what may

differentiate them from prosocial children is the ability to appreciate the emotional

consequences of their behaviors on others feelings, and to share in, and empathize with,

the feelings of others (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). In line

with this perspective, for example, Gini, Albiero, and Benelli (2004) recently found a

negative relation between bullying behavior and empathy, measured through Davis

empathic reactivity index (1983), in a sample of Italian adolescents.

Sutton and colleagues (1999a) also argued along these lines, referring to the cold

cognition hypothesis proposed by Mealey (1995) as regards sociopathy. They also

spoke of a theory of mind formulated purely in instrumental terms, without access to the

empathic understanding that most people rely on. As a consequence, the individual may

use aggressive behavior in a Machiavellian way, without considering its negative

consequences on others. In contrast, high levels of empathic responsiveness act as an

important mediator in social conduct, reducing aggression and favoring prosocial

behavior (Bjrkqvist, sterman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Kaukiainen, Bjrkqvist,

sterman, Lagerspetz, & Niskanen, 1994; Kaukiainen, Bjrkqvist, sterman, &

Lagerspetz, 1996).

With respect to the other groups considered in the present study, victimized

children showed some difficulties in the social cognition task. If compared to the

defender group in particular, they seem to lack the ability to understand others mind,


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25

that is their thoughts, beliefs and intentions that guide social behavior. Our data are

consistent with results reported by Sutton et al. (1999b). Moreover, several authors share

the idea that victims show deficits in areas like social skills, social problem solving,

assertiveness, and emotional regulation (e.g., Champion, Vernberg, & Shipman, 2003;

Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1997; Mahady-Wilton, Craig, & Pepler, 2000; Olweus, 1993;

Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988). Finally, the results obtained in the social cognition task by

the defender group should be noted. These children, in fact, showed high levels of

performance in all the stories, and especially in the cognitive stories. Moreover, the

score in the defender scale of the PRQ correlated positively with all the scores in the

social cognition task, thus suggesting that the adoption of this kind of prosocial and

helpful behavior requires a high level of social ability and a well-developed

understanding of both cognitive and emotional states of others. However, the fact that

the bullying score also correlated with the social cognition task, again, confirms that

having a good theory of mind, by itself, does not necessarily mean that this ability will

be used to act prosocially (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001).

Bullying and moral disengagement

As regards the third aim of the present study, the analysis of variance on moral

disengagement showed higher levels of the tendency to disengage self-sanctions and

justify the use of aggressive behaviors in all the aggressive roles and, in particular, in

bullies. These results confirmed the role of specific cognitive mechanisms in the

regulation of social conduct, such as the moral disengagement mechanisms that allow

the assumption of violent behaviors (Bacchini et al., 1998; Caprara et al., 1995;


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26

Menesini et al., 1999; Menesini et al., 2003). Regarding this aspect, as suggested by a

reviewer, it could be interesting to collect information about the relations between

bullying, familial socialization and moral climate at home and at school.

In contrast, defenders high moral sensibility and empathic reactivity, already

found in other studies (Menesini et al., 2003; Gini & Carli, 2003), may be one of the

basic motivations for prosocial behavior, frequently shown by these children towards

their victimized mates. These motivations are very important and must be taken into

account during the implementation of intervention programs in schools (Cowie, 2000;

Cowie, Naylor, Talamelli, Chauhan, & Smith, 2002). However, the fact that the ability

to help other peers requires several interpersonal competencies, that young children do

not necessarily possess, needs to be considered.

In conclusion, the results presented in this paper have several potential

implications for future research. On the one hand, our results draw attention to the

importance of studying the role of social cognitive competencies in the complex circle of

behaviors, attitudes and expectations upon which school bullying phenomenon is based.

On the other hand, the relevance of adopting a more fine-grained classification of roles

in the study of bullying behavior was confirmed.

A possible limitation in the interpretation of our results was the fact that we did

not consider the bully-victim group, that is those children who frequently assume both

kinds of role, acting as a bully and being victimized as well (e.g., Boulton & Smith,

1994; Olweus, 1993). Several authors stressed the relevance of this group of pupils, also

called aggressive-victims (Perry et al., 1988; Schwartz, 2000), in the study of aggressive

problems. Moreover, these children have been consistently described as lacking social-


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emotional abilities, having psychosocial impairments and a wide range of other

problems (e.g., Besag, 1989). A methodological difficulty in the study of these pupils is

that it is not always simple to clearly identify bully-victims as a distinct group. Despite

this complication, future research in this field will necessarily need to study the social-

cognitive and moral characteristics of this particular group of children, and to compare

their level of cognitive and emotional understanding with that of pure bullies and

victims.

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Table I. Distribution of Participant Roles (%) within the whole sample

Participant Roles

Bullies Assistants Reinforcers Defenders Outsiders Victims No role Total

Males 15.9 16.3 11.9 11.5 12.2 17.6 14.6 100

Females 5.9 6.3 7.7 26.2 25.5 17.8 10.6 100


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Table II. Role score correlations for the whole sample

Bully Assistant Reinforcer Defender Outsider

Assistant .68 *

Reinforcer .66 * .60 *

Defender - .16 * - .11 .10

Outsider - .22 * - .24 * - .07 .30 *

Victim .07 .01 .12 - .01 .13

Note: N = 578; * p


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Table III. Participant Roles and mean score [s.d.] in social cognition task

Participant

Roles a

Cognitive

stories b

Emotion stories

b

Moral

stories b

Total social

cognition task c

Bullies 3.06 [1.30] 2.79 [2.20] 3.18 [1.94] 9.03 [4.79]

Assistants 3.18 [1.47] 3.20 [2.04] 3.59 [1.86] 9.97 [4.85]

Reinforcers 3.15 [1.56] 3.26 [1.76] 3.62 [1.67] 10.03 [4.28]

Defenders 4.03 [1.38] 4.12 [1.45] 4.00 [1.67] 12.15 [4.04]

Outsiders 3.38 [1.76] 3.68 [1.66] 4.06 [1.63] 11.12 [4.58]

Victims 2.88 [1.61] 3.26 [1.81] 3.44 [1.76] 9.59 [4.73]

Note:

a n=34 for each group; b range = 0-5; c range = 0-15


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Table IV. Partial correlations of social cognition and individual role scores

Social cognition scoresRole scores

Cognitive Emotion Moral Total score

Bully .195 * .148 * .129 .172 *

Assistant - .021 - .026 .014 - .012

Reinforcer - .074 - .059 - .098 - .078

Defender .214 * .226 * .197 * .223 *

Outsider .071 .008 .060 .050

Victim .068 .109 .112 .104

Note: N = 204; * p


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Figure 1. Participant Roles and Moral Disengagement

Notes:

n=34 for each group

range = 14-70

a,b; c,d Means with different superscript differ at p < .05.

0

510

15

20

25

30

35

40

Defenders

,a

Outsid

ers,

c

Victim

s,c

Assistants,

b

Reinforcers,b

Bulli

es,b

,d

aggressive behavior

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