School Psychology International

http://spi.sagepub.com/ Why Do Some Children Bully at School? : The Contributions of Negative Attitudes Towards Victims and the Perceived Expectations of Friends, Parents and Teachers
Ken Rigby School Psychology International 2005 26: 147 DOI: 10.1177/0143034305052910 The online version of this article can be found at: http://spi.sagepub.com/content/26/2/147

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International School Psychology Association

Additional services and information for School Psychology International can be found at: Email Alerts: http://spi.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://spi.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://spi.sagepub.com/content/26/2/147.refs.html

Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

>> Version of Record - Apr 27, 2005 What is This?

Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Why Do Some Children Bully at School ?

The Contributions of Negative Attitudes Towards Victims and the Perceived Expectations of Friends, Parents and Teachers
KEN RIGBY School of Education, University of South Australia

ABSTRACT The tendency for school children to bully others was conceived as lying along a continuum of frequency, ranging from zero to very high. To examine social factors that may influence the position of individual students on this continuum, questionnaires were administered to Australian school children attending state coeducational schools: primary (N = 200) and secondary (N = 200). They completed measures to assess: (i) frequency of engaging in bullying others; (ii) attitudes towards victims of bullying and (iii) the extent to which they believed specified others expected them to support victims of bullying. Those specified included mother, father, friends and teachers. Multiple regression analyses indicated that negative attitudes to victims and the perceived expectations of friends were associated with self-reported bullying behaviour (p < 0.001); in addition, boys were more likely to report bullying others than girls (p < 0.01). Reporting bullying others was related to perceived expectations of parents for girls only; for neither sex was there evidence that the perceived expectations of teachers influenced reported bullying behaviour. The attitudes students have developed towards victims and the views of their peers may be critical. Anti-bullying programs promoting empathic attitudes to victims and ways of mobilizing peer influence to counter bullying are supported.

Introduction In addressing bullying in schools it is common to identify a relatively small group of students who are categorized as bullies. These are students who are thought to engage in bullying their peers on a large
Please address correspondence to: Dr Ken Rigby, University of South Australia, Underdale Campus, Holbrooks Road, Underdale, South Australia, Australia 5032. Email: Ken.Rigby@unisa.edu.au School Psychology International Copyright 2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 26(2): 147161. DOI: 10.1177/0143034305052910

147
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2) number of occasions, e.g. on a weekly or daily basis. However, there are many more students who engage in bullying less frequently (Olweus, 1993; Rigby, 2002; Smith and Sharp, 1994). Where the line is drawn between bullies and others is arbitrary. This being so, it is reasonable to view bullying behaviour perpetrated by individual students as lying upon a continuum of frequency, with most students never bullying their peers or doing so rarely and a minority of students bullying others on many occasions. Why there should be such variation among individual students is the subject of this investigation. We need to distinguish between aggressive behaviour which occurs when someone seeks to hurt another person and bullying behaviour, which is generally regarded as a sub-set of aggressive behaviour in which aggressive acts repeatedly occur in situations in which there is an imbalance of power between the perpetrator(s) and the intended target of the hurtful behaviour (Olweus, 1993). These actions may be direct, as in hitting or verbally abusing another person or indirect as in seeking to hurt another person by spreading lies about him or her or by deliberate and unjustified exclusion. Although gender differences have been reported in the likelihood that students employ one or other of these behaviours (Crick and Grotpeter, 1995), there is high level of reliability in multi-item scales assessing bullying behaviour among both boys and girls that include descriptions of both indirect and direct means of bullying (Rigby, 2002). Research into bullying behaviour in schools has identified a number of possible determinants. Some of the reported studies have focussed attention on the personal characteristics of children who are prone to bully others. For example, children who repeatedly engage in bullying have been reported as relatively psychotic on Eysencks Personality Inventory (Slee and Rigby, 1993), low in empathy (Endresen and Olweus, 2001; Menesini et al., 1997) and Machiavellian (Sutton and Keogh, 2000). Other studies have emphasized social influences, e.g. involving parenting (Bowers et al.,1992; Rigby, 1993) and/or the influence of the peer group or network of friends to which a student belongs (Cairns and Cairns, 1994). Social influences may contribute towards the formation of durable individual characteristics. However, to some degree social influences, e.g. those stemming from what others might think about you if you pursued a particular course of action, can be distinguished from an individuals predisposition, such as having a general attitude towards certain kinds of people (Ajzen, 1988). To date, little attention has been paid to the relative importance of individual characteristics and social influences in accounting for differences in the tendencies for schoolchildren to engage in bullying behaviour at school. Two other factors are sometimes thought to influence whether a 148
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School? child repeatedly engages in bullying, namely the age and sex of the child. Findings from England (Smith et al., 1999) suggest that a larger proportion of primary rather than secondary students frequently engage in bullying, although the Norwegian data from Olweus (1993) are not supportive. The evidence may well depend upon the years in secondary school that are sampled, and may vary cross-nationally. In Australia, the incidence of bullying has been shown to increase when students leave primary and enter secondary school; in subsequent years bullying becomes less common (Rigby, 2002). It has also been reported that students tend to adopt less sympathetic attitudes towards victims as they become older (Rigby 1997). Although it is widely recognized that boys and girls tend to bully in different ways (boys appear more inclined to bully physically and girls indirectly), there is a consensus that, in general, more bullying is perpetrated by boys than by girls (Olweus,1993; Smith and Sharp, 1994). Conceived as a relatively enduring predisposition, a generalized attitude towards victims could be a predictor of the tendency to bully others. Empathic feeling towards others who were both vulnerable at school and subject to harassment from their peers may operate to inhibit aggressive action that might otherwise be directed towards those who were often victimized. This possibility is suggested by Endresen and Olweus (2001). Accordingly, it was expected that positive attitudes to victims would be negatively correlated with the tendency to bully others. A second factor relates to how students are influenced by others in their dealings with their peers. The others of interest in this study were friends, parents and teachers. Consistent with the Theory of Reasoned Action, as proposed by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) and further developed by Azjen (1988), it was assumed that the influence of others is, at least partly, mediated through beliefs about how others think one should behave in particular situations. For instance, it was believed that if friends expect you to give support to a person being victimized, there would be social or normative pressure to do so, and bullying would be less likely to occur. Conversely, if friends were thought to have the expectation that one would support the actions of bullies, a diametrically opposite pressure would be experienced and bullying would be more likely. It was unclear whether perceived expectations of friends, parents and teachers would make different or similar contributions to the tendency to bully. There is some evidence that childrens behaviour is influenced by both their friends and parents in some areas of behaviour, e.g. in alcohol use (Wood, 2004), drug abuse (Simons-Morton et al., 2001) and in practising altruism (Ma, 2003). Some evidence points to peers exerting 149
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2) a more powerful influence in the use of drugs by adolescent students (Allen et al., 2003). Harris (1998) has argued that parental influence over their childrens behaviour outside the home is relatively weak and tends to operate, if at all, through its effect on the behaviour of quite young children. With increasing maturity peer influence may become more important. In the specific area of bullying behaviour, little of direct relevance has been reported. The extent to which teachers can influence students through the expectations they have of them is currently unclear. In a study conducted in Hong Kong with school children aged 12 to 15 years, it was reported that teacher influence was effective in reducing some forms of anti-social behaviour (Ma et al., 2002). However, a study of young adolescent schoolchildren in Australia has reported considerable resistance to collaborating with teachers in addressing bully/victim problems (Rigby and Bagshaw, 2003). Possibly, outcomes vary crossculturally. In summary, it was hypothesized that the tendency to bully other students at school is related negatively to favourable attitudes to victims and positively to the perceived expectations of significant others, namely, friends, parents and teachers to be more supportive of (or less opposed to) them bullying others. Relationships between the tendency to bully at school and the demographic variables of sex and age were also to examined.

Methods and subjects Respondents completed questionnaires anonymously containing the following sets of items: 1. Scales to assess frequency of bullying others. These consisted of six items concerned with different kinds of bullying behaviour, namely hurtful teasing, unpleasant name-calling, hitting or kicking, excluding, spreading lies and threatening with harm. Respondents were instructed to indicate how often they had treated someone less powerful than themselves in each of the six ways during the current year. Response categories were: never, a few times and many times. 2. Beliefs about the expectations of others. Students were asked to view a picture on their questionnaire which showed a child being bullied physically by a peer. They were then asked to indicate what the following people would expect them to do: mother, father, friends and teacher. Students responded to each on a five-point scale, from strongly support the bully (1) to strongly support the victim (5).

150
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School? Attitudes to victims. This was assessed using a shortened version of the Rigby and Slee (1991) Attitude to Victims Scale (Rigby, 1997). This consists of ten items, half positively and half negatively keyed. Kids should not complain about being bullied was negatively keyed. High scores reflected a favourable attitude to victims. Respondents Respondents in this study were from state coeducational schools in the Adelaide region in South Australia. There were 200 students (100 male and 100 female) attending Primary School in years 6 or 7 (mean age 11.5 years). They were recruited from eight schools. In addition, there were 200 students (100 male and 100 female) recruited from four secondary schools in years 8 or 9 (mean age 13.5 years). In accordance with ethical requirements, parental permission was required for each child to participate.

Results Self-reported bullying Results from self-reported bullying of other students at school suggested that a substantial proportion of students engaged in bullying behaviour, the proportion depending upon the form taken by the behaviour and the sex of the respondent. For example, unpleasant name calling was reported by most of the respondents, whilst threatening other students with harm was much less common. Boys tended to report bullying others more often than girls, significantly so (p < 0.01) with respect to hitting and threatening others with harm, but to a similar extent as far as hurtful teasing was concerned (p > 0.05). For the most part, higher frequencies of bullying others were reported by secondary students. Further details of these results are given in Table 1. To examine the general tendency to bully others, as indicated by self reports of students, a Tendency to Bully Scale was constructed. Responses to each of the six items was scored as 0 if the response was never, 1 for a few times and 2 for many times, and then summated. Total scores ranged from 0 to 9. The reliability of the measures was supported by alpha coefficients of 0.84. for boys and 0.77. for girls, Scores are plotted for boys and girls separately in Figure 1 From Figure 1 it is evident that the bulk of students, both boys and girls, reported that they rarely or never engaged in bullying, whilst a small proportion bullied others frequently. Given the skewed distribution, for further analyses a log transformation of scores was performed to approximate to a normal distribution, more appropriate for use with 151
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2)

Table 1

Frequencies of self-reported bullying behaviours

Primary school sample Never Few times Many times Secondary school sample Never Few times Many times

Hurtful teasing Boys Girls

55 36 9 63 34 3 Chi square (1) .25, p > 0.05

36 58 14 49 45 6 Chi square (1) .3.46, p > 0.05

Unpleasant name-calling Boys Girls

35 58 7 50 46 4 Chi square (1) .4.61, p < 0.05 71 26 3 87 13 0 Chi square (1) .7.72 , p > 0.01 47 51 2 57 37 6 Chi square (1) .2.00, p > 0.05 79 19 2 80 20 0 Chi square (1) .0.03, p > 0.05

20 59 12 36 57 7 Chi square (1) .1.12, p > 0.05 50 70 8 81 30 1 Chi square (1) .21.26, p < 0.001 45 44 11 70 29 1 Chi square (1) .12.79, p < 0.001 58 30 12 78 21 1 Chi square (1) .9.19, p > 0.01

Hitting or kicking Boys Girls

Excluding them Boys Girls

Spreading lies Boys Girls

Threatening with harm Boys Girls

75 23 2 93 4 3 Chi square (1) .12.05 , p < 0.001

60 32 8 84 15 1 Chi-square (1) 14.29, p > 0.001

Notes: (i) For each sub-group, N = 100; (ii) Because of the low level of frequencies in the category many times, prior to computing chi-squares the frequencies for few times and many times were combined.

152
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School?

50 40 Percentages 30 20 10 0 0 to 1 2 to 3 4 to 5 6 to 7 8 to 9 Level of reported bullying
Boys Girls

Figure 1

Frequency levels of reportedly bullying others at school

parametric statistics (Tabachnik and Fidell, 1983). A two-way analysis of variance was then carried out on the adjusted scores, with sex and school status as factors. The results indicated a significant effect for sex and for level of schooling. For boys the mean scores were 0.92 (SD = 0.10, N = 100) for primary school students and 0.97 (SD = 0.13, N = 100) for the secondary school students. Corresponding means for girls were 0.88 (SD = 0.10, N = 100 ) for primary school, and 0.90 (SD = 0.10, N = 100) for secondary school. The F ratio for sex was 26.98, p < 0.001; level of schooling [F = 9.65, p < 0.01]. There was no significant interaction effect [F = 2.36, p > 0.05]. These results indicate that the tendency to bully others is greater among boys and suggest that it tends to increase when students enter secondary school. Perceived expectations of others In general, relatively few students thought that parents, friends and teachers expected them to support the bully, but many thought that these people did not expect them to support the victim either. From their responses it is possible to infer the degree of social pressure that individuals could have felt to support the bully or refrain from doing so. To some extent, the strength of the expectations depended on the particular source. Most respondents (55 percent) saw friends as either expecting them to support the bully or do nothing. By contrast, some 27.8 percent of respondents saw their mother and 34.6 percent saw their father as having this expectation. Few students (15.3 percent) saw their teachers as not expecting them to support the victim. Sex differences in expectations were evident for friends especially. More boys 153
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2)

Table 2

Perceived support for helping the victim or bully

Strongly support victim Support victim Do nothing Support bully Strongly support bully

Perceived mother Primary school Boys (N = 100) Girls (N = 100) Secondary school Boys (N = 98) Girls (N = 100) 33 44 48 18 1 46 9 1 Chi-square = 4.41 (2) p > 0.05 40.8 26.5 2.0 52 26 0 Chi-square = 2.67 (2) p > 0.05 Perceived father Primary school Boys (N = 98) Girls (N = 100) Secondary school Boys (N = 98) Girls (N = 93) 23.5 37 48.0 23.5 3.1 49 12 1 Chi-square = 7.97 (2) p < 0.05 46.9 29.6 3.1 46.2 32.3 0.0 Chi-square = 0.33(2) p > 0.05 Perceived friends Primary school Boys (N = 100) Girls (N = 100) Secondary school Boys (N = 100) Girls (N = 100) 15 19 33 44 5 55 25 1 Chi-square = 14.64 (2) p < 0.001 28 43 14 52 37 6 Chi-square = 12.44 (2) p < 0.01 Perceived teachers Primary school Boys (N = 100) Girls (N = 100) Secondary school Boys (N = 100) Girls (N = 100) 62.0 56.0 26.0 11.0 1.0 29.0 13.0 0.0 Chi-square = 0.39 (2) p > 0.05 37.0 13 2.0 37.0 13 0.0 Chi-square = 0.57 (2) p > 0.05 0 0 3 0 2.0 1 0 0

29.6 22

10 0

17.3 20.4

3.1 1.1

7 3

8 2

44.0 48.0

4.0 2

Notes: (i) Ns for respondents varied slightly due to some missing data; (ii) Due to low frequencies of students perceiving support for bullies, categories were combined in computing chi-square for do nothing, support the bully and strongly support the bully.

154
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School? than girls at both primary and secondary schools thought that their friends would not expect them to support a victim of bullying at school. Further details are given in Table 2, with results for sex differences. Attitude to Victims There was a tendency for students to express supportive attitudes towards victims, as indicated by 79.8 percent of respondents scoring above the midpoint on the measure. Hence a log transformation procedure was used to approximate a normal distribution of scores prior to a two way ANOVA being performed. The results indicated significant sex differences, with girls [F = 21.39, p < 0.001] being more supportive of victims. Level of schooling approached but did not reach significance at the 0.05 level [F = 2.97, p = 0.08]. There was no significant interaction effect [F = 1.54, p > 0.05]. Further details are given in Table 3.
Table 3

Scores on pro attitude to victim scale

Primary Mean SD 0.37 0.33 N 99 100 Mean 1.53 1.73 Secondary SD 0.32 0.39 N 99 98

Attitude to victims Boys Girls

1.63 1.75

Note: Data were missing from several students on at least one of the ten items constituting the scale.

The relationship between attitudes to victims and the perceived expectations of others Correlations between attitudes to victims and the measures of perceived expectations of others were generally significant but low, suggesting that student attitudes to victims may have been influenced to a small extent by parents, friends and teachers (see Table 4).
Table 4 Correlations between attitudes to victims and the perceived expectations of others Expect mother Boys Girls 0.11(ns) 0.30*** Expect father 0.21** 0.42*** Expect friends 0.35*** 0.32*** Expect teacher 0.17* 0.18**

Note: Ns for the correlations ranged from 191 to 198; Significance levels: * = 0.05; ** = 0.01;*** = 0.001; ns = not significant.

155
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2) Relationships with reported bullying behaviour To assess the relative strength of relationships with tendencies to report bullying others (as assessed by the Tendency to Bully Scale) multiple regression analyses were undertaken employing these independent variables: Provictim Attitude, Perceived Expectations of Parents, Perceived Expectations of Friends, Perceived Expectations of Teachers; Sex (male = 1; female = 2) and level of schooling (primary = 1; secondary = 2). Because the measures assessing attitudes to mothers and fathers were moderately highly correlated (r = 0.59), a composite variable, Perceived Expectation of Parents, was computed by summing the scores for mother and father. Distributions of scores on each of the scales was normalised prior to use in the analyses. Three variables were predictive of the tendency to report bullying others: the Pro-Victim Scale Perceived Friends, and sex (being male). Neither Perceived Expectation of Parents nor Perceived Expectation of Teachers, nor Level of Schooling made a significant contribution (p > 0.05) The total set of independent variables produced a Multiple R of 0.51, df = 6,376, F = 21.56, p < 0.001. Detailed results are given in Table 5.
Table 5

Results for multiple regression analysis

Beta 0.30 0.22 0.15 0.08 0.02 0.01 T 6.07 4.24 3.28 1.71 0.44 0.12 Significance 0.001 0.001 0.01 0.09 0.66 0.90

Independent variables Pro Victim scale Perceived expectation of friends Sex School level Perceived expectation of parents Perceived expectation of teacher

Regression analyses were also conducted for boys and girls separately. For boys only, significant results were obtained for these independent variables, the Pro-Victim Scale, = 0.31, T = 4.42, p < 0.001; Perceived Expectation of Friends, = 0.17, T = 2.34, p < 0.05; Level of schooling, = 18, T = 2.56, p < 0.01. The Multiple R was 0.45, 5, df = 186, p < 0.001. For girls, the significant predictors were the ProVictim Scale, = 0.23, T = 3.29, p < 0.01; the Expectations of Friends, = 0.31, T = 4.32, p < 0.001; and Perceived Expectation of Parents, = 0.18, T = 2.43, p < 0.05. Unlike the results for boys, Level of Schooling was not significant, = 0.07, T = 1.12, p > 0.05. Multiple R was 0.54, df = 5,185, F = 15.61, p < 0.001. In summary, for both boys and girls the tendency to bully was associated with relatively unsympathetic attitudes towards victims and a 156
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School? belief that their friends did not expect them to be supportive of the victims. For neither sex was the perceived expectation of teachers significant However, the different results for boys and girls suggest that the expectations of parents may influence girls only. Further, the transition to secondary schools appears to be associated with an increase in bullying behaviour for boys but not girls.

Discussion The distribution of self-reported bullying behaviour corresponded to the expected pattern: that is most reported bullying of others was of a relatively low degree of frequency, with few students reporting high levels of bullying (see Figure 1). It is acknowledged that some students may have been reluctant to disclose that they do bully others frequently. At the same time, reported studies of the relationship between self-reported estimates of bullying and those obtained by other means, such as from peer nominations, have shown that other methods of data collection yield similar results (Rigby,1998). The differences between the distributions of bullying scores for boys and girls, showing that boys are inclined to bully more often is consistent with other reports (e.g. Olweus, 1993; Smith and Sharp, 1994). Relatively few mothers, fathers, friends or teachers were thought to be supportive of a student bullying others, although there was considerable variation between students beliefs about whether these people had strong expectations that the respondent would support the victim or alternatively do nothing about it. Notably, friends were seen as having the lowest expectation that students would be supportive of victims, in contrast to teachers who were seen as having relatively strong expectations that students would support victims. Parents were seen as occupying an intermediate position. The distribution of attitudes towards victims followed a similar pattern to students expectations of others, that is, a large majority of students had pro-victim attitudes, with relatively few of them expressing support for bullies. In this study analyses were performed to determine the potential influence of student attitudes and the beliefs that children held about the expectations others had of them. These have been interpreted as factors influencing social behaviour (see Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). It does not follow that parents, teachers and peers actually held the expectations attributed to them by students; rather that students (possibly erroneous) beliefs about their expectations could have made a significant contribution. One cannot dismiss the possibility that the predisposition of some children to bully others may have, in part, determined what they thought was expected of them. Longitudinal studies are needed to resolve this issue. This having been said, the regression 157
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2) analyses suggest that students with relatively positive attitudes towards victims and students whose friends were thought to expect them to be more supportive of victims were less inclined to bully others. Moreover, girls were much less likely to engage in bullying than boys. That positive attitudes towards victims would inhibit bullying behaviour is as predicted and not surprising. Although this factor was shown to have significant (albeit low) correlations with student beliefs about what others expected of them, the multiple regression results indicate that attitudes towards victims make an independent contribution in accounting for reported bullying behaviour. How such attitudes are engendered is open to question. Both genetic and environmental factors may play a part. The failure of student beliefs about the expectations of teachers to have a potentially significant influence on reported bullying behaviour is consistent with earlier studies that have suggested that students in late childhood and early adolescence tend to be dismissive of what teachers expect of them in the area of interpersonal relations with peers (Rigby and Bagshaw, 2003). We should note that of all the sources of perceived social pressure included in this study, teachers were seen as the most strongly opposed to bullying. This suggests that there is among students a resistance to fulfilling teacher expectations in this area of behaviour. In part, this may be explained by the development of negative attitudes towards institutional authority which is evident in early adolescence (Rigby et al., 1987). Consistent with the view endorsed by Harris (1988 ) that the influence of parents on the peer relations of children at school is largely ineffective, the expectations of parents (as suggested by students expressed beliefs) appear to have played little part in determining bullying behaviour, at least as far as boys are concerned. This does not mean, however, that parents may not successfully inculcate certain attitudes, e.g. by promoting positive and enduring attitudes towards victims in their children from an early age. Rather, it suggests that by the time a child is in late primary school and beyond, parental influence, as conveyed through the expectations parents are seen to have then, may have little effect on how children especially boys treat their peers. Whilst overall there was no strong evidence that secondary students in general were more likely to bully their peers than primary school students (the p values for all students, though small, p = 0.08, do not reach an adequate level of significance) among boys there is evidence of an increase in the propensity to bully when they enter secondary school. It is unclear whether this should be attributed to biological maturation effects and/or to a tendency for boys especially to engage in bullying behaviour when they are less under the surveillance and control of 158
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School? teacher. It is notable that the transition to secondary school does not appear to have had a comparable effect among girls. As many have pointed out (e.g. Cohn, 1991) girls tend to mature socially at an early age and this may account for the different results for boys and girls. The results from this study have implications for how bullying might be more successfully addressed in schools. It is evident that the direct communicating of expectations of teachers regarding bullying behaviour (e.g. by policy statements exhorting children not to bully) is likely to have little or no effect on how students interact. We know from earlier Australian research (Rigby and Bagshaw, 2003) that teachers are seen by a large proportion of students as irrelevant to the ways in which students interact with each other at school. If they are to have much influence on students bullying behaviour it may need to be indirect. There are a number of promising school anti-bullying programs that seek to influence children less directly. One approach, devised by Robinson and Maines (2000), involves mobilizing the support of prosocial children to exert peer pressure on children who have engaged in bullying. According to this method, following a bullying incident, the teacher may convene a group of students, including the perpetrators of bullying as well as other more pro-social students, and share with them a concern for the plight of a child who has been bullied. After the teacher has begun a discussion on what might be done to overcome the problem, he or she wisely leaves so that the peer pressure can influence those who have behaved anti-socially. Another approach proposed by Pikas (2002), the Method of Shared Concern, envisages a multi-stage process that seeks to bring about changes in the behaviour of bullies through work with individuals and with groups. It culminates in a final meeting involving bullies and the person they have bullied, at which issues are explored and constructive use is made of peer influence. A further application of peer influence can be brought about by eliciting and promoting existing pro-victim views held by most students about the unacceptability of bullying and the desirability of helping victims of peer abuse. Rather than express their expectations that students should discourage bullying, teachers may conduct class meetings in which a widespread desire to help victims becomes evident (see Rigby and Johnson, 2004). This can lead to children being open to suggestions about how they might, as bystanders, act to discourage bullying when they see it happening. Given that bullying in schools happens mostly in the presence of student bystanders and often stops when an objection is raised (Hawkins et al., 2001) there are grounds for believing that by facilitating student discussions and drawing attention to the potential effectiveness of bystander interventions, teachers can less directly influence students to take action to counter bullying (see Salmivalli, 1999; 2001). 159
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

School Psychology International (2005), Vol. 26(2) Note

Acknowledgements are due to Associate Professor Bruce Johnson of the School of Education at the University of South Australia who assisted in this work and to the University of South Australia for providing an internal grant to facilitate the development of research instruments

References
Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding and Predicting Social Behaviour: New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Ajzen, I. (1988) Attitudes, Personality and Behavior. Chicago, IL: Dorsey Press. Allen, M., Donohue, W. A. and Griffin, A. (2003) Comparing the Influence of Parents and Peers on the Choice to Use Drugs, Criminal Justice & Behavior 30: 16386. Bowers, L., Smith, P. K. and Binney, V. A. (1992) Cohesion and Power in the Families of Children Involved in Bully/Victim Problems at School, Journal of Family Therapy 14: 37187. Cairns, B. C. and Cairns, B. D. (1994) Lifelines and Risks. Hemel Hempstead: Simon & Schuster. Cohn, L. D. (1991) Sex Differences in the Course of Personality Development: A Meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin 109: 25266. Crick, N. R. and Grotpeter, J. K. (1995) Relational Aggression, Gender and Social Psychological Adjustment, Child Development 66: 71022. Endresen, M. and Olweus, D. (2001) Self-Reported Empathy in Norwegian Adolescents: Sex Differences, Age Trends and Relationship to Bullying, in A. C. Bohart and D. J. Stipek (eds) Constructive & Destructive Behavior: Implications for Family, School, & Society, pp. 14765. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Harris, J. R. (1998) The Nurture Assumption. New York: Free Press. Hawkins, D., Pepler, D. J. and Craig, W. M. (2001) Naturalistic Observations of Peer Interventions in Bullying, Social Development 10: 51227. Ma, H. K. (2003) The Relationship of the Family, Social Environment, Peer Influences and Peer Relationships to Altruistic Orientation in Chinese Children, Journal of Genetic Psychology 164: 26774. Ma, H. K., Shek, D. T. L. and Cheung, P. C. (2002) A Longitudinal Study of Peer and Teacher Influences on Prosocial and Anti-Social Behavior of Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents, Social Behavior & Personality l: 15768. Menesini, E., Eslea, M., Smith, P. K. and Genta, M. L. (1997) Cross-National Comparison of Childrens Attitudes Towards Bully/Victim Problems in Schools, Aggressive Behavior 23: 24557. Olweus, D. (1993) Bullying at School. Cambridge: Blackwell. Pikas, A. (2002) New Developments of Shared Concern Method, School Psychology International 23(3): 30726. Rigby, K. and Bagshaw, D. (2003) Prospects of Adolescent Students Collaborating with Teachers in Addressing Issues of Bullying and Conflict in Schools, Educational Psychology 32: 53546. Rigby, K. (1993) School Childrens Perceptions of their Families and Parents as a Function of Peer Relations, Journal of Genetic Psychology 154(4): 50114. Rigby, K. (2002) New Perspectives on Bullying. London: Jessica Kingsley. Rigby, K. (1995) The Motivation of Australian Adolescent Schoolchildren to

160
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012

Rigby: Why Do Some Children Bully at School?

Engage in Group Discussions about Bullying, Current Problems and Resolutions, Journal of Social Psychology 135: 6. Rigby, K. (1997) Attitudes and Beliefs about Bullying Among Australian School Children, Irish Journal of Psychology 18(2): 20220. Rigby, K. (1998) Suicidal Ideation and Bullying Among Australian Secondary School Children, Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist 15(1): 4561. Rigby, K. and Johnson, B. (2004) Innocent Bystanders?, Teacher 3840, September. Rigby, K., Schofield, P. and Slee, P. T. (1987) The Similarity of Attitudes to Personal and Impersonal Types of Authority Among Adolescent Schoolchildren, Journal of Adolescenc 10: 24153. Rigby, K. and Slee, P. T. (1991) Bullying Among Australian School Children: Reported Behaviour and Attitudes to Victims, Journal of Social Psychology 131: 61527. Robinson, G. and Maines, B. (2000) Crying for Help: The No Blame Approach to Bullying. Bristol: Lucky Duck Publishing. Salmivalli, C. (2001) Peer-Led Intervention Campaign Against School Bullying: Who Considered It Useful, Who Benefited? Educational Research 43: 26379. Salmivalli, C. (1999) Participant Role Approach to School Bullying: Implications for Interventions, Journal of Adolescence 22: 45359. Simons-Morton, B., Haynie, D. L. and Crump, A. D. (2001) Peer and Parent Influences on Smoking and Drinking Among Early Adolescents, Health Education & Behavior 28: 95107. Slee, P. T. and Rigby, K. (1993) The Relationship of Eysencks Personality Factors and Self-Esteem to Bully/Victim Behaviour in Australian School Boys, Personality and Individual Differences 14: 37173. Smith, P. K, Morita, Y., Junger-Tas, J., Olweus, D., Catalano, R. and Slee, P. (eds) (1999) The Nature of School Bullying: A Cross-National Perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Smith, P. K. and Sharp, S. (eds) (1994) School Bullying: Insights and Perspectives. London: Routledge. Sutton, J. and Keogh, E. (2000) Social Competition in Schools: Relationships with Bullying, Machiavellianism and Personality, British Journal of Educational Psychology 70: 44357. Tabachnick, B. G and Fidell, L. S. (1983) Using Multivariate Statistics. New York: Harper and Row. Wood, M. D. (2004) Do Parents Still Matter? Parent and Peer Influences on Alcohol Involvement Among Recent High School Graduates, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 18: 1930.

161
Downloaded from spi.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on November 24, 2012