Perpetrator/bully is used to describe any child who engages in bullying behavior towards other children. Bystander refers to any child who observes bullying activity and does not become involved.
Background and psychological impact of bullying
Child development theories and the use of aggression
The phenomenon of relational aggression
Gender and aggression
South African Context
Introduction
Understanding aggression and bullying
- Forms of bullying and aggression
- Defining and operationalising the concepts
- Prevalence
- The developmental perspective
- The South African context
Underwood, Scott, Galperin, Bjornstad, and Sexton (2004) point out that some studies have found no gender differences in relational aggression. To date, an in-depth cross-sectional exploration of relational aggression among girls in South Africa is still lacking.
The psychological impact of physical and relational aggression
Normative or harmful
In addition to the fact that there is often no escape for victims of bullying at school, these authors note in their research among student teachers that they often do not recognize the seriousness of non-physical victimization, such as teasing. Due, Holstein, Lynch, Diderichsen, Gabhain, Scheidt, and Currie (2005) believe that adolescents may be particularly sensitive to the effects of negative social circumstances.
The effects of physical aggression versus relational aggression
Although there have been relatively few studies on the effects of relational aggression on perpetrators, some have found that relationally aggressive children, particularly those with poorer social skills, have been found to be at a higher risk for social maladjustment (Crick, 1996). ; McEvoy et al., 2003). Storch and Masia-Warner (2004) investigated the impact of overt and relational aggression on adolescent females.
Protective factors
In contrast, when two friends collaborate in using relational aggression against another peer, this aversive behavior may actually promote cohesion or otherwise strengthen ties between the friends. If this is true, women may be particularly susceptible to the modeling and reinforcement of relational aggression by their close friends (that is, because the potential consequences of girls' participation in relational aggression are highly valued) (pp. 498-9).
Role players: Bullies, bystanders and victims
Bullies and/or victims
A child can simultaneously bully a child of lower status while being bullied by someone higher in the social hierarchy. The social context is likely to have an important potential influence on the prevalence rates for different forms of bullying that occur among schoolchildren.
Bystanders
As pointed out by Schafer et al. (2005), primary school is characterized by dyadic friendships, where there is less opportunity for hierarchical social structuring to consolidate. It follows that relational bullying, which is mostly used to enhance the girl's social status, must have an audience to be successful.
Risk factors in the development of bullying and victimization
- Psychosocial risk factors
- Cognitive risk factors
- Environmental risk factors
- Friendships
- Hierarchy and social status
Smit (2003a) claims that bullying is a learned behaviour, and therefore children must be taught to learn healthier ways of interacting with others in order to unlearn it. It is important to be aware, warn Rodkin and Hodges (2003), that popular children are not necessarily pro-social and non-aggressive, and rejected children are not.
Aggression and culture
On the other hand, victims clearly experience disconnection and poor relationships within the peer ecology. The peer ecology approach draws attention to all children, not just those who are bullies or victims.
Developmental theories and the development of aggression
- Foundational developmental theories
- Piagetian theories of development
- Eriksonian theories of development
- Early childhood development and aggression
- Theories of cognitive development and aggression
- Social information-processing models
- Reciprocity and role taking
- Selman’s theory of social perspective-taking
- Social intelligence, empathy and ‘theory of mind’
- Theories on the development of moral reasoning
- Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
- Evolutionary perspectives of the development of aggression
Because of the negative impact on society when childhood aggression leads to psychopathology and criminal behavior in adults, much empirical data has been collected on the development of aggressive behavior in children. Now, instead of taking only the other's perspective of himself, the child is able to simultaneously incorporate and coordinate his own and others' perspectives, seeing the entire system from the perspective of the "generalized other."
The development of girls
- The importance of affiliation and relationship
- The nature of girls‟ friendships and relational aggression
- The development of morality in girls
- Identity formation and the socialization of girls
Girls' friendships are depicted as higher in intimacy and self-disclosure; thus, girls may be more vulnerable to malicious gossip and friendship manipulation. Additionally, since friendships are so important in the social world of girls, girls are often judged by their affiliations.
Girls and relational aggression
- The meaning of „meanness‟
- Normative beliefs
- Alliance building
- Popularity and power
- The loss of self
- Going „underground‟ in girls‟ aggression
They knew that in order to be accepted and liked, they had to be nice and that "nice girls" get more friends. Simmons (2002) argues that girls resort to "non-verbal gestures" (mean looks, certain forms of exclusion, and silent treatment) because they are denied their voices by cultural rules about girls' anger: "Silence throws up an impenetrable wall and closes down on the chance for self-expression and, more importantly, the opportunity to play a proactive role in one's conflicts” (p. 46).
Rationale, aims and goals for the study
Rationale
Aims and goals
This research study aims to fill this gap by investigating how the types of aggression experienced by girls in this sample change according to their cognitive and social development from the first to the last year of school. This research will therefore represent an exploratory attempt to improve understanding of how the nature of aggression develops and changes as girls grow up, how these changes affect girls psychologically, why relational bullies use this form of aggression, why some children seem to remain uninvolved in these interactions, even when the victim is in desperate need of support, and also why victims of this type of aggression seem to accept the abuse and even come back for more.
Introduction
Research aims
Research questions
Research design
Quantitative research approach
Within the general term 'quantitative research' there are two methodologically related but very different approaches: survey research and experimental research. In this project, survey research was conducted, with the aim of obtaining findings that describe and interpret aspects of current psychosocial reality.
Ethical Considerations
Doing research with children
If child research is to be in the best interests of the child participants, it is vital that we are aware of the potential dangers. In addition, the researcher must consider very carefully whether children should be directly involved in the research in order to answer the research questions.
Data gathering
Selection and description of the sample
Measures used
- Self-report questionnaire
- Validity and reliability
- Inter-rater reliability for codes
More specifically in the case of pen-and-paper surveys: participants may be unfamiliar with questionnaires (test wisdom); forced choice responses usually do not provide a chance for the participant's reasons for their answer or may not cover the answer the respondent would like to give; Content validity can be considered reasonable if the study adequately samples and represents the phenomenon under investigation.
Administration procedure
Another researcher also coded the raw data to determine whether the final researcher-developed codes met criteria for individual reliability.
Data analysis
- Coding the data
- Chi-square analysis
- Content analysis
- Binary Logistic regression
- Kruskal-Wallis test for unrelated samples
It is important that the kind of evidence needed to validate the results of the content analysis is specified in advance, or at least should be reasonably clear. In addition, the rating scale part of the questionnaire was designed to measure the extent to which the survey respondents experienced.
Introduction
Coding the data
Each code was then tested by the researcher across a range of responses to ensure that all responses could legitimately be grouped into one of the available categories. Once the researcher was satisfied that the codes accurately covered all the written material provided by the girls in the questionnaires, the coded data for the entire sample was captured, ready for statistical analysis.
Inter-rater reliability
Content analysis stands or falls by its categories...categories should reflect the purposes of the research, be exhaustive, be mutually exclusive, independent, and be derived from a single principle of classification (p. 95).
Introduction
Description of the sample
Demographics of the sample
The demographic characteristics of the students who participated in this study are shown in Graph 1 and Graph 2 below. The majority of students (n = 99) had attended this school from between one and five years, while 39 had attended the school for six to 10 years and 31 had attended for less than one year.
Inferential Statistics
- How prevalent are „bullies‟, „victims‟ and „bystanders‟ and are
- Why do bullies behave the way they do?
- Where can we place the blame?
- Girls‟ opinions on showing their anger
- Why some girls remain uninvolved, as „by-standers‟
- Why victims often seem to „accept‟ the abuse
- The nature of girls‟ friendships and fights
- What girls value in their friendships
- Popularity, status and bullying amongst girls
- The psychological effects of girl-bullying on its victims
- The effect on feelings about self and others
- The effect on how victims react
- Factors underlying the psychological pain and damage
- Relational bullying as more painful than other forms
- Social, moral and cognitive development of girls in relation to
- Association between sexual abuse and age
- Selman’s levels of social perspective-taking across the
- Loyalty, morality and moral reasoning
No significant relationship was found between "characteristics of the bully" as a reason for bullying and age in years. An analysis of the residuals shows that at the 1% level they are six to nine years old.
Introduction
Demographics
Discussion of the findings
The prevalence of „bullies‟, „victims‟ and „bystanders‟ across the
In this study, many girls may have experienced all three roles in the bullying scenario, either simultaneously according to the social stratification among their peers, or at different times, and may therefore unconsciously choose the most socially acceptable one in this case (Holt et al., 2007). Second, because bullying among girls tends to be primarily social and occurs in the presence of peers (Owens et al., 2000b; Ostrov & Crick, 2007; Smith et al., 2005), who directly or indirectly cause it.
Bullying sub-types across the age groups
It appears that relational aggression is a normative practice (as is consistent with previous literature) across all ages of girls, as 76% of all respondents cited at least one form of relational bullying (such as social exclusion and betrayal) in response. bullying vignettes (Crick et al., 1996). In addition, this study has shown that some forms of relational aggression increase both in quantity and quality with increasing age in years.
Reasons for the behaviour of bullies, victims and by-standers
- Placing the blame
- Boredom
- Friendship and group processes
She is the 'other' in the group...fat or ugly...smart in class...a bit of a nerd...weird (15 years old). The findings in the current study are also consistent with Duncan and Owen-Smith's (2006) assertion that indirect aggression is directly related to the level of status anxiety in a friendship, which is different for boys and girls.
Anger and girls
This shows that…they are really nice girls…No one has the right to hurt anyone, regardless of [sic] (15 years old) mood. They should not show that they are angry, but rather cover it up and pretend that everything is fine. Normally nice girls don't show that they are upset. They hide their feelings (18 years).
The fears of „by-standers‟
Because of the peer pressure, she will be too afraid to take a stand and say it's wrong because she doesn't want to be kicked out of the popular group... They may also gossip about her and try to destroy any chance of get other friends…she likes the benefits of being popular, she cares what other people think about her…she would lose [sic] them and be left with nothing at all, so she should just keep quiet (age 17). They will disown her and make her high school or elementary school life hell...She [keeps quiet] to protect herself so that she stays in the group and is not ostracized as [the victim]...They would turn on her , be evil. , more ugly.
To be abused is better than to be alone
She will pretend everything is okay and continue to tolerate the people who hurt her, just so she can be accepted in the group, she will even try to change her personality (age 14). She probably knows why she is being bullied and she wants to change herself to be accepted...She would probably try to do something so that she would like...She would probably try to change who she is to fit into society and lose yourself in the process (15 years).
Girls‟ friendships and fights – the link to relational bullying
- The central values of friendship and relationship
It is proposed that the nature of friendships between girls provides greater opportunities for relational aggression, as a girl can be emotionally harmed simply by being. They will probably emotionally abuse her because you can't show it or have proof (15 years).
Popularity, status and power – the link to bully/victim status
By deduction, therefore, good social skills may lead to an enhanced ability to successfully use relational aggression to harm others, especially from a point of view. Clearly, much more in-depth research is needed to develop an understanding of the factors that contribute to the differential use of high levels of relational aggression among different girls.
The psychological effect of girl-bullying on its victims
- Feelings about self and others
- Ways of reacting to bullying
- Factors underlying the psychological pain
Girls in the current study showed a clear increase in Selman's (1980) level of social perspective taking from younger to older age groups. Sex differences in the personal costs and benefits of relational and physical aggression in high school.
Relational bullying as more painful for girls
Social, moral and cognitive development of girls – the link to
- Social perspective-taking levels
- Loyalty, morality and moral reasoning
Progression through the levels, through which the child develops a greater social and moral understanding and the ability to utilize reciprocity (and prosocial behavior) in relationships, is related, according to Selman (1980), to a growing cognitive capacity in the child. Although the majority suggested that loyalty is of utmost importance in the friendship dilemma, slightly less than half of the participants showed a humanistic moral orientation (or ethics of 'care') in their reasoning for their decision, while the rest ' have used
Major findings from the current study in relation to the literature
As Bowie (2007) points out: “At least some form of relational aggression is a normal response by the majority of girls to social interactions where there is some conflict. But at what level is relational aggression considered outside of normally accepted parameters of social interactions or perhaps predictive of deviant behavior?" (p. 113).
Limitations of the current study
Finally, aspects of some feminist theories on the issue of morality were not fully supported by this study, in that girls were found not only to use a moral orientation of 'caring', but apparently to use the moral as well. This study was also limited in that it did not collect any information from the girls regarding the psychological impact of girl bullying on the perpetrators.
Suggestions for further research
The role of overt aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behavior in the prediction of children's future social adjustment. For the younger girls, I will write down their answers verbatim on the relevant sections of the questionnaire.
