Speakers
Description
Bullying and aggression is inherently social, involving – at minimum – a perpetrator and target, but often involving other peers (e.g., Huitsing & Veenstra, 2012). Given inherent social complexities, these four studies explore a variety of social and contextual factors that may play a critical role in youth’s involvement in aggressive/bullying behaviors.
Study 1 assesses aggressive behavior within the context of friendship (compared to aggression outside of friendship), examining the role of various social factors. In Study 2, a dyadic approach is used to examine aggressive motivations and links to a variety of social characteristics of the target. Study 3 examines how bullying is targeted differentially toward peers of different status levels (e.g., popular versus unpopular), and the role that the physical social context (seating distance) plays in these interactions. Finally, Study 4 investigates whether bystander behavior (bully-following and defending) is impacted by potential negative social experiences, assessed here as the fear of future victimization.
This symposium brings together international researchers from Canada, Netherlands, and Finland to present cutting-edge work on aggressive/bullying behaviors from the lens that social and relational complexities play a prominent role in the enactment of these behaviors. Studies use large samples (e.g., 3000 adolescents in Study 4), unique methodologies (e.g., measurement of seating distance in Study 3) and sophisticated analyses (e.g., dyadic analysis in Studies 1 and 2) to explore aggressive behaviors across late childhood and adolescence. Discussant Dr. Wendy Craig will discuss implications of these findings on our understanding of bullying, and on prevention/intervention efforts.
Keywords
Aggression; bullying; bystander behavior; peer relationships; social context
Additional field for symposia
STUDY 1: Comparing Social Factors Associated with Aggression Within Versus Outside of Friendships
Friendships and aggression are both crucial aspects of adolescent social development. Ideally, friendships offer adolescents emotional support and the opportunity to learn social skills. However, friendships can also be the source aggression. Similarly, research shows that aggression is associated with both positive and negative outcomes. Is aggression within friendship associated with the same social factors as aggression outside of friendships?
We addressed this question with a sample of 420 adolescents from a Southern Ontario high school, ranging from 13-18 years old (M= 15.73 years, SD=1.19). We identified reciprocal friendship dyads as well as dyads where victimization and perpetration were present. We conducted two path models to investigate the association between aggression and social factors: one to explore victimization by friends and non-friends; the other to explore perpetration against friends and non-friends. We found that, compared to victimization outside a friendship, victimization in friendship was associated with worse academic achievement, as well as being in a dating relationship, while victimization outside of friendship was associated with emotional problems, attractiveness, perceived popularity, dating desirability, and involvement teen dating conflict. Perpetration against friends was positively associated with emotional problems and attractiveness, while perpetration outside of friendship was associated with attractiveness, perceived popularity, and involvement in teen dating conflict.
Overall, our results suggest that aggression in these two contexts differ and that romantic involvements may play an important role in involvement in adolescent aggression, within and outside of friendships.
STUDY 2: A Dyadic Perspective on Evolutionarily Relevant Aggressive Functions: Links to Victim Characteristics
Aggressive behavior has been increasingly recognized as being socially adaptive for some individuals in some contexts (e.g., Provenzano et al., 2018). From an evolutionary perspective, a variety of motives may induce aggressive behavior, including competition for dominance and access to potential mates (Arnocky & Vaillancourt, 2012). Recent research identifies evolutionarily-relevant aggressive: competitive, impression management, reactive, and sadistic (Dane et al., 2022). We extend prior work by adopting a dyadic perspective and examining associations between perpetrators’ endorsement of aggressive functions and characteristics of the perpetrator-victim relationship, as well as social characteristics of perpetrators’ specific targets.
We used a sample of 278 adolescents (13-18 years old; 57% boys; 54% White) who reported engaging in aggression (based on the four functions noted above; Dane et al., 2022), and a dyadic sample with their specific aggressive targets (perpetrator-target 1,348 dyads). We measured dyadic aggression (type[s] of aggression in the dyad), dyadic relationship characteristics (reciprocity of aggression, friendship), target social characteristics (popularity, likability, social network position), and dyadic gender composition.
Competitive aggression was related to direct non-bullying aggression, reciprocal aggression, and male perpetrators. Impression management aggression was related to bullying, non-friend dyads, and targets with lower likability (though more overall friendships). Reactive aggression was related to direct non-bullying aggression, and sadistic aggression was related to dyad friendship and boy-boy dyads.
Results support theoretical arguments for the various uses of aggression, particularly considering evolutionarily-based motives for aggression. Results also inform interventions by highlighting the heterogeneity of the relational links between different types of aggression.
STUDY 3: Changes in seating proximity and bullying: Are bullies who target popular and unpopular victims affected alike?
As physical proximity increases bullying opportunity (Miethe & Meier, 1994; Moon & Alarid, 2025), classroom seating distance between bullies and victims might be related to bullying behavior. Moreover, bullies who target unpopular victims might be relatively strongly influenced by ease and thus proximity. Increasing distance may lower the chance of the bullying continuing for these bullies, but not for bullies who try to dominate popular victims in order to triumph in rivalry over a top position (Dawes & Malamut, 2020). Therefore, this study examined the effects of (a change in) seating distance on bullying behavior, and the moderating effect of the victim’s popularity status.
Data was collected of 9-to-12-year-old children in 60 Dutch elementary school classrooms at T1 and T2, 10-12 weeks apart with a seating rearrangement in between. Peer nominated popularity and dyadic bully nominations were collected, as well as self-reported frequency and severity of victimization.
Preliminary results suggest that placing bullies farther away reduced the chance of continued victimization for unpopular and average, but not for popular victims. However, for children who were not yet victimized, their chance of becoming a victim was higher when a bully was seated nearby, but only when this bully targeted unpopular victims.
Strategically changing the classroom seating arrangement thus might be a promising strategy to reduce the plight specifically of victims low and average in popularity. However, we should also be aware of the potential negative side effects of new peers being targeted by bullies who tend to target unpopular victims.
STUDY 4: Does fear of victimization predict victim-defending and bully-following behaviors?
One promising avenue for decreasing bullying is to discourage bystanders from joining in the bullying and encourage them to defend victims. This requires an understanding of the motivations underlying these behaviors. Qualitative studies suggest that fear of victimization prevent many students from defending victims (Strindberg et al., 2020), and it is conceivable that fear of becoming a target might explain why some students choose to show support to those who initiate bullying. However, these hypotheses have not been empirically tested. This study examines the concurrent and prospective effects of fear of victimization on following the perpetrator and on being a defender.
A sample of 3000 Finnish adolescents provided data in the middle (T1) and end (T2) of one school year. Fear of victimization was self-reported (3 items). Bully-following was peer-reported (3 items); defending was victim-reported and binary-coded (1 = nominated at least once; 0= never nominated). Analyses were linear and logistic regressions and controlled for age, gender and actual victimization.
Concurrently, fear of victimization was negatively associated with bully-following at T1 (p<.001) and T2 (p = .041) and positively associated with being a defender only at T2 (p = .011; at T1, p =.068). Prospectively, fear of victimization predicted a decrease in bully-following (p = .004) and an increase in defending (p = .008).
Contrary to expectations, fear of victimization seems to encourage, rather than deter, defending and prevent, rather than promote, bully-following. Therefore, fear of victimization does not appear to be a key factor to target for anti-bullying interventions.
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
|---|---|
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
