Speaker
Description
Bullying is a highly prevalent phenomenon that can have an array of negative impacts on both victims and perpetrators' long-term health and wellbeing. Despite the widespread assumption that empathy should be a key target for anti-bullying interventions, research examining this relationship is surprisingly scarce, and the evidence base informing the implementation of empathy-focused interventions remains in its infancy. Our study examined how affective and cognitive empathy predict the status of victim, bully, and bully-victim, using data from the Stand Together trial. This is a longitudinal trial with data collected in 2021 and 2022 from 5167 primary school children aged 6-11 years, including measures of empathy, victimisation, and involvement in bullying. We conducted a secondary data analysis using propensity score matching and multinomial logistic regression to explore how children’s self-reported empathy towards victims of bullying at baseline predicted their role in bullying at one year follow-up. Consistent with existing literature, we found that low affective empathy was a significant predictor of bullying at follow-up (OR = 0.89, 95% CI [0.84, 0.95], p < .001), but so was low cognitive empathy (OR = 0.90, 95% CI [0.83, 0.98], p < .05. Surprisingly, we also found that both high affective (OR = 1.07, 95% CI [1.06, 1.10], p < .001) and cognitive (OR = 1.12, 95% CI [1.09,1.15], p < 0.001) empathy predicted later victimisation. We also discovered some evidence that high cognitive empathy is a predictor of a later status as a bully-victim (OR = 1.05, 95% CI [1.00,1.10], p < 0.05). The findings identify a new risk factor for peer victimisation. We discuss how these findings can inform the strategic integration of empathy training to enhance the effectiveness of bullying prevention efforts.
Keywords
Peer victimisation, Bullying Involvement, Cognitive empathy, Affective empathy, Propensity score matching, Primary school children
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
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| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
