Introduction to special issue on bullying: A social influence perspective

Abstract

Bullying is a complex social phenomenon that crosses age, ethnicity, and national boundaries. Originally coined as “mobbing,” by Olweus in 1972 (Espelage & Swearer, 2003), bullying tends to involve a bully, a victim, and other individuals in a variety of roles that can take the form of an active presence (e.g., bully assistant or victim defender), a passive presence (e.g., bystander), or even a perceived presence (e.g., peer attitudes). Interestingly, these roles tend to be dynamic in that it is not uncommon for an individual to take on different roles from one situation to the next (Espelage & Swearer, 2003). Research on bullying during the past 40 years has provided considerable insight into this phenomenon, but many questions still remain about how we identify bullying, the consequences of such behavior on those involved, and the most effective means to reduce bullying. This special issue of Social Influence, dedicated to bullying, responds to some of these unknowns by including a broad range of conceptual and empirical articles describing how social influences are related to the attitudes and/or behaviors of those who take on various roles in a bullying situation.

Keywords:

• Bullying
• Social influence
• Cyberbullying
• Anti-bullying
• Victimization

Traditionally, school-age bullying has been defined by three components: (1) the repeated occurrence of verbal, relational, and/or physical harm by a bully, (2) who is perceived as higher in power than the victim, with (3) the intent to cause harm to the victim (Olweus, 1993; Shore, 2009). The occurrence of bullying has no geographical bounds, as both research and intervention efforts have been seen worldwide (Espelage & Swearer, 2003; Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008; Rigby, 2002). The articles in this special issue mirror such efforts, as they include samples of children from Australia, Finland, Italy, New England, and Poland. Estimates from numerous countries indicate that bullies constitute up to 24% of the school-age population and victims up to 44% (Haynie et al., 2001; Nansel et al., 2001; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999). Bullying tends to increase in frequency during periods of transition, such as the early adolescent transition from elementary to middle school (Espelage & Holt, 2001; Graham, Bellmore, & Mize, 2006; Haynie et al., 2001; Leadbeater, 2010). There is also evidence suggesting that boys are more likely to bully using physical means and less likely to defend a victim than are girls (Haynie et al., 2001; Pellegrini et al., 1999; Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, Kaistaniemi, & Lagerspetz, 1999).

With advances in technology, our understanding of what constitutes bullying is changing (Walker, 2010). Traditionally, bullying was something that occurred away from home, and for victims, the home setting was a safe retreat after the events of the day. There are now many ways (e.g., Internet, smart phones, and social media outlets) by which bullying can occur at any time and in any place. The current article by Wingate, Minney, and Guadagno (2013) compares the components of face-to-face bullying to online cyberbullying. For example, cyberbullying occurs without the visual cues regarding one's intent that are present in a face-to-face bullying situation. Also, cyberbullying includes a greater sense of permanence of a bully's remarks, and subsequent re-victimization, due to their constant presence online or on one's phone.

Regardless of how bullying is formally defined, those victimized by bullies are at greater risk for negative short- and long-term outcomes than are other students. There is an abundance of research demonstrating the links between bullying victimization, and sometimes being a bully as well, and mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic complaints, and suicidal ideation (e.g., Espelage & Holt, 2001; Graham et al., 2006). Two articles in this issue focus on the effects of bullying. The first article by Lester, Cross, Dooley, and Shaw (2013) provides a review of outcome research and presents new longitudinal data from a large group of middle school students in Australia. Some of their findings supported previous research in terms of the outcomes of depression and anxiety in many victims. However, these researchers were surprised to find that depression and anxiety outcomes were more greatly affected by victimization onset at the start of secondary school than by prolonged victimization prior to that time. These results support the need for interventions to reduce bullying at both the elementary/primary and secondary levels.

The second article by Gamian-Wilk (2013) is the one of the article in this issue that focuses on bullying in adulthood versus childhood or adolescence. In this two-study article, the author examined the relationship between being a victim of bullying in the workplace and compliance with coworkers' requests. The first study showed a negative correlation between the two variables, and the second study demonstrated a causal relationship between the two variables when participants were asked to recall a time in which they were socially ostracized at work and then respond to compliance requests. Those participants who were considered victims showed decreased compliance with requests, while interestingly, those participants who were considered non-victims tended to increase requests for compliance after evoking the instance of social ostracism at work. Gamian-Wilk discusses how reduced compliance with requests by those with a history of victimization has the potential to lead to further ostracism in the workplace.

Bullies are also considered at-risk for negative short- and long-term outcomes (Nansel et al., 2001). In this issue, Borgwald and Theixos (2013) explore the mental health outcomes (e.g., stress, depression, and drug use) for bullies who are expelled from school as a result of their actions. They present a perspective that current anti-bullying policies, which use expulsion as the consequence for bullying, are ineffective, unjust, and implemented in socially biased ways. Alternatively, they propose improved efforts to educate those who bully, provide empathy training to enhance social skills, and allow opportunities for apologies and forgiveness between the bully and victim.

If bullying were simply a social interaction between one bully and one victim, it would be easier to understand the dynamics of the dyad interaction and intervene accordingly. Unfortunately, bullying usually occurs within a broader social content and both influences and is influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of others. It is for this reason that most anti-bullying programs are systemic in nature, i.e., they include individual, school, family, and community components (Merrell et al., 2008; Smith, Schneider, Smith, & Ananiadou, 2004; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). There are two studies in this issue that address bullying-related characteristics of friend dyads and friendship selection.

Pozzoli and Gini (2013) examined homophily, the degree to which “social interactions occur more frequently among similar individuals than among dissimilar individuals” (p. 163). They found that mutually nominated friends were more similar in their attitudes toward bullying and their sense of responsibility for intervening in bullying situations than were non-friends; furthermore, the more reciprocal friends a child had, the better friends' sense of responsibility predicted the individual's sense of responsibility. They also observed that girls held more negative attitudes toward bullying than did boys.

Sijtsema, Rambaran, and Ojanen (2013) explored friendship selection and de-selection over time among a group of middle school students and their relation to self-reported victimization through relational (e.g., teasing, calling names, and rumors) or overt (e.g., direct verbal or physical attacks) means. Results from this study also demonstrated homophily in that students who were high on relational victimization were more likely to extend friendship nominations than those who were also high on relational victimization. This trend was not present for students who experienced overt victimization; however, students did grow more similar to their reciprocal friends over time in terms of their self-reported overt victimization.

Although the two previous studies examined similarities between friends in terms of attitudes and victimization, the current study by Sandstrom, Makover, and Bartini (2013) explored how perceived group norms influence children's joining the bully or defending the victim behaviors in a bullying situation. Overall, children's self-reported pro-social attitudes were considered to be higher than their estimates of peers' attitudes. Furthermore, the children who underestimated peers' pro-social attitudes were more likely to join the bully, whereas those who overestimated peers' pro-social attitudes were more likely to defend the victim. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate some of the similarities and differences between children and their peers in the context of a bullying situation.

There has been an abundance of research on bullying during the past 30 years (Hansen, Steenberg, Palic, & Elklit, 2012; Jordan & Austin, 2012; Salmivalli, 2010; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). In fact, this special issue is one of many in both US and international journals that have addressed the topic of bullying during the school-age years (e.g., Elias & Zins (Eds.), School Psychology International, 2003; Geffner & Loring (Eds.), Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2001; Leff & Crick (Eds.), School Psychology Review, 2010; Smith & Brian (Eds.), Aggressive Behavior, 2000). In spite of such abundant efforts, there is still much to learn about it. For example, there is little known about how ethnicity/race, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation influences the occurrence of bullying or the ways in which bullying is viewed by individuals or the social group as a whole. Also, our understanding of why seemingly well-adjusted children sometimes bully is limited. For example, why do students who report having good friends, high self-esteem, and few mental health difficulties bully others? There is some research that gives insight into personality dynamics of bullies and the factors that drive them to behave this way (Nail, Bihm, & Simon, in press; Salmivalli et al., 1999). Lastly, there have been only a few efforts to understand which components of anti-bullying programs are most effective and why (Merrell et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2004; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011).

In conclusion, bullying is a complex social phenomenon in which a victim(s) is intentionally harmed, belittled, intimidated, and so on, through physical, verbal, or written means. Our best efforts, through anti-bullying laws and policies (National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, 2011) and/or systematic universal or selected intervention (Merrell et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2004), have failed to consistently demonstrate positive outcomes that lead to significant reductions in bullying behavior. Therefore, researchers must persist in their efforts to better understand why bullying occurs so that those working to prevent bullying or intervene when it occurs can be more targeted in their approach. The articles in this special issue of Social Influence bring us one step closer to this desired end.