Peer influence in bullying: The autonomy-enhancing effect of moral competence.

Research has found that moral competence is negatively associated with bullying behavior in schools, but the drivers of this association are not yet well understood. In this paper, we report on two studies which suggest that moral competence acts as a moderator of peer influence in the context of school bullying. Data were collected at two time points in three German higher secondary schools (grades 7-10, average age at measurement: 14.26 years). Using a cross-lagged panel design (CLPD), study 1 (N = 251) found adolescents with low moral competence to be susceptible to peer influence, while no such effect was found for adolescents with high moral competence. Study 2, a cross-sectional analysis (N = 748), found moral competence to be inversely related to the likelihood of an individual's conforming with the pro-bullying behavior of his or her peers. Neither study found corresponding effects for pro-social, defending behavior. Our findings further illuminate the associations between moral competence, peer influence, and school bullying. Some implications for bullying prevention are discussed.

[Individuals and their peers: a structural perspective]. / Das Individuum und die Peers--eine strukturelle Perspektive.

Peer relationships are diverse in the sense that their degree of obligation, their intensity, their stability and even their number of participants vary. At the same time they have effects on the intraindividual and interindividual development of children and adolescents who tend to value them highly. Sociometric peer nominations provide one way of describing the complexity of peer relationships and of analyzing their various determinants. Peers are sources of information in the context of a defined system like a classroom in school. The consistency of this information (how many children like A and how many children like B), its reciprocity, and its stability are structural parameters that--in concert with other psychological constructs--may provide valuable cues and predictions about the optimal conditions for a positive peer socialization. The present article attempts to use these structural elements as the point of departure by navigating through the complexity, in order to delineate existing knowledge before the background of open questions and important question marks.

["Violence is no solution but a cool alternative?" Why bullies are so effective]. / "Gewalt ist keine Lösung, aber eine coole Alternative?"-- Was Täter bei Bullying so erfolgreich macht.

Those, who bully others, are prone to be characterized as "aggressive", "antisocial", and "without empathy" by their teachers: the standard view on aggressive children. However, are these qualities a bully could gain dominance from? With this study we aim to examine the characteristics of "effective" bullies. To this end, we gathered sociometric data on participant roles (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Ostermann, Kaukiainen, 1996), resource-control strategies (Hawley, 2003) and social status (Coie, Dodge, Coppotelli, 1982; Cillessen u. Mayeux, 2004) from 2,600 pupils (54 % male), first to tenth grade in primary and secondary schools in and around Munich. Bullies in primary school extensively used coercive strategies, while those who bully individual peers in secondary school combined the extensive use of coercive strategies with a comparable amount of prosocial strategies. In consequence, they control most of the material and social resources in the classroom. When bistrategics were compared with those, who only use coercive strategies, the two groups differed in resource control as well as in status. Bullies identified as bistrategics were high on perceived popularity, but that is--other than in primary school--attributed to the coercives in secondary school, too. Implications on how to recognize an effective bully are discussed in order to make sure that victims receive effective support.

["Who is the boss?"--The relation between social dynamics and learning in class]. / "Wer ist der Boss?"--Zum Zusammenhang zwischen der sozialen Dynamik im Klassenzimmer und Einstellungen zum Lernen in der Adoleszenz.

Research shows that antisocial behavior and learning are negatively related whereas prosocial behavior and learning are positively related, but evidence on how the social dynamics in class influence learning attitudes is non-existent. We were interested in tracking unsystematic differences in learning attitudes on a class level and how they relate to social impact based on dominance or social status. 1,159 pupils from 43 7th to 9th grade classrooms filled in a questionnaire on learning attitudes (TPB, Ajzen, 1991) and nominated their classmates on participant roles in bullying, resource control strategies, and social status. Based on hierarchical linear modeling we analyzed whether and how specific pupils influence the learning attitude of their classmates. Results show that the average learning attitude in class can be predicted by the most dominant individual. Nearly 9% of variance in individual learning attitude can be explained by group effects. The learning attitude of the individual identified highest on coercive and prosocial strategies and on social impact predicts 77% of the respective group variance. Educational implications need to focus on the psychological relevance of dominant children that may impede the developmentally appropriate progress of each individual in their classroom.

[Bullying in primary school: participant roles and their stability across contexts]. / Bullying im Grundschulalter Mitschülerrollen und ihre transkontextuelle Stabilität.

When bullying happens in secondary school peer involvement and distinct participant roles for nine often children (as bully, assistant, reinforcer, defender, outsider or victim) are well evidenced. However, it is still unclear to what extent this applies to primary school children: How precise do they represent roles and how stable is individual role behavior across different contexts? For all 251 children (53% male) of a Munich primary school (6 to 10 years, first to fourth grade) Participant Roles in bullying (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Osterman, Kaukiainen, 1996) were assessed in standardized interviews. Additionally, for 119 of these children (58 % male) a participant role could be identified in their after school group (Hort). Our findings confirm the existence of distinct participant roles in bullying for primary school children, but a high intercorrelation between the pro-aggressive roles is noticeable. Especially the bully and the victim role turn out to be quite stable across contexts. An analysis by grades suggests a considerable impact of contextual characteristics: children's behavior in bullying situations seems to be affected by the range of behavioral choices the different contexts provide.

Definitions of bullying: a comparison of terms used, and age and gender differences, in a fourteen-country international comparison.

The study of school bullying has recently assumed an international dimension, but is faced with difficulties in finding terms in different languages to correspond to the English word bullying. To investigate the meanings given to various terms, a set of 25 stick-figure cartoons was devised, covering a range of social situations between peers. These cartoons were shown to samples of 8- and 14-year-old pupils (N = 1,245; n = 604 at 8 years, n = 641 at 14 years) in schools in 14 different countries, who judged whether various native terms cognate to bullying, applied to them. Terms from 10 Indo-European languages and three Asian languages were sampled. Multidimensional scaling showed that 8-year-olds primarily discriminated nonaggressive and aggressive cartoon situations; however, 14-year-olds discriminated fighting from physical bullying, and also discriminated verbal bullying and social exclusion. Gender differences were less appreciable than age differences. Based on the 14-year-old data, profiles of 67 words were then constructed across the five major cartoon clusters. The main types of terms used fell into six groups: bullying (of all kinds), verbal plus physical bullying, solely verbal bullying, social exclusion, solely physical aggression, and mainly physical aggression. The findings are discussed in relation to developmental trends in how children understand bullying, the inferences that can be made from cross-national studies, and the design of such studies.