Diversity of bullies’ characteristics and implications for intervention in schools
Type de matériel :
25
Two competing views of school bullies have coexisted for years. The first one explains bullying behaviors in terms of deficient social skills, whereas in the second one bullying is thought to be a strategic and effective behavior allowing the perpetrator to achieve their social domination goals. The discrepancy between the empirical results gathered since the 90s by both sides led some authors to assume some heterogeneity among bullies: the “deficit” profile in contrast with the “strategic” profile. Based on existing literature, this paper identifies the common characteristics (affective empathy, moral disengagement) and the distinguishing ones (popularity, use of proactive and reactive aggression, management of prosocial and antisocial behaviors and impulsivity) of the two profiles. The “deficit” and the “strategic” profiles are hypothesized to respectively overlap between the categories of bully-victims and “pure” bullies. A developmental perspective is taken in order to examine the heterogeneity issue, and this suggests that the “deficit” profile may dominate among young children, while the “strategic” profile may dominate during adolescence. The risks and benefits of two possible approaches for the design of anti-bullying interventions are presented and a third approach is put forward.
Réseaux sociaux