Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 218223

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Adolescent bullying and personality: An adaptive approach

Angela S. Book a, Anthony A. Volk b,, Ashley Hosker a
a
Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1
b
Department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: From an evolutionary perspective, bullying behavior may be viewed as adaptive in nature. Moreover, as
Received 8 July 2011 bullies may utilize both prosocial and aggressive means to achieve desired goals, they likely exhibit
Received in revised form 16 October 2011 specic personality traits that allow for this bistrategic approach to survival. Therefore, after accounting
Accepted 20 October 2011
for general aggression levels, bullying should be negatively associated with personality traits such as
Available online 10 November 2011
fairness and modesty (HonestyHumility), but unrelated to traits such as forgiveness and tolerance
(Agreeableness). Additionally, the intentional nature of the behavior suggests that bullying should be
Keywords:
positively associated with instrumental, but not reactive, aggression. A sample of 310 adolescents
Bullying
Personality
completed measures of bullying, personality, and instrumental/reactive aggression. Results supported
Adolescents the hypotheses and are interpreted from an adaptive perspective.
HEXACO 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Evolution

1. Introduction engage in antisocial behaviors (Berger, 2007). In fact, bullies appear

Bullying behavior is dened as an imbalance of power between
two individuals, where the stronger individual repeatedly causes
harm to the weaker individual (Olweus, 1993). Adolescent bullying
is a signicant international problem (Pepler & Craig, 2008) with as
many as 100600 million adolescents directly involved with
bullying worldwide, each year (Volk, Craig, Boyce, & King, 2006).
Moreover, bullying has been document by anthropologists studying
modern hunter-gatherers (e.g., Briggs, 1970; Turnbull, 1972) as well
as historians documenting past cultures (Cunningham, 2005;
Hsiung, 2005). Given its tremendous ubiquity across different times,
cultures, and geographies, some researchers have suggested that
bullying may be (in part) an evolved adaptation (Kolbert & Crothers,
2003; Volk, Camilleri, Dane, & Marini, in press).
1.1. Bullying as an adaptation
The idea that bullying is, at least in part, the result of an evolved
adaptation is supported by evidence beyond its ubiquity. Bullying is
widespread amongst social animals ranging from sh (Alcock, 1988)
to chickens (Masure & Allee, 1934) to chimpanzees (Goodall, 1986)
where it is adaptive because it promotes access to physical, social,
and/or sexual resources. Contrary to popular stereotypes, and unlike
victims (Hawker & Boulton, 2000) or bully-victims (Mynard &
Joseph, 1997), adolescent bullies do not appear to suffer many
adverse effects from bullying beyond a heightened propensity to
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 905 688 5550; fax: +1 905 641 2509.
E-mail address: tvolk@brocku.ca (A.A. Volk).
to be better off than average adolescents with regard to mental
health (Ireland, 2005; Juvonen, Graham, & Schuster, 2003; Volk
et al., 2006), physical health (Wolke, Woods, Bloomeld, & Karstadt,
2001), popularity (de Bruyn, Cillessen, & Wissink, 2010; Juvonen
et al., 2003), and social skills, including theory of mind, cognitive
empathy, leadership, social competence, and self-efcacy (Caravita,
Di Blasio, & Salmivalli, 2009; Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999;
Vaillancourt, Hymel, & McDougall, 2003). As in other animals,
bullying appears to be sexually adaptive as bullies start dating at a
younger age, are more active with members of the opposite sex,
report greater dating/mating opportunities, and are more likely to
be in a dating relationship (Connolly, Pepler, Craig, & Taradash,
2000). Furthermore, in situations of scarce resources, bullying
may also be adaptive by increasing physical resources (Turnbull,
1972). Taken together, these data suggest that bullying is a plausible
adaptation in human adolescents (Volk et al., in press).
A necessary, but not sufcient, condition for an adaptation is
that it is linked to genes. In a cohort of over 1000 10 year-old twins
genetic differences accounted for 61% of the variation in bullying
(Ball et al., 2008). While it has yet to be determined exactly which
genes are involved in bullying, one promising category of genes
that inuence bullying are those associated with personality (Volk
et al., in press). A number of studies have shown that many aspects
of personality have linkages with specic genes (e.g., DRD4 and
aggression, Schmidt, Fox, Rubin, Hu, & Hamer, 2002; DRD4 and
extraversion or 5-HTTPLR and neuroticism, Ebstein, 2006). These
genes, and likely numerous others that have not been described,
are plausible candidates for bullying given the signicant connec-
tion between bullying and personality (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001;

0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.028
 A.S. Book et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 218223 219

Eysenck, 2006). This makes a study of personality and bullying potentially differentiate adolescents who are selectively aggressive
highly relevant from an adaptive perspective. from those who are generally aggressive.
A signicant body of research has shown that children and ado-
lescents who are aggressive can enjoy signicant adaptive benets
1.2. Bullying and personality
if they selectively employ both aggression and prosociality to ob-
tain their goals (Hawley, Little, & Rodkin, 2007). Hawley has la-
Over the last two decades bullying, as a general eld, has at-
beled these children as bistrategic controllers (Hawley, 2002,
tracted a signicant amount of research attention (Berger, 2007).
2003) as they are able to employ two different strategies, one pro-
However, relatively little research has directly studied the link
social, one aggressive, to obtain control over desired resources. In
between personality and bullying. Olweus (1993) outlined the
support of relating Hawleys theory to bullying is research showing
typical personality of bullies as being tolerant of violence, impul-
that bullies are selective in their aggression, attacking easy victims
sive, and un empathic. Studies using the Eysenck Personality
and/or those who cant hurt the bullys social standing (Dijkstra,
Inventory-Junior reported heightened levels of psychoticism and
Lindenberg, & Veenstra, 2008; Veenstra, Lindenberg, Munniksma,
modest increases in extraversion and neuroticism amongst bullies
& Dijkstra, 2010). Bullies also appear to selectively employ their
(Connolly & OMoore, 2003; Mynard & Joseph, 1997; Slee & Rigby,
aggression to maintain/create strategic alliances with desired ado-
1993).
lescents (Pellegrini & Long, 2002). The HEXACO offers the ideal
Italian studies of bullying and Big Five personality revealed that
measure to test whether bullies personalities match the pattern
children who bullied tended to show a similar pattern of low
of bistrategic control or whether they are generally aggressive. If
Friendliness (Agreeableness) and higher Emotional Instability
bullies were the latter, we expect HonestyHumility and Agree-
(Neuroticism; Menesini, Camodeca, & Nocentini, 2010; Tani,
ableness to be equally important predictors of bullying. If however,
Greenman, Schneider, & Fregoso, 2003). A study amongst American
bullying was a targeted behavior, we predict that bullying would
children again found a negative correlation with Agreeableness,
be signicantly negatively related to HonestyHumility, but con-
but no relationship with Neuroticism and a signicant negative
trary to studies using the Big Five, there would not be a signicant
relationship with Conscientiousness (Bollmer, Harris, & Milich,
relationship with Agreeableness, particularly after aggressive
2006). Scholte and colleagues (2005) found that Undercontrollers
behaviors were controlled for. Given our belief that bullying may
(moderate to high scores on extraversion, low scores on Agreeable-
be adaptive, we predict that any relationship between Agreeable-
ness and Conscientiousness) were more likely to bully other chil-
ness and bullying will be nullied by the inclusion of measures
dren. Bullying has also been linked to moderately higher levels of
of general aggression as this would leave Agreeableness as a
callous-unemotional (CU) traits that include lack of guilt, lack of
measure of sociability and capacity for reactive anger that is not
empathy, poor affect, and use of another for personal gain (Barry
confounded by a bullies targeted aggression towards their victims.
et al., 2000; Viding, Simmonds, Petrides, & Frederickson, 2009).
Thus we predict that only instrumental aggression will be predic-
Thus the ndings for bullying and personality are few, scattered
tive of bullying. If bullying is meant to be a deliberate, targeted
in their measures, and largely atheoretical. We therefore propose
attempt at gaining resources in a manner similar to bistrategic
studying personality and bullying using an adaptive theoretical
aggressive children, then instrumental, and not reactive,
viewpoint to explicitly shed light on why certain personality fac-
aggression should be the predominant predictor.
tors, and not others, are related to bullying. Ideally, this would in-
volve using a personality scale that has an explicitly adaptive
theoretical underpinning. As such, we chose to use the HEXACO 2. Method
(Ashton & Lee, 2007) to study the relationship between bullying
and personality. 2.1. Participants

A total of 310 adolescents (121 boys, 189 girls) between the

1.3. Current study
The HEXACO is an evolutionarily-informed model of personality
that extends the Big Five model of personality by adding a sixth
factor: HonestyHumility (Ashton & Lee, 2007). The HEXACO
model includes HonestyHumility, Emotionality, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience
(Ashton & Lee, 2001). Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Open-
ness are very similar to the standard Big Five representations of
these traits (Ashton & Lee, 2001; Digman, 1990). The additional
factor of HonestyHumility is characterized by truthfulness,
fairness, sincerity, modesty, and lack of greed. Agreeableness is
characterized by tolerance, forgiveness, and low aggression; note
that the low pole of HEXACO Agreeableness includes anger-related
traits that are associated with Big Five Neuroticism. Emotionality
includes traits typically associated with Neuroticism in the Big Five
model, such as anxiety, fearfulness, and emotional reactivity, but
also adds sentimentality and dependence. With regards to study-
ing antisocial behaviors, the HEXACO offers a signicantly better
t with the antisocial Dark Triad personality traits as compared
to the Big Five (Lee & Ashton, 2005). Whats more, the HEXACO
differentiates between a willingness to exploit others (Honesty
Humility) and a tolerance and forgiveness of others (Agreeable-
ness; Ashton & Lee, 2007). This is a critical distinction that differs
from the general Agreeableness factor of the Big Five as it can
ages of 10 and 18 (M = 13.6, SD = 3.2) involved in extracurricular
athletic (e.g., hockey, gymnastics) or youth clubs (e.g., church
youth groups, Pathnders/Guides) from across Southern Ontario
participated in the present study. The sample was generally White
(85%; 13% Asian; 2% Black) and middle-class.
2.2. Measures
Participants were asked to give information on demographics
(as discussed above), followed by questionnaires pertaining to so-
cial relationships in school and their primary organization or ath-
letic group (the latter were used for a concurrent study of
athletes personal relationships).
2.2.1. Bullying
Participants lled out a bullying questionnaire (Volk & Lagzdins,
2009) asking how often in the last school term they had taken the
role as a bully in terms of racial/ethnic, physical, verbal, indirect, or
sexual bullying at school. For example, participants were asked
questions such as, In school, how often have you made fun of
someone much weaker or less popular because of their religion
or race last term?, with answers ranging in frequency from one
(that hasnt happened) to ve (several times a week). A total score
was created for bullying by totaling the values for each form of
220 A.S. Book et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 218223
bullying. This bullying scale has ve items with a reliability coef-
cient of a = .82. Further support for the cohesive structure of the
bullying scale comes from a principal components analysis (unro-
tated). Only one eigenvalue exceeded 1.0, and the scree plot sup-
ported the one component solution. Component loadings ranged
from .45 to .81 for the ve items.
2.2.2. Personality
Participants provided self-reports on the 100-item version of
the HEXACO Personality InventoryRevised (HEXACO-PI-R; e.g.,
Lee & Ashton, 2004). Each item uses a ve-point response scale
(1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The HEXACO-PI-R con-
tains six broad factor-level scales, each of which subsumes four fa-
cet-level scales. (An additional facet scale, Altruism versus
Antagonism, was designed to load on several factors). The 100 item
HEXACO-PI-R was obtained from www.hexaco.org (Ashton & Lee,
2008). The reliability coefcients for the HEXACO-PI-R in this study
ranged from a = .73.78.
2.2.3. Aggression
Aggression was measured using the instrumental and reactive
aggression scales development by Little and colleagues (2003).
Each form of aggression asked 12 questions using a four-point re-
sponse scale (1 = not at all true to 4 = completely true). The reliabil-
ity coefcients for instrumental aggression was a = .89 while for
reactive aggression a = .92. A sample item from the proactive scale
was I often hit, kick, or punch others to get what I want, while a
sample item from the reactive scale was If others have angered
me, I often hit, kick or punch them.
2.3. Procedure
Local extracurricular organizations were contacted through
existing connections with the researchers and through email solic-
itations. Adult supervisors were briefed and asked to provide writ-
ten consent to approach their adolescent participants. Researchers
then visited participating clubs to brief participants about the
study and its methods. To reduce participant bias, participants
were told it was a study of peer relationships. Participants were
give two envelopes to bring home. The rst envelope contained a
parental letter of information and consent. The second envelope
contained a participant letter of assent and the questionnaires,
which they completed in private, at a time of their choosing. Both
parental consent and participant assent were required. Parents
were asked to not discuss the study prior to its completion to avoid
biasing the adolescents answers. Participants were protected from
any personal liability associated with their answers and participa-
tion was voluntary with no penalty for withdrawing.
At a predetermined date, the participants returned their forms
and received a verbal debrieng. After this debrieng, participants
were asked to complete a second assent form because of the
incomplete initial brieng. The participants then received $20 for
their participation. These methods were approved by the Brock
University Research Ethics Board.
3. Results
3.1. Descriptive data
We calculated the means for age, bullying, the HEXACO, and
aggression for adolescent boys and girls. A one-way ANOVA re-
vealed that boys had signicantly higher bullying and instrumental
aggression scores than girls, while girls had signicantly higher
scores on HonestyHumility, Emotionality, and Openness (see
Table 1).
3.2. Univariate correlations
Next we calculated the zero-order correlations between the
variables (see Table 2). Bullying was signicantly negatively corre-
lated with HonestyHumility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and
Conscientiousness traits. Bullying was signicantly positively
related to both instrumental and reactive aggression. Honesty
Humility had signicant negative correlations with both dimen-
sions of aggression, while Agreeableness appeared to be more
strongly correlated with reactive aggression.
3.3. Bullying hierarchical linear regression
The relationships of the independent variables with bullying
were analyzed using a 3-step hierarchical linear regression. The
rst step included age and sex, the second included the HEXACO,
and the measures of aggression were entered on the third step to
determine whether they altered any of the relationships between
bullying and the HEXACO items. The results of the regression can
be seen in Table 3. The regression model explained just over a
quarter of the variance for bullying (26.0%). Being a boy and being
older were both positive predictors of bullying. HonestyHumility
and Agreeableness were signicant negative predictors in step two,
but HonestyHumility remained the only signicant personality
factor once the two measures of aggression were added. As pre-
dicted, instrumental aggression signicantly predicted bullying,
but reactive aggression did not (although its p = .06).
4. Discussion
We examined the relationship between adolescents bullying
and a measure of personality while controlling for general aggres-
sion. As predicted, we found signicant relationships with bullying
for both our personality measure of HonestyHumility as well as
the measure of instrumental aggression. Also as predicted, in the
nal step of the regression both Agreeableness and reactive aggres-
sion were not signicant predictors of adolescent bullying. We sug-
gest that these results are consistent with the hypothesis that
bullying is adaptive. They demonstrate that bullies can engage in
targeted aggression while still maintaining the capacity for
supportive friendships, unlike popular stereotypes of bullies that
depict them as maladaptive aggressors (e.g., Smokowski & Kopasz,
2005).
4.1. Bullying and personality
At the univariate level, adolescents bullying was correlated
with a number of personality traits. Similar to previous studies,
Agreeableness, Emotionality, and Conscientiousness were all sig-
nicantly negatively correlated with bullying (Bollmer et al.,
2006; Tani et al., 2003). This offers condence about the construct
validity of our results as they broadly replicate what other studies
have found and conrm the importance of personality traits in
understanding bullying. However, our results go beyond those of
previous studies. The largest personality correlate of bullying was
HonestyHumility, which ts with its hypothesized role in predict-
ing antisocial behavior (Lee & Ashton, 2005). The importance of
HonestyHumility is reminiscent of the signicant correlation
between Callous-Unemotional traits and bullying (Viding et al.,
2009).
The predictive relationship of sex and age in our regression
agree with previous literature given that boys are well known to
bully more than girls on average, while bullying peaks mid-way
through adolescence, so one might well expect a modest correla-
tion with age across our sample (Volk et al., 2006). What is perhaps
 A.S. Book et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 218223 221

Table 1
Mean Scores and sex differences for adolescent participants (N = 310).

Variable $ Mean $ SD # Mesn # SD F(1, 289)

Age 14.45 1.84 14.05 1.47 3.78
Bullying
Total bullying .99 1.69 2.1 2.93 16.81**
HEXACO
HonestyHumility 3.41 .60 3.05 .53 28.10**
Emotionality 3.49 .54 2.86 .49 98.10**
Extraversion 3.52 .53 3.57 .49 .75
Agreeableness 3.04 .51 3.10 .53 1.12
Conscientiousness 3.27 .57 3.16 .56 2.68
Openness 3.18 .60 2.97 .53 8.14**
Aggression
Reactive 23.37 6.42 24.73 7.19 2.78
Instrumental 15.48 4.70 17.98 7.23 12.82**
**
p < .01.

Table 2
Correlations between bullying, aggression, and personality traits in adolescents (N P 287).

H E X A C O Reactive Instrumental
Bully .36* .11* .05 .24* .18** .08 .39** .40**
H .28** .02 .31** .21** .21* .43** .46**
E .06 .04 .04 .15** .07 .11*
X .21** .14** .14** .09 .04
A .20** .10* .44** .27**
C .25** .25** .19**
O .18** .15**
Reactive .63**
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

Table 3 bullying amongst adolescents. Our multivariate results conrmed

Hierarchical linear regression for adolescent personality, aggression, and bullying our hypothesis that the most critical multivariate predictor is not
(N = 310). Agreeableness, but HonestyHumility. They also emphasize the
Variable B SE B B D r2 Model r2 unique advantage of using the HEXACO as opposed to the Big Five
** model, as HonestyHumility predicted bullying above and beyond
Step 1 .107 .107**
Age .31 .08 .23** Agreeableness. Agreeableness was a signicant univariate predic-
Sex 1.24 .27 .26** tor but it was no longer a signicant predictor when measures of
Step 2 .107** .214** general aggression were entered. Rather, its correlations show it
Age .24 .08 .18**
to be a better predictor of anger/reactive aggression than planned
Sex .98 .30 .21**
HonestyHumility .99 .24 .25**
proactive aggression. When one considers the personality of
Emotionality .17 .24 .05 aggressive individuals, a measure of aggression (like the Big Five
Extraversion .01 .25 .00 or HEXACO Agreeableness) is almost certainly going to be con-
Agreeableness .56 .26 .12* founded with general aggression. In other words, it is no surprise
Conscientiousness .33 .23 .08
that aggressive bullies show aggressive personality traits. What is
Openness .07 .23 .02
Step 3 .046** .260** perhaps surprising is that when aggressive behavior is controlled
Age .19 .07 .14** for, bullies appear to be as agreeable as other adolescents and that
Sex .86 .30 .18** agreeableness is more strongly related to reactive rather than pro-
HonestyHumility .60 .25 .16** active aggression. This is crucially important as it could allow bul-
Emotionality .13 .23 .03
Extraversion .01 .24 .00
lies to maintain adaptive close relationships with their allies while
Agreeableness .29 .27 .07 at the same time using aggression to adaptively target victims in
Conscientiousness .23 .22 .06 order to gain control over the physical or social resources they
Openness .14 .22 .04 desire.
Reactive aggression .05 .03 .14
The selective nature of bullies aggression is reinforced by our
Instrumental aggression .06 .03 .16*
ndings that instrumental aggression was a signicant multivari-
*
p < .05. ate predictor of bullying while reactive aggression was not. Despite
**
p < .01.
a trend towards reactive aggression being a signicant predictor, it
nevertheless appeared to be a weaker multivariate predictor than
instrumental aggression. Indeed, the two signicant (non-demo-
most encouraging is that we were able to obtain a large effect, graphic) predictors in our nal regression, HonestyHumility and
explaining a quarter of the variance in adolescents bullying using instrumental aggression, make a strong case for considering bul-
a simple regression model based on age, sex, a measure of person- lies behavior as being deliberate and targeted. We appreciate that
ality, and two complimentary measures of aggression. This high- this study does not explicitly measure whether these traits are evo-
lights the potential utility of personality traits in predicting lutionarily adaptive as we lack appropriate outcome measures
222 A.S. Book et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 218223
(such as increased dating partners). Nevertheless, we note that our
results are consistent with the evolutionarily-adaptive model of
bullying mentioned above and in other papers (Kolbert & Crothers,
2003; Volk et al., in press).
Whether or not bullying is adaptive for bullies, the literature
leaves no doubt that it is extremely maladaptive for victims
(Hawker & Boulton, 2000). Our ndings should be interpreted as
an attempt to better understand bullying in order to try and
prevent bullying. For example, working with (instead of against)
bullies high HonestyHumility scores by providing them with
more effective, but prosocial, alternatives that achieve their goals.
We believe that such an informed approach is better than contin-
uing to stereotypically mislabel bullying as maladaptive behavior
conducted by indiscriminately angry and aggressive individuals
(e.g., Smokowski & Kopasz, 2005).
4.1.1. Limitations and future research
A limitation of the current study was that it was based on infor-
mation obtained via self-report measures. However, previous liter-
ature has shown that self-report is a valid method for measuring
bullying (Pellegrini & Bartini, 2000) and personality (Lee & Ashton,
2004), allowing us to have condence in our data. Another limita-
tion is that our sample was relatively homogeneous in terms of
race and SES. Third, the difference between the regression effect
sizes of reactive and instrumental aggression were small, and thus
some caution should be placed on related conclusions. Finally, our
conclusions are based on cross-sectional correlational data, which
limits our ability to draw causal conclusions.
Future studies should therefore seek to replicate the current
ndings using longitudinal methods to study bullying and person-
ality. This might reveal key changes that occur as both bullying
(Volk et al., 2006) and personality (Helson, Kwan, John, & Jones,
2002) generally undergo changes during adolescence. Our results
suggest that adolescent bullies possess personality traits and
behavioral tendencies that are well suited towards engaging in
an adaptive, bistrategic mode of behavior whereby they can bully
victims, but can also be friendly towards allies. Finally, the value
of personality, and in particular the HEXACO, as a predictor of bul-
lying strongly suggests that future bullying research and/or inter-
ventions should seriously consider incorporating measures of
personality such as the HEXACO.
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