Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: Whats wrong?

This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in Aggressive Behavior copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss Inc.

Gianluca Gini Department of Developmental and Socialisation Psychology University of Padova via Venezia 8 35131, Padova - Italy e-mail: gianluca.gini@unipd.it

Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to all schools, teachers and pupils who participated in the study. Moreover, I wish to thank Francesca Happ and Jon Sutton for their stories, translated and utilized in this study, and Elena Arimondo, Alessia Bortoloso, Giuseppe Carli and Simona Pischetola for their help in data collection. Finally, I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: Whats wrong?

Abstract Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a child lacking in social skills (Crick & Dodge, 1994), or as a cold manipulative individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999a). The present study examined the performance of 204 8-11-year-olds in a set of stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, childrens understanding of moral emotions and proneness to moral disengagement was assessed. Victims showed some difficulties in the social cognition task, whereas bullies did not. Aggressive children, instead, were found to be more ready to show moral disengagement mechanisms, whereas defenders showed higher levels of moral sensibility. Results are discussed in relation to the two models, and the need for further research into empathy and moral cognition of children involved in bullying episodes is highlighted.

Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: Whats wrong?

Over the last twenty years, the literature about the development of aggressive behavior showed an increasing interest in the study of the relations between cognition, social information processing and social interaction in children and adolescents (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994; Harvey, Fletcher, & French, 2001). In particular, several authors studied how the social information processing strategies used by children and the way in which they interpret situational cues and use their previous experiences can influence their aggressive conduct (Dodge & Price, 1994; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Randall, 1997). One of the most important results of this field of research has been the possibility to identify the presence of specific deficits and systematic biases in some components of the social cognition of aggressive children. These results led Dodge and colleagues to formulate the Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980). According to the first formulation of this model, in which reactive and proactive categories of aggression were not clearly distinguished, aggressive children show some difficulties in one or more phases of their social information processing. For example, these authors found that aggressive children tend to interpret ambiguous situations in an aggressive way more than their non aggressive peers (hostile attributional bias) (Dodge & Frame, 1982; Dodge & Somberg, 1987). Another difference between aggressive and non aggressive children refers to the selection of the behavioral response in a social situation: the former, in fact, seem to have a more limited range of non aggressive answers than the latter and, for this reason, they are more inclined to choose and perform aggressive behaviors, especially in the case of interpersonal conflicts (Dodge, 1980;

Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Dodge & Newman, 1981). According to the same approach, victims, who are shy and withdrawn and lack social skills of assertiveness, show high levels of anxiety and loneliness, and have less experience in social interaction and play fighting (which may enhance social skills), as well as control and interpretation of emotional expression (Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997; Smith, Bowers, Binney, & Cowie, 1993). Some authors tried to apply this model to a particular kind of aggressive phenomenon: school bullying (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Slee, 1993; Smith et al., 1993). However, despite the popular view of the bully as an oaf boy, that is an intellectually simple or backward boy (Besag, 1989), very few studies confirmed that Dodges model can be applied to bullies in exactly the same way as to aggressive children (e.g., Hazler, 1996; Randall, 1997). On the contrary, some other authors stressed the role of adaptive motivation to explain bullying behavior, arguing that bullying may be seen as an inappropriate way to reach a socially effective goal, such as leadership within a group. As a consequence, these authors stated that the bully should not necessarily to be seen as an individual with specific difficulties. On the contrary, he or she may sometimes be a skilled individual who takes advantage of his/her high social-cognitive competence to reach personal benefits, such as interpersonal dominance, through a Machiavellian conduct (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999a). Some data presented by Sutton and colleagues (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999b) empirically support this view; in fact, they found that 7-10-year-old bullies performed better than other classmates in a social cognition task that required the understanding of mental states and emotions of the main character of a story (theory of

mind task). The relevance of these results, above all, lies in the fact that, in a bullying situation, having a grasp of the mental states of those involved, along with an ability to manipulate these thoughts and beliefs, may be crucial for the bully in developing and maintaining such inter-role relations (Sutton et al., 1999b, p. 437). In previous studies, therefore, bullies social cognitive skills, such as social perspective taking and decoding of emotional information, may have been underestimated (Sutton et al., 1999a, 1999b, 1999c). However, some bullies may possess a different conception of the costs and benefits of aggression, and they may lack in empathic understanding of the victims suffering. Therefore, it appears more adequate to regard social skills as a neutral tool, which may be used for both prosocial and antisocial purposes (Bjrkqvist, sterman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Hawley, 2003). From this perspective, the crucial point to understand bullying behavior refers to the kind of values that guide bullies conduct, rather than their higher or lower ability in social information processing (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001). Following this line of research, the present paper focuses on cognitive and emotional understanding of social situations in bullying, using a theory of mind task with children who assume different participant roles during a bullying episode. In the above mentioned study, however, Sutton and colleagues (1999b) did not explicitly consider a particular kind of emotion found to be important to account for aggressive and antisocial behaviors: moral emotions (in particular, guilt and shame). If bullies are cold, manipulative experts in social contexts, their behavior may be related to emotions surrounding moral transgression. These emotions are important because, as Hoffman (1976, 2000) pointed out, they are closely connected with empathy and they can be

considered mediators of conscience. Other authors suggested that moral development plays a major role in behavioral regulation (Arsenio, 1988; Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 1995; Turiel, 1998) and that guilt is an interpersonal phenomenon aimed at avoiding the disruption of relationships and bonds (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994; Tagney, 1992). Moreover, individuals who are more prone to guilt are less aggressive and less likely to act out behaviors (Harpur, Hakstian, & Hare, 1988; Quiles & Bybee, 1997). In contrast, if children had lower feelings of guilt, this could enable them to act aggressively without feeling guilty. However, the reverse causal link could be true, in that children who repeatedly commit acts of aggression may become inured to this type of behavior, exhibiting dulled emotional responses.

Moral disengagement and aggressive behavior A useful contribution to the analysis of some social-cognitive components of aggressive behavior is made by the Social Cognitive Theory of the Moral Self (Bandura, 1986, 1990, 1991). According to this theory, moral reasoning is linked to moral action through affective self-regulatory mechanisms by which moral agency is exercised. In their development, children need to develop standards of right and wrong and to adopt these standards as guides and deterrents for their conduct. This self-regulatory process implies that individuals usually act in ways that give them satisfaction and a sense of self-worth, whereas, on the other side, they tend to avoid behaviors that violate their moral standards in order to avoid self-condemnation. Moreover, Bandura (2002) claimed that the construct of moral disengagement could be considered as a mediator between the individuals moral principles and his/her

real conduct, which may not necessarily be coherent with those principles. Internal controls, in fact, are not fixed, and several psychological and social processes can contribute to their selective deactivation. In particular, Bandura described eight different mechanisms through which moral control can be disengaged. One set of disengagement practices operates on the reconstruction of the behavior itself. For example, an immoral conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral purposes (moral justification) or self-deplored acts can be made to appear righteous by contrasting them with worse conducts (advantageous comparison). Moreover, in some circumstances, activities can take on different appearances depending on what they are called (euphemistic labeling). The second set of disengagement practices operates by obscuring or minimizing the agentive role in the harm one causes (displacement of responsibility and diffusion of responsibility). Other ways of weakening moral control operate by minimizing, disregarding or distorting the effects of ones action; if minimization does not work, the evidence of harm can be discredited (minimizing or misconstruing consequences). Finally, disengagement practices may operate on the recipients of detrimental acts by stripping them of human qualities (dehumanization) or considering aggression as provoked by the victim (attribution of blame). These mechanisms can lead to aggressive behaviors through a process of moral disengagement, that is a partial gap between the abstract personal idea of moral behavior and the individuals behavior in real life. In this way, the individual protects him/herself from negative feelings, such as guilt or shame, that usually follow an immoral conduct (Bandura, 1991).

Different studies showed a positive relation between aggressive behavior and the activation of one or more of these mechanisms in both adults and children (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Bandura, 1995; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Vicino, & Bandura, 1996; Yadava, Sharma, & Gandhi, 2001). In particular, Caprara and colleagues (1995) confirmed the strong link between moral disengagement and physical and verbal aggression, both self- and peer-evaluated, especially in male children. More recently, Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, and Regalia (2001) have replicated these results. They found a positive relation between moral disengagement and transgressive behavior, and a negative relation between moral disengagement and self-regulatory efficacy and prosocial behavior. The above mentioned studies actually referred to aggressive individuals, but a similar pattern of data has been found in school bullying research, as well. Bacchini, Amodeo, Ciardi, Valerio, and Vitelli (1998) and Menesini, Fonzi, and Vannucci (1997), for example, found that male bullies utilized the moral disengagement mechanisms more than did other peers and, most of all, they seemed to use the mechanisms of Dehumanization and Moral Justification. A confirmation of these results emerged in a cross-national study, involving Italy and Spain, conduced by Menesini and colleagues (Menesini, Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003), who assessed moral reasoning of bullies, victims and children who assumed the role of the defender, using the Scan Bullying test (Almeida, del Barrio, Marques, Gutierrez, & van der Meulen, 2001). These authors confirmed the tendency of bullies to show higher levels of moral disengagement, and the presence of a profile of egocentric reasoning in these pupils.

Quite recently, the traditional classification of schoolchildren into bullies, victims and controls has been criticized and several authors stressed the importance of considering bullying a group process (Sutton & Smith, 1999). The empirical confirmation of the importance of peer ecology applied to bullying phenomenon derives from several observational studies carried out during periods of free interaction among children in unstructured contexts, such as during recess and outdoor play. These studies, in fact, consistently found that peers are involved in 85% of bullying episodes (Atlas & Pepler, 1998; Craig & Pepler, 1997; Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000; Pepler & Craig, 1995). Moreover, Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Bjrkqvist, sterman, and Kaukiainen (1996) identified six different participant roles taken by individual children in the bullying process (i.e. victim, bully, reinforcer of the bully, assistant to the bully, defender of the victim, and outsider). Another study by Salmivalli, Huttunen, and Lagerspetz (1997) has also revealed a strong influence of how the members of a group behave in bullying situations on an individual childs behavior in such situations. In line with this approach that considers bullying as a group phenomenon, all distinct roles within the class were considered in the present study. Not only bullies and victims participated, but also those pupils who, in different ways, act important roles in reinforcing bullying behavior (the so-called Followers: the Assistants of the bully and the Reinforcers) or, in contrast, intervene to defend the victim (the Defenders). Finally, Outsiders, that is children not directly involved in the phenomenon, were considered.

Aims of the study and hypotheses The first aim of the present study was to assess the performance of these pupils in a social-cognition task similar to the one used by Sutton et al. (1999b). In this task, the same two typologies of stories used by Sutton and colleagues were used: cognitive and emotion stories. The cognitive stories, in particular, assessed the childs ability to understand mental states, beliefs and intentions of the character of the story. The emotion stories, instead, assessed the ability to understand emotional states of the character and the possibility that an emotion could be dissimulated to influence and modify others knowledge. Contrary to the idea of the bully as a social oaf, it is hypothesized that the Bully group will perform better than, or at least at the same level as, other pupils in a theory of mind task that requires understanding the thoughts, beliefs, intentions that guide others behavior. Moreover, in addition to these two kinds of stories, a third category (moral stories), not used by Sutton et al. (1999b), was designed in order to explore the role of moral emotions in the context of aggressive conduct. The second aim of the present study, therefore, was to analyze the ability to understand moral emotions (guilt and shame) within hypothetical social scenarios by children who assume different roles. Considering the literature about moral cognition in aggressive behavior (e.g., Hoffman, 2000; Quiles & Bybee, 1997; Tagney, 1992), it was expected that Bullies would perform worse than non-aggressive mates in moral stories, that is be less likely to make the correct attribution of moral emotions to the character of the story owing to his/her negative behavior. In contrast, Defenders should be particularly sensitive to this kind of

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emotion as an expression of what is right and what is wrong and, therefore, we expected this group of children to perform better than any other in this type of stories. Finally, the third aim of the study was to consider the relation between moral disengagement and bullying behavior (e.g., Caprara et al., 1995; Menesini et al., 1999). The comparison among pupils who assume different roles may lead to a deeper understanding of the importance of these mechanisms in bullying episodes. Specifically, we expected that the tendency to activate moral disengagement mechanisms would be higher in aggressive children (the Bullies and their Followers). In contrast, we hypothesized that Victims and those children who frequently intervene to defend their victimized classmates (Defenders) would show a higher moral sensibility and, consequently, a lower level of moral disengagement.

Method Participants The initial sample comprised 581 Italian primary-school children (295 boys and 286 girls) aged between 8 and 11 years (mean age = 9;7 years, s.d. = 11 months). Although socio-economic status was not directly measured, our sample included students from a wide range of social backgrounds (low and working classes through upper middle class). In terms of racial/ethnic background, the sample was predominantly Caucasian (96%), with a small proportion of Asian (2%) and North African (2%) origin. All children received school and parental permission to participate prior to the collection of the data.

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On the basis of peer nominations, children were first assigned to one of the following Role groups: Bully, Assistant, Reinforcer, Defender, Outsider and Victim, based on the procedure described below. Seventy-three children did not receive a specific role because they did not satisfy the classification criteria proposed by Salmivalli et al. (1996) and were not included in the final sample. The distribution of Participant Roles for the whole sample is reported in Table I. As can be seen in Table I, cell sizes are rather unequal for both Participant Roles and gender. In order to handle problems connected with strongly unbalanced factorial designs (Cramer, 1998), especially with small cell numbers, we decided to balance our Role groups for number and gender. Therefore, a total of 204 children, divided into 6 Role group (n=34; 17 males and 17 females for each one), were randomly selected and participated to the second phase of the study. The analyses presented in the result section have been conducted on this sample with equalized groups.

--- Insert Table I about here ---

Material Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ) The Italian version (Menesini & Gini, 2000) of the Participant Role Questionnaire PRQ (Salmivalli et al., 1996; Sutton & Smith, 1999) was used to collect peer nominations. Children were asked to nominate up to five boys and/or girls in their class who fitted each of the 21 behavioral descriptions of bullying situations that compose the questionnaire. In the present study, self-nominations were not considered. The items are

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divided into six scales, which refer to six different Participant Roles: Bully (4 items, e.g.: Starts bullying), Assistant (2 items, e.g.: Helps the bully, maybe by catching or holding the victim), Reinforcer (5 items, e.g.: Laughs at people getting bullied), Defender (5 items, e.g.: Stick up for the victim), Outsider (4 items, e.g.: Isnt usually there, stays away) and Victim (1 item, Gets bullied). Menesini and Gini (2000) reported a good internal reliability of these scales for the Italian population ( = .78 to = .94). In Table II, correlations between different role scores are reported. Roles1 were assigned according to the original procedure, proposed by Salmivalli et al. (1996): for each child a Role Score is calculated in each of the six scales of the questionnaire. A nomination for sometimes showing a behavior is scored as 1, and often is scored as 2. Then, the nominations were summed, divided by the number of nominators and multiplied by 100; a Participant Role is assigned on the basis of the childs highest standardized role score. No role is assigned if the childs score is below the mean (Z<0) in all the six scales, or if the difference between the two highest scores is less than 0.1.

--- Insert Table II about here ---

An important point raised by a reviewer refers to the possibility to consider the bully-victim group. However, in our sample, only 8 children scored above the cutting point for both bullies and victims (equally distributed in the bully and the victim group), which was not enough for separate analyses. Therefore, we decided not to include these subjects in our analyses.

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Social Cognition Task: The Stories A set of 15 short stories was designed to test childrens understanding of mental states and emotions. Some of these stories were translated from Happ (1994) and Sutton et al. (1999b), and additional stories were created reflecting the same structure of the pre-existent stories. Even though some stories (e.g., the army/war story) are less relevant for children than others, they all seemed to be understandable and valid for primary school pupils. The 15 stories were divided into three categories, five stories for each category: a) Cognitive stories: these stories require the understanding of mental states, thoughts, beliefs, intentions of characters, which determine their behavior. Example of cognitive story (Happ, 1994): During the war, the Red army captures a member of the Blue army. They want him to tell them where his army's tanks are; they know they are either by the sea or in the mountains. They know that the prisoner will not want to tell them, he will want to save his army, and so he will certainly lie to them. The prisoner is very brave and very clever, he will not let them find his tanks. The tanks are really in the mountains. Now when the other side ask him where his tanks are, he says, "They are in the mountains"; b) Emotion stories: in these stories the understanding of what kind of emotion is appropriate within a specific situation is crucial. Moreover, the child needs to understand that emotions can be clearly shown or, on the contrary, dissimulated, to influence and modify others knowledge. In order to facilitate participants answers, children were presented with drawings of faces representing different

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emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, and a neutral face). An example of an emotion story taken from Sutton et al. (1999b) is: Mike wants to go out with his friends, but he has a really bad tummy ache. He knows that if his Mum notices he is ill, she wont let him go out to play. Mike goes downstairs and asks his Mum, Can I go out to play please?; c) Moral stories: in these stories the appropriate emotion is a moral emotion because some wrongdoing has happened. In these stories children were also helped with the drawings. An example of moral story (new) is as follows: Claudia has just moved to her new school. She has brown hair, green eyes and she is a little bit shorter than her classmates. During the maths class, without being noticed by her teacher, Susan, who sits behind Claudia, sends her a written note like Pigmy, dwarf. Claudia reads this note and starts crying in front of all her mates. Each story was followed by a control question based on the content of the story to verify that the child understood it; then, an experimental question assessing the understanding of mental states or emotions was asked. For the cognitive stories, an answer was considered correct if the child referred to the mental state, thoughts, or beliefs of the characters (e.g. critical question: Where will the Red army look for the Blue army and why?; answer: They will look by the sea because they think that the prisoner is lying to them). For the emotion stories, a correct answer included both the identification of the appropriate emotion (positive or negative) and the reference to the intention/wish of the main character to hide his/her own real emotion to the other characters, for example when a character is sad but he or she appears happy (e.g.

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Mike has a bad tummy ache, but he appears happy, otherwise his Mum notices that he is feeling bad and won't let him go out). Finally, for the moral stories, an answer was considered correct if the child recognized the fact that, in the situation described, the character of the story should have felt a moral emotion (guilt or shame) for his/her own behavior (e.g. She (Susan) feels guilty because she shouldnt have said that bad things to her mate Claudia).

Moral Disengagement Scale This scale measures the individuals tendency to use cognitive mechanisms that can disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviors. This version of the scale (Caprara et al., 1995), designed for primary school children, consists of 14 items describing individuals readiness to construe injurious conduct as serving righteous purposes, masquerading censurable activities by palliative language or rendering them benign by advantageous comparison, minimizing the harmful effects of ones detrimental conduct, and devaluing those who are maltreated (example items: Some kids deserve to be treated like animals; Kids cannot be blamed for misbehaving if their friends pressured them to do it). Children were asked to rate the strength of their endorsement or rejection of moral exoneration of detrimental conduct on a 5-point Likert-type scale (from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree). Therefore, higher scores in this scale indicate a higher tendency to engage in one or more of these mechanisms. Even though the items of the scale describe different mechanisms, previous studies using this scale with Italian samples (Caprara et al., 1995; Caprara et al., 1996; Menesini et al., 1997) have demonstrated a unidimensional structure of the scale,

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especially for younger children. This was also confirmed in our sample. Therefore, following the suggestions of the authors of the scale, analyses was conducted on the total score and not on separate subscales in the present study. The reliability of the scale was = .69.

Procedure Stage 1. The PRQ and the Moral Disengagement Scale were completed during a single classroom session and the order of presentation of the two measures was counterbalanced. This session began by introducing the general purpose of the study. Then, the following definition of bullying (Whitney & Smith, 1993) was presented and discussed with the class: We say a child or young person is being bullied, or picked on when another child or young person, or a group of children or young people, say nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. It is also bullying when a child or young person is hit, kicked, threatened, locked inside a room, sent nasty notes, when no one ever talks to them and things like that. These things can happen frequently and it is difficult for the child or young person being bullied to defend himself or herself. It is also bullying when a child or young person is teased repeatedly in a nasty way. But it is not bullying when two children or young people of about the same strength have the odd fight or quarrel.

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Stage 2. When the data from Stage 1 had been analyzed, children selected through the PRQ were tested individually in an area of the school that afforded privacy. During this session, the stories were presented in a randomized order and the childrens answers were audio-recorded to facilitate the successive transcription and coding procedure. In order to avoid any possible influence upon their responses, the experimenter who interviewed children did not know their Participant role.

Results Results are presented using the categorical measure of Participant Roles to compare group means in social cognition and moral disengagement with independent 6 (Roles) x 2 (Gender) ANOVAs. The continuous measure Role Scores is used to test for correlations between the extent of different types of behavior in the whole sample and the social cognition and moral disengagement measures

Preliminary analysis A preliminary one-way ANOVA was performed to investigate the possible effect of Participant Roles on the answers to the control questions. No statistically significant differences emerged among the different roles [F(5, 192) = 0.962, p = n.s.], thus confirming that the level of comprehension of the stories presented was similar for all Participant Roles. Moreover, in order to control for inter-rater reliability, two independent judges coded the 30% of all childrens answers. Their level of agreement reached 96%. Cohens kappa was also calculated, resulting in K=.91. Disagreements were due to those answers

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in which the reference to mental states was not completely clear. All discrepancies were resolved by consultation between the coders.

Participant Roles and social cognition As the three categories into which our stories were divided (cognitive, emotion and moral stories) are different from each other, three separate ANOVAs were conducted on the mean performance in the three sets of stories, with Role and Gender as between factors. From the analysis, a statistically significant main effect of Role emerged only for the cognitive stories [F(5, 192) = 2.376, p = .04,
2 p

= .058]. Post hoc

analyses revealed that Victims performance (M=2.88, s.d.=1.61) was significantly lower than Defenders (M=4.03, s.d.=1.38), whereas other groups did not significantly differ from each other (Bonferroni comparisons). The main effect of Gender and the Role x Gender interaction were not statistically significant. These data do not support the prediction of Hypothesis 1 that bullies should perform better than other people in the theory of mind tasks, but they also fail to show social deficits among bullies. In contrast to Hypothesis 2, bullies did not do worse than the other groups in the moral stories.

--- Insert Table III about here ---

Role scores and social cognition A partial correlation analysis between social cognition and the actual extent of different types of behavior (the role scores) was performed. Considering the fact that the

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scales are correlated with each other, to examine the relation of each role with the cognitive, emotion and moral information processing skills, in the correlation analysis the remaining PRQ scales and age were partialled out. Moreover, considering the high number of comparisons, in order to avoid the increase of type 1 error, Bonferronis correction was used (adjusted level of : 0.05/24=.002). Correlation coefficients are shown in Table IV. In line with Hypothesis 1 Bully role is positively correlated with the total social cognition score and with the cognitive score (the ability to understand thoughts, intentions, beliefs, etc.) and the emotion score. Moreover, in accordance with Hypothesis 2, the Defender score is positively correlated with all social cognition scores.

--- Insert Table IV about here ---

Participant Roles and moral disengagement As concerns the third aim, a two-way ANOVA on the mean score in the Moral Disengagement Scale was performed with Role and Gender as between factors. A statistically significant main effect of Role emerged [F(5, 192) = 9.269, p<.001, .194], whereas neither Gender [F(1, 192) = 0.039, p = n.s.] nor the Role x Gender interaction [F(5, 192) = 0.844, p = n.s.] were significant. Post-hoc analyses (Bonferroni comparisons) showed that all aggressive roles share the same tendency to activate moral disengagement mechanisms, in fact Bullies (M=38.03, s.d.=7.58), Reinforcers (M=35.76, s.d.=8.15) and Assistants (M=33.74, s.d.=7.80) performed significantly higher than Defenders (M=26.53, s.d.=7.13). Moreover, Bullies also showed a higher
2 p

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level of moral disengagement than both Outsiders (M=30.35, s.d.=7.63) and Victims (M=32.41, s.d.=8.12). These findings support Hypothesis 3.

--- Insert Figure 1 about here ---

Role scores and moral disengagement A partial correlation analysis, controlled for age of participants, between the score in the moral disengagement scale and the role scores was performed. Results showed a positive correlation between moral disengagement and the role scores in Bully (r(204)=.26, p<.001), Assistant (r(204)=.24, p<.001) and Reinforcer (r(204)=.22, p<.001) scales. In contrast, a negative correlation between moral disengagement and the role score in the Defender scale (r(204)= -.22, p<.001) and in the Outsider scale (r(204)= - .12, p<.01) emerged, whereas the correlation with the score in the Victim scale was not significant (r(204)= -.05, p=n.s.). Therefore, these data largely support Hypothesis 3. They are also in accordance with previous results showing a positive relation between aggressive behavior and the tendency to disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviors, and a negative relation between moral disengagement and prosocial behavior.

Discussion Social cognition in bullying The present study is located in research about the role of social cognition in the development of bullying behavior among schoolmates. In particular, two different

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models have been proposed in the literature to explain the Bullys behavior in terms of social information processing. The first model hypothesizes the presence of deficits in the social information processing of bullies, similar to those found for aggressive children (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980). This model, therefore, proposes the idea of bullies as oaf children. They are considered deficient in their social intelligence, that is their ability to interpret and manage information deriving from social interactions with peers and to produce adequate social responses. The second model, in contrast, states that bullies are quite skilful in understanding social cues (e.g., others mental states) and that they exploit this ability to their own advantage, acting as skilled social manipulators (Sutton et al., 1999a; 1999b). However, according to these authors, bullies may lack the empathic reactivity towards their mates emotions and, in particular, towards victims suffering. In the first two hypotheses of the present study, it was anticipated that bullies may have a good theory of mind, but they may be deficient in moral cognition. The analysis of variance, indeed, indicated that the bully group did not show any difficulty, compared to non-aggressive peers, in the understanding of cognitive stories, which required them to assume the cognitive point of view of another person, that is to understand intentions, beliefs and goals that guide a determinate behavior. Moreover, correlations between the scores in each scale of the PRQ and the performance in the social cognition task indicated a positive relation between bullying behavior and the ability to understand others mental states. As regards the two models, therefore, our results are closer to what would be expected by the Skilled Manipulator model (Sutton et al., 1999a). The fact that our bullies did not show particular deficits in this specific area of social cognition does

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not suggest a direct application of the Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, 1994) to bullying behavior. Further analyses are needed into the social cognitive competence of children involved in bullying episodes. This is particularly important because theory of mind explanations per se are not likely to be very helpful for understanding the unique nature of bullying, in that having a sophisticated theory of mind can lead to highly prosocial behavior or to bullying behavior. In other words, having a superior theory of mind says nothing about how that knowledge will be utilized in social interactions (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001). As regards the two other types of stories used in the present study, bullies performance in emotion stories and also in moral stories, a category not used by Sutton and colleagues (1999b), was found to be slightly, but not significantly lower, than the performance obtained by other groups. Contrary to our second hypothesis about the possible difficulties of bullies in moral cognition, our results do not completely confirm the literature on moral development in aggressive children and bullies (e.g., Bandura, 1991; Hart, Burock, London, & Atkins, 2003). In our sample, in fact, the bullies and their followers did not show a significant lack of ability in the attribution of appropriate moral emotions to the characters of the stories. These emotions, such as guilt and shame, play an important role in the recognition of the damage suffered by another person and are closely connected to the sense of responsibility of the person who shows the harmful behavior. Moreover, these emotions imply the need of reparation as a consequence of a negative outcome produced by ones behavior (Bybee, 1998; Hoffman, 2000). However, for both emotion and moral stories, it is important to note that they actually assess the cognitive ability to process emotional information in social

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interactions rather than an emotional or empathic comprehension of others feelings. Therefore, the positive performance shown by aggressive children in these kinds of stories may misrepresent or underestimate the real deficit of these children in emotional understanding of others. In other words, what bullies may lack and what may differentiate them from prosocial children is the ability to appreciate the emotional consequences of their behaviors on others feelings, and to share in, and empathize with, the feelings of others (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). In line with this perspective, for example, Gini, Albiero, and Benelli (2004) recently found a negative relation between bullying behavior and empathy, measured through Davis empathic reactivity index (1983), in a sample of Italian adolescents. Sutton and colleagues (1999a) also argued along these lines, referring to the cold cognition hypothesis proposed by Mealey (1995) as regards sociopathy. They also spoke of a theory of mind formulated purely in instrumental terms, without access to the empathic understanding that most people rely on. As a consequence, the individual may use aggressive behavior in a Machiavellian way, without considering its negative consequences on others. In contrast, high levels of empathic responsiveness act as an important mediator in social conduct, reducing aggression and favoring prosocial behavior (Bjrkqvist, sterman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Kaukiainen, Bjrkqvist, sterman, Lagerspetz, & Niskanen, 1994; Kaukiainen, Bjrkqvist, sterman, & Lagerspetz, 1996). With respect to the other groups considered in the present study, victimized children showed some difficulties in the social cognition task. If compared to the defender group in particular, they seem to lack the ability to understand others mind,

24

that is their thoughts, beliefs and intentions that guide social behavior. Our data are consistent with results reported by Sutton et al. (1999b). Moreover, several authors share the idea that victims show deficits in areas like social skills, social problem solving, assertiveness, and emotional regulation (e.g., Champion, Vernberg, & Shipman, 2003; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1997; Mahady-Wilton, Craig, & Pepler, 2000; Olweus, 1993; Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988). Finally, the results obtained in the social cognition task by the defender group should be noted. These children, in fact, showed high levels of performance in all the stories, and especially in the cognitive stories. Moreover, the score in the defender scale of the PRQ correlated positively with all the scores in the social cognition task, thus suggesting that the adoption of this kind of prosocial and helpful behavior requires a high level of social ability and a well-developed understanding of both cognitive and emotional states of others. However, the fact that the bullying score also correlated with the social cognition task, again, confirms that having a good theory of mind, by itself, does not necessarily mean that this ability will be used to act prosocially (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001).

Bullying and moral disengagement As regards the third aim of the present study, the analysis of variance on moral disengagement showed higher levels of the tendency to disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of aggressive behaviors in all the aggressive roles and, in particular, in bullies. These results confirmed the role of specific cognitive mechanisms in the regulation of social conduct, such as the moral disengagement mechanisms that allow the assumption of violent behaviors (Bacchini et al., 1998; Caprara et al., 1995;

25

Menesini et al., 1999; Menesini et al., 2003). Regarding this aspect, as suggested by a reviewer, it could be interesting to collect information about the relations between bullying, familial socialization and moral climate at home and at school. In contrast, defenders high moral sensibility and empathic reactivity, already found in other studies (Menesini et al., 2003; Gini & Carli, 2003), may be one of the basic motivations for prosocial behavior, frequently shown by these children towards their victimized mates. These motivations are very important and must be taken into account during the implementation of intervention programs in schools (Cowie, 2000; Cowie, Naylor, Talamelli, Chauhan, & Smith, 2002). However, the fact that the ability to help other peers requires several interpersonal competencies, that young children do not necessarily possess, needs to be considered. In conclusion, the results presented in this paper have several potential implications for future research. On the one hand, our results draw attention to the importance of studying the role of social cognitive competencies in the complex circle of behaviors, attitudes and expectations upon which school bullying phenomenon is based. On the other hand, the relevance of adopting a more fine-grained classification of roles in the study of bullying behavior was confirmed. A possible limitation in the interpretation of our results was the fact that we did not consider the bully-victim group, that is those children who frequently assume both kinds of role, acting as a bully and being victimized as well (e.g., Boulton & Smith, 1994; Olweus, 1993). Several authors stressed the relevance of this group of pupils, also called aggressive-victims (Perry et al., 1988; Schwartz, 2000), in the study of aggressive problems. Moreover, these children have been consistently described as lacking social-

26

emotional abilities, having psychosocial impairments and a wide range of other problems (e.g., Besag, 1989). A methodological difficulty in the study of these pupils is that it is not always simple to clearly identify bully-victims as a distinct group. Despite this complication, future research in this field will necessarily need to study the socialcognitive and moral characteristics of this particular group of children, and to compare their level of cognitive and emotional understanding with that of pure bullies and victims.

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Table I. Distribution of Participant Roles (%) within the whole sample Participant Roles Bullies Males Females 15.9 5.9 Assistants 16.3 6.3 Reinforcers 11.9 7.7 Defenders Outsiders 11.5 26.2 12.2 25.5 Victims No role 17.6 17.8 14.6 10.6 Total 100 100

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Table II. Role score correlations for the whole sample Bully Assistant Reinforcer Defender Outsider Victim .68 * .66 * - .16 * - .22 * .07 .60 * - .11 - .24 * .01 .10 - .07 .12 .30 * - .01 .13 Assistant Reinforcer Defender Outsider

Note: N = 578; * p<.001 (Bonferroni corrected)

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Table III. Participant Roles and mean score [s.d.] in social cognition task Participant Roles a Bullies Assistants Reinforcers Defenders Outsiders Victims Cognitive stories b 3.06 [1.30] 3.18 [1.47] 3.15 [1.56] 4.03 [1.38] 3.38 [1.76] 2.88 [1.61] Emotion stories
b

Moral stories b 3.18 [1.94] 3.59 [1.86] 3.62 [1.67] 4.00 [1.67] 4.06 [1.63] 3.44 [1.76]

Total social cognition task c 9.03 [4.79] 9.97 [4.85] 10.03 [4.28] 12.15 [4.04] 11.12 [4.58] 9.59 [4.73]

2.79 [2.20] 3.20 [2.04] 3.26 [1.76] 4.12 [1.45] 3.68 [1.66] 3.26 [1.81]

Note:
a

n=34 for each group; b range = 0-5; c range = 0-15

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Table IV. Partial correlations of social cognition and individual role scores Social cognition scores Role scores Cognitive Bully Assistant Reinforcer Defender Outsider Victim .195 * - .021 - .074 .214 * .071 .068 Emotion .148 * - .026 - .059 .226 * .008 .109 Moral .129 .014 - .098 .197 * .060 .112 Total score .172 * - .012 - .078 .223 * .050 .104

Note: N = 204; * p<.001 (Bonferroni corrected)

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Figure 1. Participant Roles and Moral Disengagement

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
V ic tim en de r ist an ts, er s er s Re in fo rc lli es Bu ,b ,d c s, a ,c s, ,b b A
41

ut sid

ef

Notes: n=34 for each group range = 14-70

a,b; c,d

Means with different superscript differ at p < .05.

ss