Effects of group and situational factors on pre-adolescent children’s attitudes to school bullying

Abstract

This study examined the effect on pre-adolescent children’s attitudes to bullying of one group-based variable (group status) and two situational variables (rule legitimacy and rule consistency). Pre-adolescent boys ( n 1/4 229) read a story about a group of boys who had high or low (handball) status. The legitimacy (high versus low) of the rules governing the use of a handball court, and the extent to which the group’s claim to the court was consistent with the rules (high versus low), were also manipulated. The participants’ liking, causal attribution, deservingness, and punishment responses to an intergroup bullying episode instigated by the group of boys against children from another class indicated that the participants recognised the import of the situational variables and, at least to some extent, took them into account. Nevertheless, the results indicated that the children favoured the bully group, and that their responses systematically reflected this bias. Possible bases for understanding these effects are discussed.