Bullies Aren?t All Bad: An Investigation into Children?s and Adults? Beliefs about the Nature of Bullies

Abstract

Although prior research has clearly demonstrated the negative outcomes associated with bullying behavior and being the victim of bullying in childhood, little is known about children’s perceptions of and reasoning about peer bullies. In a series of four studies, I explore this gap in the literature, investigating how children think about and evaluate peer bullies' true selves, or who they really are deep inside. Study 1 asked children ages 7-12 years (N = 170) and adults (N = 162) to evaluate the true selves of a physically aggressive child and a prosocial child. As expected, children and adults believed physically aggressive behavior to be extremely unacceptable. Nonetheless, they reported that although the prosocial child had more inner goodness than the physically aggressive child, both had more inner goodness than badness, and that there was a greater mismatch between the physically aggressive character’s actions and true self compared to those of the prosocial child. Study 2 built on Study 1, asking 7- to 12-year-old children (N = 173) and adults (N = 153) to evaluate the true selves of a physically aggressive child, a relationally aggressive child, and a prosocial child. A similar pattern of results emerged: children and adults believed that the prosocial child had more inner goodness than either of the aggressive children, but that all had more inner goodness than badness, and that the aggressive children’s actions contradicted their true selves more so than the prosocial child’s. Coding of participants’ open-ended responses revealed that children and adults spontaneously suggested that the characters’ behavior was often due to situational factors or emotional states and that participants relied heavily on moral reasoning when explaining their thinking. To further investigate these patterns, Study 3 examined whether manipulating the reason a character engages in aggressive behavior altered 7- to 13-year-old children’s (N = 305) and adults’ (N = 224) perceptions of a bully’s true self. Results showed that characters who bullied others because of external factors (e.g., having something bad going on at home) were thought to have the most inner goodness, feel the most regret about their actions, and be the least likely to remain mean into adulthood, a sharp contrast to characters who bullied others because they wanted to be mean, who were perceived to have the least inner goodness, to feel the least regret about their actions, and to be the most likely to remain mean into adulthood. Building on Study 3, Study 4 investigated whether 7- to 13-year-old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 172) believed that different types of consequences would alter bullies’ true selves and/or prevent bullies from engaging in future transgressions when the bullies had different reasons for engaging in aggressive behaviors. Results showed that under certain circumstances, children and adults believed that consequences could mitigate future bullying behavior and increase bullies’ inner goodness; however, not all consequences were perceived as being equally effective. Altogether, this research provides a novel investigation into children’s complex understanding of the true selves of antisocial peers.