ABSTRACT

Traditionally, school-age bullying has been defined by three components: (1) the repeated occurrence of verbal, relational, and/or physical harm by a bully, (2) who is perceived as higher in power than the victim, with (3) the intent to cause harm to the victim (Olweus, 1993; Shore, 2009). The occurrence of bullying has no geographical bounds, as both research and intervention efforts have been seen worldwide (Espelage & Swearer, 2003; Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008; Rigby, 2002). The articles in this special issue mirror such efforts, as they include samples of children from Australia, Finland, Italy, New England, and Poland. Estimates from numerous countries indicate that bullies constitute up to 24% of the school-age population and victims up to 44% (Haynie et al., 2001; Nansel et al., 2001; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999). Bullying tends to increase in

frequency during periods of transition, such as the early adolescent transition from elementary to middle school (Espelage & Holt, 2001; Graham, Bellmore, & Mize, 2006; Haynie et al., 2001; Leadbeater, 2010). There is also evidence suggesting that boys are more likely to bully using physical means and less likely to defend a victim than are girls (Haynie et al., 2001; Pellegrini et al., 1999; Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, Kaistaniemi, & Lagerspetz, 1999). With advances in technology, our understanding of what constitutes bullying

is changing (Walker, 2010). Traditionally, bullying was something that occurred away from home, and for victims, the home setting was a safe retreat after the events of the day. There are now many ways (e.g., Internet, smart phones, and social media outlets) by which bullying can occur at any time and in any place. The current article by Wingate, Minney, and Guadagno (2013) compares the components of face-to-face bullying to online cyberbullying. For example, cyberbullying occurs without the visual cues regarding one’s intent that are present in a face-to-face bullying situation. Also, cyberbullying includes a greater sense of permanence of a bully’s remarks, and subsequent re-victimization, due to their constant presence online or on one’s phone. Regardless of how bullying is formally defined, those victimized by bullies are

at greater risk for negative short-and long-term outcomes than are other students. There is an abundance of research demonstrating the links between bullying victimization, and sometimes being a bully as well, and mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic complaints, and suicidal ideation (e.g., Espelage & Holt, 2001; Graham et al., 2006). Two articles in this issue focus on the effects of bullying. The first article by Lester, Cross, Dooley, and Shaw (2013) provides a review of outcome research and presents new longitudinal data from a large group of middle school students in Australia. Some of their findings supported previous research in terms of the outcomes of depression and anxiety in many victims. However, these researchers were surprised to find that depression and anxiety outcomes were more greatly affected by victimization onset at the start of secondary school than by prolonged victimization prior to that time. These results support the need for interventions to reduce bullying at both the elementary/primary and secondary levels. The second article by Gamian-Wilk (2013) is the one of the article in this issue

that focuses on bullying in adulthood versus childhood or adolescence. In this two-study article, the author examined the relationship between being a victim of bullying in the workplace and compliance with coworkers’ requests. The first study showed a negative correlation between the two variables, and the second study demonstrated a causal relationship between the two variables when participants were asked to recall a time in which they were socially ostracized at work and then respond to compliance requests. Those participants who were considered victims showed decreased compliance with requests, while interestingly, those participants who were considered non-victims tended to increase requests for compliance after evoking the instance of social ostracism at

work. Gamian-Wilk discusses how reduced compliance with requests by those with a history of victimization has the potential to lead to further ostracism in the workplace. Bullies are also considered at-risk for negative short-and long-term outcomes

(Nansel et al., 2001). In this issue, Borgwald and Theixos (2013) explore the mental health outcomes (e.g., stress, depression, and drug use) for bullies who are expelled from school as a result of their actions. They present a perspective that current anti-bullying policies, which use expulsion as the consequence for bullying, are ineffective, unjust, and implemented in socially biased ways. Alternatively, they propose improved efforts to educate those who bully, provide empathy training to enhance social skills, and allow opportunities for apologies and forgiveness between the bully and victim. If bullying were simply a social interaction between one bully and one victim,

it would be easier to understand the dynamics of the dyad interaction and intervene accordingly. Unfortunately, bullying usually occurs within a broader social content and both influences and is influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of others. It is for this reason that most anti-bullying programs are systemic in nature, i.e., they include individual, school, family, and community components (Merrell et al., 2008; Smith, Schneider, Smith, & Ananiadou, 2004; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). There are two studies in this issue that address bullying-related characteristics of friend dyads and friendship selection. Pozzoli and Gini (2013) examined homophily, the degree to which “social

interactions occur more frequently among similar individuals than among dissimilar individuals” (p. 163). They found that mutually nominated friends were more similar in their attitudes toward bullying and their sense of responsibility for intervening in bullying situations than were non-friends; furthermore, the more reciprocal friends a child had, the better friends’ sense of responsibility predicted the individual’s sense of responsibility. They also observed that girls held more negative attitudes toward bullying than did boys. Sijtsema, Rambaran, and Ojanen (2013) explored friendship selection and

de-selection over time among a group of middle school students and their relation to self-reported victimization through relational (e.g., teasing, calling names, and rumors) or overt (e.g., direct verbal or physical attacks) means. Results from this study also demonstrated homophily in that students who were high on relational victimization were more likely to extend friendship nominations than those who were also high on relational victimization. This trend was not present for students who experienced overt victimization; however, students did grow more similar to their reciprocal friends over time in terms of their self-reported overt victimization. Although the two previous studies examined similarities between friends in

terms of attitudes and victimization, the current study by Sandstrom, Makover, and Bartini (2013) explored how perceived group norms influence children’s joining the bully or defending the victim behaviors in a bullying situation.