Divergence in aggressors' and victims' perceptions of bullying: A decisive factor for differential psychosocial intervention

Isabel Cuadrado Gordillo

Children and Youth Services Review, 2011, vol. 33, issue 9, 1608-1615

Abstract: The study of children' and adolescents' perceptions of bullying has become a topic of particular interest in the scientific community as it enables one to better understand the processes of aggression and victimization, and consequently the emergence of new perspectives that will allow anti-bullying programs to be better matched to their targets. This paper analyzes adolescents' perceptions of bullying and the forms in which it is manifest, finding a difference between the perceptions held by aggressors and victims. It also examines the influence of the factor 'frequency of aggression' on those perceptions. The data acquisition instrument was a questionnaire applied to a sample of 2295 teenagers (MÂ =Â 13.8, SDÂ =Â 1.4). The results show that the victims' sole criterion for their conceptualization and identification of bullying is the 'intent to cause harm'. The aggressors, however, stress the criterion of 'power imbalance' rather than 'intent to harm'. The results also show that, as the aggression committed or suffered decreases in frequency, both aggressors and victims tend to legitimize various modes of bullying as a form of peer interaction.

Keywords: Bullying; Adolescents; Psychosocial; intervention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740911001113
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:33:y:2011:i:9:p:1608-1615

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().