Bullying as strategic behavior: Relations with desired and acquired dominance in the peer group

To examine whether bullying is strategic behavior aimed at obtaining or maintaining social dominance, 1129 9- to 12-year-old Dutch children were classified in terms of their role in bullying and in terms of their use of dominance oriented coercive and prosocial social strategies. Multi-informant mea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of school psychology 2011-06, Vol.49 (3), p.339-359
Main Authors: Olthof, Tjeert, Goossens, Frits A., Vermande, Marjolijn M., Aleva, Elisabeth A., van der Meulen, Matty
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bullying
Bullying - psychology
Child
Children
Dominance
Female
Foreign Countries
Group processes
Humans
Interpersonal Competence
Interpersonal Relations
Intervention
Male
Motivation
Netherlands
Peer Group
Peer Groups
Peer Relationship
Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial behaviour
Role
Schools
Social Dominance
Social domination
Social Environment
Students
Victims
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Summary:To examine whether bullying is strategic behavior aimed at obtaining or maintaining social dominance, 1129 9- to 12-year-old Dutch children were classified in terms of their role in bullying and in terms of their use of dominance oriented coercive and prosocial social strategies. Multi-informant measures of participants’ acquired and desired social dominance were also included. Unlike non-bullying children, children contributing to bullying often were bistrategics in that they used both coercive and prosocial strategies and they also were socially dominant. Ringleader bullies also expressed a higher desire to be dominant. Among non-bullying children, those who tended to help victims were relatively socially dominant but victims and outsiders were not. Generally, the data supported the claim that bullying is dominance-oriented strategic behavior, which suggests that intervention strategies are more likely to be successful when they take the functional aspects of bullying behavior into account.
ISSN:0022-4405
1873-3506
DOI:10.1016/j.jsp.2011.03.003