Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What's ... - DPSS

Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What’s wrong?
This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in Aggressive Behavior
copyright © 2005 Wiley-Liss Inc.
Gianluca Gini
Department of Developmental and Socialisation Psychology
University of Padova
via Venezia 8
35131, Padova - Italy
e-mail: gianluca.gini@unipd.it
Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to all schools, teachers and pupils who
participated in the study. Moreover, I wish to thank Francesca Happè and Jon Sutton for
their stories, translated and utilized in this study, and Elena Arimondo, Alessia
Bortoloso, Giuseppe Carli and Simona Pischetola for their help in data collection.
Finally, I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on
an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What’s wrong?
Abstract
Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a
child lacking in social skills (Crick & Dodge, 1994), or as a cold manipulative
individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham,
1999a). The present study examined the performance of 204 8-11-year-olds in a set of
stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their
Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, children’s understanding of moral emotions and
proneness to moral disengagement was assessed. Victims showed some difficulties in
the social cognition task, whereas bullies did not. Aggressive children, instead, were
found to be more ready to show moral disengagement mechanisms, whereas defenders
showed higher levels of moral sensibility. Results are discussed in relation to the two
models, and the need for further research into empathy and moral cognition of children
involved in bullying episodes is highlighted.
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Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What’s wrong?
Over the last twenty years, the literature about the development of aggressive
behavior showed an increasing interest in the study of the relations between cognition,
social information processing and social interaction in children and adolescents (e.g.,
Crick & Dodge, 1994; Harvey, Fletcher, & French, 2001). In particular, several authors
studied how the social information processing strategies used by children and the way in
which they interpret situational cues and use their previous experiences can influence
their aggressive conduct (Dodge & Price, 1994; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Randall,
1997). One of the most important results of this field of research has been the possibility
to identify the presence of specific deficits and systematic biases in some components of
the social cognition of aggressive children. These results led Dodge and colleagues to
formulate the “Social Skills Deficit” model (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980).
According to the first formulation of this model, in which reactive and proactive
categories of aggression were not clearly distinguished, aggressive children show some
difficulties in one or more phases of their social information processing. For example,
these authors found that aggressive children tend to interpret ambiguous situations in an
aggressive way more than their non aggressive peers (hostile attributional bias) (Dodge
& Frame, 1982; Dodge & Somberg, 1987). Another difference between aggressive and
non aggressive children refers to the selection of the behavioral response in a social
situation: the former, in fact, seem to have a more limited range of non aggressive
answers than the latter and, for this reason, they are more inclined to choose and perform
aggressive behaviors, especially in the case of interpersonal conflicts (Dodge, 1980;
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Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Dodge & Newman, 1981). According to the same
approach, victims, who are shy and withdrawn and lack social skills of assertiveness,
show high levels of anxiety and loneliness, and have less experience in social interaction
and play fighting (which may enhance social skills), as well as control and interpretation
of emotional expression (Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997; Smith, Bowers, Binney, &
Cowie, 1993).
Some authors tried to apply this model to a particular kind of aggressive
phenomenon: school bullying (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Slee, 1993; Smith et al., 1993).
However, despite the popular view of the bully as an “oaf” boy, that is an intellectually
simple or backward boy (Besag, 1989), very few studies confirmed that Dodge’s model
can be applied to bullies in exactly the same way as to aggressive children (e.g., Hazler,
1996; Randall, 1997). On the contrary, some other authors stressed the role of adaptive
motivation to explain bullying behavior, arguing that bullying may be seen as an
inappropriate way to reach a socially effective goal, such as leadership within a group.
As a consequence, these authors stated that the bully should not necessarily to be seen as
an individual with specific difficulties. On the contrary, he or she may sometimes be a
skilled individual who takes advantage of his/her high social-cognitive competence to
reach personal benefits, such as interpersonal dominance, through a “Machiavellian”
conduct (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999a).
Some data presented by Sutton and colleagues (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham,
1999b) empirically support this view; in fact, they found that 7-10-year-old bullies
performed better than other classmates in a social cognition task that required the
understanding of mental states and emotions of the main character of a story (theory of
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mind task). The relevance of these results, above all, lies in the fact that, in a bullying
situation, «having a grasp of the mental states of those involved, along with an ability to
manipulate these thoughts and beliefs, may be crucial for the bully in developing and
maintaining such inter-role relations» (Sutton et al., 1999b, p. 437). In previous studies,
therefore, bullies’ social cognitive skills, such as social perspective taking and decoding
of emotional information, may have been underestimated (Sutton et al., 1999a, 1999b,
1999c). However, some bullies may possess a different conception of the costs and
benefits of aggression, and they may lack in empathic understanding of the victim’s
suffering. Therefore, it appears more adequate to regard social skills as a neutral tool,
which may be used for both prosocial and antisocial purposes (Björkqvist, Österman, &
Kaukiainen, 2000; Hawley, 2003). From this perspective, the crucial point to understand
bullying behavior refers to the kind of values that guide bullies’ conduct, rather than
their higher or lower ability in social information processing (Arsenio & Lemerise,
2001).
Following this line of research, the present paper focuses on cognitive and
emotional understanding of social situations in bullying, using a theory of mind task
with children who assume different participant roles during a bullying episode. In the
above mentioned study, however, Sutton and colleagues (1999b) did not explicitly
consider a particular kind of emotion found to be important to account for aggressive
and antisocial behaviors: moral emotions (in particular, guilt and shame). If bullies are
cold, manipulative experts in social contexts, their behavior may be related to emotions
surrounding moral transgression. These emotions are important because, as Hoffman
(1976, 2000) pointed out, they are closely connected with empathy and they can be
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considered mediators of conscience. Other authors suggested that moral development
plays a major role in behavioral regulation (Arsenio, 1988; Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 1995;
Turiel, 1998) and that guilt is an interpersonal phenomenon aimed at avoiding the
disruption of relationships and bonds (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994;
Tagney, 1992). Moreover, individuals who are more prone to guilt are less aggressive
and less likely to act out behaviors (Harpur, Hakstian, & Hare, 1988; Quiles & Bybee,
1997). In contrast, if children had lower feelings of guilt, this could “enable” them to act
aggressively without feeling guilty. However, the reverse causal link could be true, in
that children who repeatedly commit acts of aggression may become inured to this type
of behavior, exhibiting dulled emotional responses.
Moral disengagement and aggressive behavior
A useful contribution to the analysis of some social-cognitive components of
aggressive behavior is made by the Social Cognitive Theory of the Moral Self (Bandura,
1986, 1990, 1991). According to this theory, moral reasoning is linked to moral action
through affective self-regulatory mechanisms by which moral agency is exercised. In
their development, children need to develop standards of right and wrong and to adopt
these standards as guides and deterrents for their conduct. This self-regulatory process
implies that individuals usually act in ways that give them satisfaction and a sense of
self-worth, whereas, on the other side, they tend to avoid behaviors that violate their
moral standards in order to avoid self-condemnation.
Moreover, Bandura (2002) claimed that the construct of moral disengagement
could be considered as a mediator between the individual’s moral principles and his/her
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eal conduct, which may not necessarily be coherent with those principles. Internal
controls, in fact, are not fixed, and several psychological and social processes can
contribute to their selective deactivation. In particular, Bandura described eight different
mechanisms through which moral control can be disengaged. One set of disengagement
practices operates on the reconstruction of the behavior itself. For example, an immoral
conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of
moral purposes (moral justification) or self-deplored acts can be made to appear
righteous by contrasting them with worse conducts (advantageous comparison).
Moreover, in some circumstances, activities can take on different appearances
depending on what they are called (euphemistic labeling). The second set of
disengagement practices operates by obscuring or minimizing the agentive role in the
harm one causes (displacement of responsibility and diffusion of responsibility). Other
ways of weakening moral control operate by minimizing, disregarding or distorting the
effects of one’s action; if minimization does not work, the evidence of harm can be
discredited (minimizing or misconstruing consequences). Finally, disengagement
practices may operate on the recipients of detrimental acts by stripping them of human
qualities (dehumanization) or considering aggression as provoked by the victim
(attribution of blame). These mechanisms can lead to aggressive behaviors through a
process of moral disengagement, that is a partial gap between the “abstract” personal
idea of moral behavior and the individual’s behavior in real life. In this way, the
individual protects him/herself from negative feelings, such as guilt or shame, that
usually follow an immoral conduct (Bandura, 1991).
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Different studies showed a positive relation between aggressive behavior and the
activation of one or more of these mechanisms in both adults and children (Bandura,
Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Bandura, 1995;
Caprara, Barbaranelli, Vicino, & Bandura, 1996; Yadava, Sharma, & Gandhi, 2001). In
particular, Caprara and colleagues (1995) confirmed the strong link between moral
disengagement and physical and verbal aggression, both self- and peer-evaluated,
especially in male children. More recently, Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli,
and Regalia (2001) have replicated these results. They found a positive relation between
moral disengagement and transgressive behavior, and a negative relation between moral
disengagement and self-regulatory efficacy and prosocial behavior.
The above mentioned studies actually referred to aggressive individuals, but a
similar pattern of data has been found in school bullying research, as well. Bacchini,
Amodeo, Ciardi, Valerio, and Vitelli (1998) and Menesini, Fonzi, and Vannucci (1997),
for example, found that male bullies utilized the moral disengagement mechanisms more
than did other peers and, most of all, they seemed to use the mechanisms of
Dehumanization and Moral Justification. A confirmation of these results emerged in a
cross-national study, involving Italy and Spain, conduced by Menesini and colleagues
(Menesini, Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003), who assessed moral reasoning of bullies,
victims and children who assumed the role of the defender, using the Scan Bullying test
(Almeida, del Barrio, Marques, Gutierrez, & van der Meulen, 2001). These authors
confirmed the tendency of bullies to show higher levels of moral disengagement, and the
presence of a profile of egocentric reasoning in these pupils.
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Quite recently, the “traditional” classification of schoolchildren into bullies,
victims and controls has been criticized and several authors stressed the importance of
considering bullying a group process (Sutton & Smith, 1999). The empirical
confirmation of the importance of peer ecology applied to bullying phenomenon derives
from several observational studies carried out during periods of free interaction among
children in unstructured contexts, such as during recess and outdoor play. These studies,
in fact, consistently found that peers are involved in 85% of bullying episodes (Atlas &
Pepler, 1998; Craig & Pepler, 1997; Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000; Pepler & Craig,
1995). Moreover, Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Österman, and Kaukiainen (1996)
identified six different participant roles taken by individual children in the bullying
process (i.e. victim, bully, reinforcer of the bully, assistant to the bully, defender of the
victim, and outsider). Another study by Salmivalli, Huttunen, and Lagerspetz (1997) has
also revealed a strong influence of how the members of a group behave in bullying
situations on an individual child’s behavior in such situations.
In line with this approach that considers bullying as a group phenomenon, all
distinct roles within the class were considered in the present study. Not only bullies and
victims participated, but also those pupils who, in different ways, act important roles in
reinforcing bullying behavior (the so-called “Followers”: the Assistants of the bully and
the Reinforcers) or, in contrast, intervene to defend the victim (the Defenders). Finally,
Outsiders, that is children not directly involved in the phenomenon, were considered.
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Aims of the study and hypotheses
The first aim of the present study was to assess the performance of these pupils in
a social-cognition task similar to the one used by Sutton et al. (1999b). In this task, the
same two typologies of stories used by Sutton and colleagues were used: cognitive and
emotion stories. The cognitive stories, in particular, assessed the child’s ability to
understand mental states, beliefs and intentions of the character of the story. The
emotion stories, instead, assessed the ability to understand emotional states of the
character and the possibility that an emotion could be dissimulated to influence and
modify others’ knowledge. Contrary to the idea of the bully as a social “oaf”, it is
hypothesized that the Bully group will perform better than, or at least at the same level
as, other pupils in a theory of mind task that requires understanding the thoughts, beliefs,
intentions that guide others’ behavior.
Moreover, in addition to these two kinds of stories, a third category (moral
stories), not used by Sutton et al. (1999b), was designed in order to explore the role of
moral emotions in the context of aggressive conduct. The second aim of the present
study, therefore, was to analyze the ability to understand moral emotions (guilt and
shame) within hypothetical social scenarios by children who assume different roles.
Considering the literature about moral cognition in aggressive behavior (e.g., Hoffman,
2000; Quiles & Bybee, 1997; Tagney, 1992), it was expected that Bullies would perform
worse than non-aggressive mates in moral stories, that is be less likely to make the
correct attribution of moral emotions to the character of the story owing to his/her
negative behavior. In contrast, Defenders should be particularly sensitive to this kind of
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emotion as an expression of what is right and what is wrong and, therefore, we expected
this group of children to perform better than any other in this type of stories.
Finally, the third aim of the study was to consider the relation between moral
disengagement and bullying behavior (e.g., Caprara et al., 1995; Menesini et al., 1999).
The comparison among pupils who assume different roles may lead to a deeper
understanding of the importance of these mechanisms in bullying episodes. Specifically,
we expected that the tendency to activate moral disengagement mechanisms would be
higher in aggressive children (the Bullies and their Followers). In contrast, we
hypothesized that Victims and those children who frequently intervene to defend their
victimized classmates (Defenders) would show a higher moral sensibility and,
consequently, a lower level of moral disengagement.
Participants
Method
The initial sample comprised 581 Italian primary-school children (295 boys and
286 girls) aged between 8 and 11 years (mean age = 9;7 years, s.d. = 11 months).
Although socio-economic status was not directly measured, our sample included
students from a wide range of social backgrounds (low and working classes through
upper middle class). In terms of racial/ethnic background, the sample was predominantly
Caucasian (96%), with a small proportion of Asian (2%) and North African (2%) origin.
All children received school and parental permission to participate prior to the collection
of the data.
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On the basis of peer nominations, children were first assigned to one of the
following Role groups: Bully, Assistant, Reinforcer, Defender, Outsider and Victim,
based on the procedure described below. Seventy-three children did not receive a
specific role because they did not satisfy the classification criteria proposed by
Salmivalli et al. (1996) and were not included in the final sample. The distribution of
Participant Roles for the whole sample is reported in Table I.
As can be seen in Table I, cell sizes are rather unequal for both Participant Roles
and gender. In order to handle problems connected with strongly unbalanced factorial
designs (Cramer, 1998), especially with small cell numbers, we decided to balance our
Role groups for number and gender. Therefore, a total of 204 children, divided into 6
Role group (n=34; 17 males and 17 females for each one), were randomly selected and
participated to the second phase of the study. The analyses presented in the result section
have been conducted on this sample with equalized groups.
Material
Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ)
--- Insert Table I about here ---
The Italian version (Menesini & Gini, 2000) of the Participant Role Questionnaire
– PRQ (Salmivalli et al., 1996; Sutton & Smith, 1999) was used to collect peer
nominations. Children were asked to nominate up to five boys and/or girls in their class
who fitted each of the 21 behavioral descriptions of bullying situations that compose the
questionnaire. In the present study, self-nominations were not considered. The items are
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divided into six scales, which refer to six different Participant Roles: Bully (4 items,
e.g.: “Starts bullying”), Assistant (2 items, e.g.: “Helps the bully, maybe by catching or
holding the victim”), Reinforcer (5 items, e.g.: “Laughs at people getting bullied”),
Defender (5 items, e.g.: “Stick up for the victim”), Outsider (4 items, e.g.: “Isn’t usually
there, stays away”) and Victim (1 item, “Gets bullied”). Menesini and Gini (2000)
reported a good internal reliability of these scales for the Italian population (α = .78 to α
= .94). In Table II, correlations between different role scores are reported.
Roles 1 were assigned according to the original procedure, proposed by Salmivalli
et al. (1996):
- for each child a Role Score is calculated in each of the six scales of the
questionnaire. A nomination for “sometimes” showing a behavior is scored as
1, and “often” is scored as 2. Then, the nominations were summed, divided
by the number of nominators and multiplied by 100;
- a Participant Role is assigned on the basis of the child’s highest standardized
role score. No role is assigned if the child’s score is below the mean (Z

Social Cognition Task: The Stories
A set of 15 short stories was designed to test children’s understanding of mental
states and emotions. Some of these stories were translated from Happé (1994) and
Sutton et al. (1999b), and additional stories were created reflecting the same structure of
the pre-existent stories. Even though some stories (e.g., the “army/war” story) are less
relevant for children than others, they all seemed to be understandable and valid for
primary school pupils.
The 15 stories were divided into three categories, five stories for each category:
a) Cognitive stories: these stories require the understanding of mental states,
thoughts, beliefs, intentions of characters, which determine their behavior.
Example of cognitive story (Happé, 1994):
«During the war, the Red army captures a member of the Blue army. They
want him to tell them where his army's tanks are; they know they are either by
the sea or in the mountains. They know that the prisoner will not want to tell
them, he will want to save his army, and so he will certainly lie to them. The
prisoner is very brave and very clever, he will not let them find his tanks. The
tanks are really in the mountains. Now when the other side ask him where his
tanks are, he says, "They are in the mountains"»;
b) Emotion stories: in these stories the understanding of what kind of emotion is
appropriate within a specific situation is crucial. Moreover, the child needs to
understand that emotions can be clearly shown or, on the contrary, dissimulated,
to influence and modify others’ knowledge. In order to facilitate participants’
answers, children were presented with drawings of faces representing different
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emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, and a neutral face). An example of an
emotion story taken from Sutton et al. (1999b) is:
«Mike wants to go out with his friends, but he has a really bad tummy ache. He
knows that if his Mum notices he is ill, she won’t let him go out to play. Mike
goes downstairs and asks his Mum, “Can I go out to play please?”»;
c) Moral stories: in these stories the appropriate emotion is a moral emotion
because some wrongdoing has happened. In these stories children were also
helped with the drawings. An example of moral story (new) is as follows:
«Claudia has just moved to her new school. She has brown hair, green eyes and
she is a little bit shorter than her classmates. During the maths class, without
being noticed by her teacher, Susan, who sits behind Claudia, sends her a
written note like “Pigmy, dwarf”. Claudia reads this note and starts crying in
front of all her mates».
Each story was followed by a control question based on the content of the story to
verify that the child understood it; then, an experimental question assessing the
understanding of mental states or emotions was asked. For the cognitive stories, an
answer was considered correct if the child referred to the mental state, thoughts, or
beliefs of the characters (e.g. critical question: “Where will the Red army look for the
Blue army and why?”; answer: “They will look by the sea because they think that the
prisoner is lying to them”). For the emotion stories, a correct answer included both the
identification of the appropriate emotion (positive or negative) and the reference to the
intention/wish of the main character to hide his/her own real emotion to the other
characters, for example when a character is “sad” but he or she appears “happy” (e.g.
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“Mike has a bad tummy ache, but he appears happy, otherwise his Mum notices that he
is feeling bad and won't let him go out”). Finally, for the moral stories, an answer was
considered correct if the child recognized the fact that, in the situation described, the
character of the story should have felt a moral emotion (guilt or shame) for his/her own
behavior (e.g. “She (Susan) feels guilty because she shouldn’t have said that bad things
to her mate Claudia”).
Moral Disengagement Scale
This scale measures the individual’s tendency to use cognitive mechanisms that
can disengage self-sanctions and justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviors. This
version of the scale (Caprara et al., 1995), designed for primary school children, consists
of 14 items describing individual’s readiness to construe injurious conduct as serving
righteous purposes, masquerading censurable activities by palliative language or
rendering them benign by advantageous comparison, minimizing the harmful effects of
one’s detrimental conduct, and devaluing those who are maltreated (example items:
“Some kids deserve to be treated like animals”; “Kids cannot be blamed for misbehaving
if their friends pressured them to do it”). Children were asked to rate the strength of their
endorsement or rejection of moral exoneration of detrimental conduct on a 5-point
Likert-type scale (from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree). Therefore, higher
scores in this scale indicate a higher tendency to engage in one or more of these
mechanisms. Even though the items of the scale describe different mechanisms, previous
studies using this scale with Italian samples (Caprara et al., 1995; Caprara et al., 1996;
Menesini et al., 1997) have demonstrated a unidimensional structure of the scale,
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especially for younger children. This was also confirmed in our sample. Therefore,
following the suggestions of the authors of the scale, analyses was conducted on the total
score and not on separate subscales in the present study. The reliability of the scale was
α = .69.
Procedure
Stage 1. The PRQ and the Moral Disengagement Scale were completed during a
single classroom session and the order of presentation of the two measures was
counterbalanced. This session began by introducing the general purpose of the study.
Then, the following definition of bullying (Whitney & Smith, 1993) was presented and
discussed with the class:
“We say a child or young person is being bullied, or picked on when
another child or young person, or a group of children or young people,
say nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. It is also bullying when a
child or young person is hit, kicked, threatened, locked inside a room,
sent nasty notes, when no one ever talks to them and things like that.
These things can happen frequently and it is difficult for the child or
young person being bullied to defend himself or herself. It is also
bullying when a child or young person is teased repeatedly in a nasty
way. But it is not bullying when two children or young people of about
the same strength have the odd fight or quarrel.”
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Stage 2. When the data from Stage 1 had been analyzed, children selected through
the PRQ were tested individually in an area of the school that afforded privacy. During
this session, the stories were presented in a randomized order and the children’s answers
were audio-recorded to facilitate the successive transcription and coding procedure. In
order to avoid any possible influence upon their responses, the experimenter who
interviewed children did not know their Participant role.
Results
Results are presented using the categorical measure of “Participant Roles” to
compare group means in social cognition and moral disengagement with independent 6
(Roles) x 2 (Gender) ANOVAs. The continuous measure ”Role Scores” is used to test
for correlations between the extent of different types of behavior in the whole sample
and the social cognition and moral disengagement measures
Preliminary analysis
A preliminary one-way ANOVA was performed to investigate the possible effect
of Participant Roles on the answers to the control questions. No statistically significant
differences emerged among the different roles [F(5, 192) = 0.962, p = n.s.], thus
confirming that the level of comprehension of the stories presented was similar for all
Participant Roles.
Moreover, in order to control for inter-rater reliability, two independent judges
coded the 30% of all children’s answers. Their level of agreement reached 96%. Cohen’s
kappa was also calculated, resulting in K=.91. Disagreements were due to those answers
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in which the reference to mental states was not completely clear. All discrepancies were
resolved by consultation between the coders.
Participant Roles and social cognition
As the three categories into which our stories were divided (cognitive, emotion
and moral stories) are different from each other, three separate ANOVAs were
conducted on the mean performance in the three sets of stories, with Role and Gender as
between factors. From the analysis, a statistically significant main effect of Role
emerged only for the cognitive stories [F(5, 192) = 2.376, p = .04, ηp 2 = .058]. Post hoc
analyses revealed that Victims’ performance (M=2.88, s.d.=1.61) was significantly
lower than Defenders (M=4.03, s.d.=1.38), whereas other groups did not significantly
differ from each other (Bonferroni comparisons). The main effect of Gender and the
Role x Gender interaction were not statistically significant.
These data do not support the prediction of Hypothesis 1 that bullies should
perform better than other people in the theory of mind tasks, but they also fail to show
social deficits among bullies. In contrast to Hypothesis 2, bullies did not do worse than
the other groups in the moral stories.
Role scores and social cognition
--- Insert Table III about here ---
A partial correlation analysis between social cognition and the actual extent of
different types of behavior (the role scores) was performed. Considering the fact that the
19

scales are correlated with each other, to examine the relation of each role with the
cognitive, emotion and moral information processing skills, in the correlation analysis
the remaining PRQ scales and age were partialled out. Moreover, considering the high
number of comparisons, in order to avoid the increase of type 1 error, Bonferroni’s
correction was used (adjusted level of α: 0.05/24=.002). Correlation coefficients are
shown in Table IV. In line with Hypothesis 1 Bully role is positively correlated with the
total social cognition score and with the cognitive score (the ability to understand
thoughts, intentions, beliefs, etc.) and the emotion score. Moreover, in accordance with
Hypothesis 2, the Defender score is positively correlated with all social cognition scores.
Participant Roles and moral disengagement
--- Insert Table IV about here ---
As concerns the third aim, a two-way ANOVA on the mean score in the Moral
Disengagement Scale was performed with Role and Gender as between factors. A
statistically significant main effect of Role emerged [F(5, 192) = 9.269, p

level of moral disengagement than both Outsiders (M=30.35, s.d.=7.63) and Victims
(M=32.41, s.d.=8.12). These findings support Hypothesis 3.
Role scores and moral disengagement
--- Insert Figure 1 about here ---
A partial correlation analysis, controlled for age of participants, between the score
in the moral disengagement scale and the role scores was performed. Results showed a
positive correlation between moral disengagement and the role scores in Bully
(r(204)=.26, p

models have been proposed in the literature to explain the Bully’s behavior in terms of
social information processing. The first model hypothesizes the presence of deficits in
the social information processing of bullies, similar to those found for aggressive
children (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980). This model, therefore, proposes the idea
of bullies as “oaf” children. They are considered deficient in their social intelligence,
that is their ability to interpret and manage information deriving from social interactions
with peers and to produce adequate social responses. The second model, in contrast,
states that bullies are quite skilful in understanding social cues (e.g., others’ mental
states) and that they exploit this ability to their own advantage, acting as “skilled social
manipulators” (Sutton et al., 1999a; 1999b). However, according to these authors,
bullies may lack the empathic reactivity towards their mates’ emotions and, in particular,
towards victim’s suffering.
In the first two hypotheses of the present study, it was anticipated that bullies may
have a good theory of mind, but they may be deficient in moral cognition. The analysis
of variance, indeed, indicated that the bully group did not show any difficulty, compared
to non-aggressive peers, in the understanding of cognitive stories, which required them
to assume the cognitive point of view of another person, that is to understand intentions,
beliefs and goals that guide a determinate behavior. Moreover, correlations between the
scores in each scale of the PRQ and the performance in the social cognition task
indicated a positive relation between bullying behavior and the ability to understand
others’ mental states. As regards the two models, therefore, our results are closer to what
would be expected by the Skilled Manipulator model (Sutton et al., 1999a). The fact that
our bullies did not show particular deficits in this specific area of social cognition does
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not suggest a direct application of the Social Skills Deficit model (Crick & Dodge, 1994)
to bullying behavior. Further analyses are needed into the social cognitive competence
of children involved in bullying episodes. This is particularly important because theory
of mind explanations per se are not likely to be very helpful for understanding the
unique nature of bullying, in that having a sophisticated theory of mind can lead to
highly prosocial behavior or to bullying behavior. In other words, having a “superior”
theory of mind says nothing about how that knowledge will be utilized in social
interactions (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001).
As regards the two other types of stories used in the present study, bullies’
performance in emotion stories and also in moral stories, a category not used by Sutton
and colleagues (1999b), was found to be slightly, but not significantly lower, than the
performance obtained by other groups. Contrary to our second hypothesis about the
possible difficulties of bullies in moral cognition, our results do not completely confirm
the literature on moral development in aggressive children and bullies (e.g., Bandura,
1991; Hart, Burock, London, & Atkins, 2003). In our sample, in fact, the bullies and
their followers did not show a significant lack of ability in the attribution of appropriate
moral emotions to the characters of the stories. These emotions, such as guilt and shame,
play an important role in the recognition of the damage suffered by another person and
are closely connected to the sense of responsibility of the person who shows the harmful
behavior. Moreover, these emotions imply the need of reparation as a consequence of a
negative outcome produced by one’s behavior (Bybee, 1998; Hoffman, 2000).
However, for both emotion and moral stories, it is important to note that they
actually assess the “cognitive” ability to process emotional information in social
23

interactions rather than an “emotional” or “empathic” comprehension of others’ feelings.
Therefore, the positive performance shown by aggressive children in these kinds of
stories may misrepresent or underestimate the real deficit of these children in emotional
understanding of others. In other words, what bullies may lack and what may
differentiate them from prosocial children is the ability to appreciate the emotional
consequences of their behaviors on others’ feelings, and to share in, and empathize with,
the feelings of others (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). In line
with this perspective, for example, Gini, Albiero, and Benelli (2004) recently found a
negative relation between bullying behavior and empathy, measured through Davis’
empathic reactivity index (1983), in a sample of Italian adolescents.
Sutton and colleagues (1999a) also argued along these lines, referring to the “cold
cognition” hypothesis proposed by Mealey (1995) as regards sociopathy. They also
spoke of a theory of mind formulated purely in instrumental terms, without access to the
empathic understanding that most people rely on. As a consequence, the individual may
use aggressive behavior in a Machiavellian way, without considering its negative
consequences on others. In contrast, high levels of empathic responsiveness act as an
important mediator in social conduct, reducing aggression and favoring prosocial
behavior (Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Kaukiainen, Björkqvist,
Österman, Lagerspetz, & Niskanen, 1994; Kaukiainen, Björkqvist, Österman, &
Lagerspetz, 1996).
With respect to the other groups considered in the present study, victimized
children showed some difficulties in the social cognition task. If compared to the
defender group in particular, they seem to lack the ability to understand others’ mind,
24

that is their thoughts, beliefs and intentions that guide social behavior. Our data are
consistent with results reported by Sutton et al. (1999b). Moreover, several authors share
the idea that victims show deficits in areas like social skills, social problem solving,
assertiveness, and emotional regulation (e.g., Champion, Vernberg, & Shipman, 2003;
Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1997; Mahady-Wilton, Craig, & Pepler, 2000; Olweus, 1993;
Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988). Finally, the results obtained in the social cognition task by
the defender group should be noted. These children, in fact, showed high levels of
performance in all the stories, and especially in the cognitive stories. Moreover, the
score in the defender scale of the PRQ correlated positively with all the scores in the
social cognition task, thus suggesting that the adoption of this kind of prosocial and
helpful behavior requires a high level of social ability and a well-developed
understanding of both cognitive and emotional states of others. However, the fact that
the bullying score also correlated with the social cognition task, again, confirms that
having a good theory of mind, by itself, does not necessarily mean that this ability will
be used to act prosocially (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001).
Bullying and moral disengagement
As regards the third aim of the present study, the analysis of variance on moral
disengagement showed higher levels of the tendency to disengage self-sanctions and
justify the use of aggressive behaviors in all the aggressive roles and, in particular, in
bullies. These results confirmed the role of specific cognitive mechanisms in the
regulation of social conduct, such as the moral disengagement mechanisms that allow
the assumption of violent behaviors (Bacchini et al., 1998; Caprara et al., 1995;
25

Menesini et al., 1999; Menesini et al., 2003). Regarding this aspect, as suggested by a
reviewer, it could be interesting to collect information about the relations between
bullying, familial socialization and moral climate at home and at school.
In contrast, defenders’ high moral sensibility and empathic reactivity, already
found in other studies (Menesini et al., 2003; Gini & Carli, 2003), may be one of the
basic motivations for prosocial behavior, frequently shown by these children towards
their victimized mates. These motivations are very important and must be taken into
account during the implementation of intervention programs in schools (Cowie, 2000;
Cowie, Naylor, Talamelli, Chauhan, & Smith, 2002). However, the fact that the ability
to help other peers requires several interpersonal competencies, that young children do
not necessarily possess, needs to be considered.
In conclusion, the results presented in this paper have several potential
implications for future research. On the one hand, our results draw attention to the
importance of studying the role of social cognitive competencies in the complex circle of
behaviors, attitudes and expectations upon which school bullying phenomenon is based.
On the other hand, the relevance of adopting a more fine-grained classification of roles
in the study of bullying behavior was confirmed.
A possible limitation in the interpretation of our results was the fact that we did
not consider the bully-victim group, that is those children who frequently assume both
kinds of role, acting as a bully and being victimized as well (e.g., Boulton & Smith,
1994; Olweus, 1993). Several authors stressed the relevance of this group of pupils, also
called aggressive-victims (Perry et al., 1988; Schwartz, 2000), in the study of aggressive
problems. Moreover, these children have been consistently described as lacking social-
26

emotional abilities, having psychosocial impairments and a wide range of other
problems (e.g., Besag, 1989). A methodological difficulty in the study of these pupils is
that it is not always simple to clearly identify bully-victims as a distinct group. Despite
this complication, future research in this field will necessarily need to study the social-
cognitive and moral characteristics of this particular group of children, and to compare
their level of cognitive and emotional understanding with that of “pure” bullies and
victims.
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36

Table I. Distribution of Participant Roles (%) within the whole sample
Participant Roles
Bullies Assistants Reinforcers Defenders Outsiders Victims No role Total
Males 15.9 16.3 11.9 11.5 12.2 17.6 14.6 100
Females 5.9 6.3 7.7 26.2 25.5 17.8 10.6 100
37

Table II. Role score correlations for the whole sample
Assistant .68 *
Bully Assistant Reinforcer Defender Outsider
Reinforcer .66 * .60 *
Defender - .16 * - .11 .10
Outsider - .22 * - .24 * - .07 .30 *
Victim .07 .01 .12 - .01 .13
Note: N = 578; * p

Table III. Participant Roles and mean score [s.d.] in social cognition task
Participant
Roles a
Cognitive
stories b
Emotion stories
b
39
Moral
stories b
Total social
cognition task c
Bullies 3.06 [1.30] 2.79 [2.20] 3.18 [1.94] 9.03 [4.79]
Assistants 3.18 [1.47] 3.20 [2.04] 3.59 [1.86] 9.97 [4.85]
Reinforcers 3.15 [1.56] 3.26 [1.76] 3.62 [1.67] 10.03 [4.28]
Defenders 4.03 [1.38] 4.12 [1.45] 4.00 [1.67] 12.15 [4.04]
Outsiders 3.38 [1.76] 3.68 [1.66] 4.06 [1.63] 11.12 [4.58]
Victims 2.88 [1.61] 3.26 [1.81] 3.44 [1.76] 9.59 [4.73]
Note:
a n=34 for each group; b range = 0-5; c range = 0-15

Table IV. Partial correlations of social cognition and individual role scores
Role scores
Social cognition scores
Cognitive Emotion Moral Total score
Bully .195 * .148 * .129 .172 *
Assistant - .021 - .026 .014 - .012
Reinforcer - .074 - .059 - .098 - .078
Defender .214 * .226 * .197 * .223 *
Outsider .071 .008 .060 .050
Victim .068 .109 .112 .104
Note: N = 204; * p

Figure 1. Participant Roles and Moral Disengagement
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Notes:
Defenders, a
n=34 for each group
range = 14-70
Outsiders, c
Victims, c
Assistants, b
a,b; c,d Means with different superscript differ at p < .05.
41
Reinforcers,b
Bullies, b,d