{"id":576,"date":"2020-04-23T19:11:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T18:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-rocs\/?p=576"},"modified":"2020-04-23T19:11:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T18:11:14","slug":"bullying-and-cyberbullying-in-secondary-school-students-the-role-of-moral-disengagement-hostile-attribution-bias-and-outcome-expectancie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/bullying-and-cyberbullying-in-secondary-school-students-the-role-of-moral-disengagement-hostile-attribution-bias-and-outcome-expectancie\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullying and cyberbullying in secondary school students: The role of moral disengagement, hostile attribution bias and outcome expectancies"},"content":{"rendered":"

More about Professor Jane Wood<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Read the full paper<\/a><\/p>\n

About<\/span><\/b>\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Bullying in secondary school is a common concern and can include physical, verbal or relational aggression. Research shows that both perpetrators and victims of bullying are at higher risk of psychosocial problems.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A range of cognitive mechanisms have been proposed to explain how bullying <\/span>behaviours<\/span> are justified from the perpetrator including moral disengagement (<\/span>a person\u2019s moral self-sanctions are not activated), hostile attribution bias (<\/span>incorrectly attributing hostile intent to others) and expecting <\/span>favourable<\/span> outcomes from bullying.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These mechanisms serve to protect the perpetrator from negative feelings and self-condemnation, and to loosen inhabitation to harmful conduct. Relatively little is known about the relationship between traditional and cyber bullying in the UK and the shared and individual cognitive mechanisms involved.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this study Professor Jane Wood and colleagues examine the relationship between such cognitions and engagement in traditional and cyber bullying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

This research <\/span>examines the cognitive mechanisms behind traditional and cyber bullying. It examine the contribution of:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • moral disengagement<\/span>, and its subcomponents <\/span><\/li>\n
  • hostile attribution bias<\/span><\/li>\n
  • outcome expectancies <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Aim: to identify shared and unique cognitive factors of the two forms of bullying<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Programme and methodology<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    339 secondary school students<\/span>, year 7-9\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Self-report<\/span> measures<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Bullying\/victimisation questionnaire<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Questionnaire for the assessment of moral disengagement, hostile attribution bias and outcome expectancies \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Findings<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
        \n
      • 55% of students reported having been cyber-victimised at least one in the past 6 months<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Girls are more likely to engage in cyber bullying than boys<\/li>\n
      • Moral disengagement and moral justification<\/span> positively related to both forms of bullying.<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Euphemistic language, displacement of r<\/span>esponsibility and outcome expectancies positively related to traditional bullying<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Hostile attribution bias negatively related to traditional bullying<\/li>\n
      • Cyberbullying and cybervictimisation<\/span> were associated with high levels of traditional bullying<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Impact<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
          \n
        • This project offered <\/span>new and important insight<\/span><\/b> on <\/span>the specific shared and individual cognitive mechanisms involved in traditional and cyber bullying in secondary school students in the UK.\u00a0<\/span>
          \n<\/span>These findings show that bullying is omnipresent and a pressing issue that needs to be addressed. <\/span>The data suggest that<\/span> moral disengagement is an important predictor of both traditional and cyber bullying. Furthermore,<\/span> the expectation of positive outcome from harmful behaviour facilitates engagement in traditional bullying.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
        • This project offers important suggestions for anti-bullying interventions.<\/strong>
          \n<\/span>Insight into the specific cognitive mechanisms involved can guide teachers, clinicians and researchers which cognitive behaviours to address and alter in order to tackle and prevent bullying<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          More about Professor Jane Wood Read the full paper About\u202f\u00a0 Bullying in secondary school is a common concern and can include physical, verbal or relational aggression. Research shows that both perpetrators and victims of bullying are at higher risk of psychosocial problems.\u00a0\u00a0 A range of cognitive mechanisms have been proposed to explain how bullying behaviours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bullying-peer-relations"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}