Aggression and Bullying Notes

Aggression and Bullying

• Definition of Aggression:
  • Intent to harm is a key factor.
  • Subjective social labeling influences perception.
  • Injurious and destructive behavior defined socially.

Types of Aggression

• Hostile vs. Instrumental aggression.
• Angry vs. Non-angry aggression.
• Distinction between aggression (behavior), hostility (attitudinal), and anger (emotional arousal).
• Assertiveness is different from aggression.

Theories of Aggression

• Trait theory: Consistency and stability of aggressive traits.
• Drive theory: Freud's hydraulic model, catharsis hypothesis.
• Ethological theory: Agonistic interactions.
• Social cognitive theory:
  • Sociocognitive Influences: Modeling, enactive experience, direct tuition.
  • Sociocognitive Regulators: Outcome expectations, self-efficacy beliefs.
• Information Processing Model (Crick & Dodge, 1994):
  • Encode, interpret social cues; formulate goals.
  • Generate strategies, evaluate effectiveness, enact response.
• General Aggression Model (GAM) (Anderson & Bushman, 2002):
  • Integrative framework considering social, cognitive, personality, developmental, and biological factors.

Role of the Victim

• Anxious or crying children often become targets.
• Aggressors are gratified by pain cues.
• Low self-regard and self-perceived social competence contribute to victimization.
• Cycle: Low self-regard and abuse reinforce each other.
• Anxiety is both a cause and consequence of victimization.
• Types of Peer Victimization:
  • Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber victimization.
• Coping self-efficacy is a mediator between victimization and psychological outcomes.

Personal Factors Related to Victimization

• Physical weakness.
• Behavioral reactions: passive or provocative victim.

Peer Factors Related to Victimization

• Low status, minority status, few friends, poor quality friendships.

Family Factors Related to Victimization

• Overprotective parents, enmeshed relationships, poor communication.

School Factors Related to Victimization

• Bullying not taken seriously, lack of support for reporting, unclear procedures.

Psychological Outcomes of Peer Victimization

• Depression, anxiety, low self-esteem , school refusal and loneliness, acting out, suicide ideation.

Factors Attenuating Negative Impact of Victimization

• Coping skills.
• Coping self-efficacy: perceived capability to control negative events.
  • Two cognitive domains: Self-efficacy for avoiding self-blame, Victim-role disengagement.
  • Two behavioral domains: Self-efficacy for proactive behavior, Self-efficacy for avoiding aggressive behavior.
• Coping Self-Efficacy and Cyber Victimization: Coping self-efficacy and emotion dysregulation partially or fully mediated the relationship between cyber victimization, depression, and social anxiety.

Definition of Bullying

• Bullying involves repeated negative actions over time and an imbalance of power.
• Participant roles: bully, reinforcer, assistant, victim, defender, outsider.

Electronic/Cyber Bullying

• Bullying through digital means.
• Debates over definition remain.
• Prevalence: Lower than traditional bullying; recent data show significant negative online experiences.

Debates about the Causes of Bullying

• Skilled manipulation vs. Cognitive deficits.
• Moral disengagement: Selective activation and disengagement of internal controls, enabling harmful conduct despite moral standards.
• Mechanisms of moral disengagement: moral justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement/diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, dehumanization, attribution of blame.

The Role of Bystanders

• Active vs. Passive bystanders.
• Active bystanders: help the victim or the bully(defenders).
• Intervention by bystanders can reduce bullying.
• Bystanders & Moral Disengagement: MD neg. associated with defending styles & pos. associated with aggressive defending.
• Cyberbullying defending depends on self-efficacy & moral disengagement.