van Dijk Anouk, Poorthuis Astrid M G, Malti Tina
Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Aggress Behav. 2017 Sep;43(5):430-439. doi: 10.1002/ab.21701. Epub 2017 Feb 8.
Some children who bully others are also victimized themselves ("bully-victims") whereas others are not victimized themselves ("bullies"). These subgroups have been shown to differ in their social functioning as early as in kindergarten. What is less clear are the motives that underlie the bullying behavior of young bullies and bully-victims. The present study examined whether bullies have proactive motives for aggression and anticipate to feel happy after victimizing others, whereas bully-victims have reactive motives for aggression, poor theory of mind skills, and attribute hostile intent to others. This "distinct processes hypothesis" was contrasted with the "shared processes hypothesis," predicting that bullies and bully-victims do not differ on these psychological processes. Children (n = 283, age 4-9) were classified as bully, bully-victim, or noninvolved using peer-nominations. Theory of mind, hostile intent attributions, and happy victimizer emotions were assessed using standard vignettes and false-belief tasks; reactive and proactive motives were assessed using teacher-reports. We tested our hypotheses using Bayesian model selection, enabling us to directly compare the distinct processes model (predicting that bullies and bully-victims deviate from noninvolved children on different psychological processes) against the shared processes model (predicting that bullies and bully-victims deviate from noninvolved children on all psychological processes alike). Overall, the shared processes model received more support than the distinct processes model. These results suggest that in early childhood, bullies and bully-victims have shared, rather than distinct psychological processes underlying their bullying behavior.
一些欺负他人的儿童自己也会成为受害者（“欺凌-受害者”），而另一些儿童则不会成为受害者（“欺凌者”）。早在幼儿园阶段，这些亚群体在社交功能方面就已表现出差异。然而，年轻的欺凌者和欺凌-受害者的欺凌行为背后的动机却不太明确。本研究调查了欺凌者是否具有主动攻击的动机，并预期在伤害他人后会感到快乐，而欺凌-受害者是否具有被动攻击的动机、心理理论技能较差，以及将敌意意图归咎于他人。这种“不同过程假设”与“共同过程假设”形成对比，后者预测欺凌者和欺凌-受害者在这些心理过程上没有差异。通过同伴提名，将283名4至9岁的儿童分为欺凌者、欺凌-受害者或未卷入者。使用标准的情景描述和错误信念任务来评估心理理论、敌意意图归因和快乐加害者情绪；使用教师报告来评估被动和主动动机。我们使用贝叶斯模型选择来检验我们的假设，这使我们能够直接比较不同过程模型（预测欺凌者和欺凌-受害者在不同心理过程上与未卷入儿童存在差异）和共同过程模型（预测欺凌者和欺凌-受害者在所有心理过程上与未卷入儿童存在相同差异）。总体而言，共同过程模型比不同过程模型得到了更多支持。这些结果表明，在幼儿期，欺凌者和欺凌-受害者在其欺凌行为背后具有共同而非不同的心理过程。
