Bullying, victimization, and prosocial resource control strategies: Differential relations with dominance and alliance formation.

Abstract

Using evolutionary theories related to bullying, resource control, and reciprocal altruism as guiding frameworks, this study examined how bullying perpetration, bullying victimization, and prosocial resource control strategies were associated with two distinct indicators of the ability to acquire resources—dominance and alliance formation. Adolescents (N = 396; Mage = 14.64, SDage = 1.52; 58% girls) completed self-report measures on bullying perpetration and victimization, prosocial strategies, dominance, and alliance formation. As predicted, path analyses revealed that bullying perpetration was positively associated with dominance only, whereas prosocial strategies were positively associated with both dominance and alliance formation. As expected, victimization was negatively associated with alliance formation, but the hypothesized negative relation with dominance was not found. Finally, prosocial behavior did not interact with bullying perpetration or victimization, contrary to predictions. Overall, results were consistent with resource control theory in that coercive (i.e., bullying) and prosocial strategies were both associated with at least one measure of the ability to acquire resources. However, findings were also in accord with reciprocal altruism, social contract theory, and indirect reciprocity theory, as participants’ prosocial behavior was the only strategy associated with self-reports of peers cooperating with participants in alliances.

HEXACO personality correlates of adolescents' involvement in bullying situations

“…That is, these adolescents are helpful, cooperative, and concerned with obtaining and maintaining a positive peer‐group reputation (e.g., social preference), while at the same time striving for peer‐group harmony (i.e., getting along). Recently, adolescents' prosocial strategic behavior was found to be associated with the ability to acquire social resources through cooperative alliance formation (Farrell & Dane, 2020). The present findings regarding anti‐bullying adolescents' higher Honesty‐Humility—or their inclination toward proactive reciprocal altruism—support the hypothesis that adolescents may strategically use (direct) defending to form cooperative alliances with peers.…”

Leader Power and Agency-Communion Orientations as Moderators of the Effects of Organizational Characteristics on Workplace Bullying

“…An agentic leadership orientation involves being dominant, assertive, competitive, active, decisive, and achievement orientated (Abele, 2003 ; Kark et al, 2012 ). Research suggests that dominance is associated with bullying perpetration (Farrell & Dane, 2020 ). Meanwhile, other studies have shown that highly competitive organizational environments may lead to increased incidences of workplace bullying (Cheng & Huang, 2019 ).…”

Applying an Evolutionary Approach of Risk-Taking Behaviors in Adolescents

“…Finally, the economic recession could have also resulted in a higher risk for obtaining resources through parental investment in male adolescents. The final consequence is male adolescents’ need to take part in risk-taking behaviors to access such resources, something which has been demonstrated in bullying behaviors ( Volk et al, 2012 ; Farrell and Dane, 2020 ).…”

“…From an adaptive perspective, we propose that adolescents who take part in risk-taking behaviors need to be viewed in a different manner in order to understand them. In fact, risk-taking behaviors such as bullying have been seen to increase access to resources, such as food, social status, and mates ( Volk et al, 2012 ; Farrell and Dane, 2020 ).…”