Disentangling the Frequency and Severity of Bullying and Victimization in the Association with Empathy

Abstract

This study disentangled the frequency and perceived severity of experienced bullying and victimization by investigating their associations with cognitive and affective empathy. Participants were 800 children (7-12 years old) from third-to fifth-grade classrooms who completed self-report measures of the frequency and perceived severity of their bullying and victimization and of cognitive and affective empathy. Results showed that the frequency and perceived severity of bullying were moderately correlated in the entire sample but unrelated within the subsample of bullies. Frequency and perceived severity of victimization were significantly and positively correlated in the entire sample (moderate effect) and the subsample of victims (small effect). Frequent, but not severe, bullies reported less cognitive empathy than non-bullies whereas both frequent and severe victims reported more affective empathy than non-victims. Within subsamples of bullies and victims, frequency of bullying was negatively associated with cognitive and affective empathy, and perceived severity of bullying was positively associated with affective empathy. Frequency of victimization was not associated with cognitive and affective empathy, but perceived severity of victimization was positively associated with both forms of empathy.

Empathy and defending behaviours in school bullying: The mediating role of motivation to defend victims

“…An emerging body of the literature focuses on the association between bullying and empathy (i.e., see Eisenberg, Eggum, & Di Giunta, ; Joliffe & Farrington, ; Pozzoli et al ., ; Van Noorden, Bukowsi, Haselager, Lansu, & Cillessen, ; Van Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen, & Bukowski, ), although a growing body of studies has shown a negative association between empathy and defending behaviours in peer aggression and bullying (e.g., Barchia & Bussey, ; Gini et al ., ; Meter & Card, ; for a meta‐analysis, see Nickerson et al ., ). In addition, empathy has been linked with autonomous motivation for prosocial behaviour among adults (Gini, Pozzoli, & Vieno, ; Pavey et al ., ).…”

Bullying Involvement and Empathy: Child and Target Characteristics

“…Cognitive empathy (four items) and affective empathy (four items) were measured toward each of the seven other children in the group. Items were selected from the adapted version of the Basic Empathy Scale (BES; Jolliffe & Farrington, )—which was used in Phase 1 as part of the larger project (van Noorden et al, )—and transformed to make the questionnaire target specific. For example, the cognitive item ‘I can understand my friend's happiness when she/he does well at something’ was transformed to ‘I can understand Child X 's happiness when she/he does well at something’; the affective item ‘I become sad when I see other people crying’ was transformed to ‘I become sad when I see Child X crying’.…”

“…This study consisted of two phases and was part of a larger project (van Noorden, Bukowski, Haselager, Lansu, & Cillessen, 2016;van Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2014;van Noorden, Haselager, Lansu, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2015). In Phase 1, peer nomination data for bullying and victimization were collected in elementary school classrooms.…”

Perceived burdensomeness, bullying, and suicidal ideation in suicidal military personnel

“…Last, though there is no established way to categorize the severity of bullying, van Noorden, Bukowski, Haselager, Lansu, and Cillessen (2016) found that in children who were bullied, frequency of bullying was not associated with perceived severity of bullying. For this reason, we chose to investigate whether the CDC's compendium of bullying assessment tools adequately measured the holistic experience of bullying.…”