This study examined the effect on pre-adolescent children’s attitudes to
bullying of one group-based variable (group status) and two situational variables
(rule legitimacy and rule consistency). Pre-adolescent boys (n 1/4 229)
read a story about a group of boys who had high or low (handball) status. The
legitimacy (high versus low) of the rules governing the use of a handball court, and
the extent to which the group’s claim to the court was consistent with the
rules (high versus low), were also manipulated. The participants’ liking,
causal attribution, deservingness, and punishment responses to an intergroup
bullying episode instigated by the group of boys against children from another class
indicated that the participants recognised the import of the situational variables
and, at least to some extent, took them into account. Nevertheless, the results
indicated that the children favoured the bully group, and that their responses
systematically reflected this bias. Possible bases for understanding these effects
are discussed.
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