Developmental Trajectories of (Cyber)Bullying Perpetration and Social Intelligence During Early Adolescence

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine bullying perpetration and social intelligence (SI), which is a sociocognitive characteristic that has been proposed as a possible regulator of traditional and cyberbullying. We compared SI for perpetrators and nonperpetrators of traditional bullying and/or cyberbullying and examined longitudinal associations. A four-wave panel study with 6-month time intervals was conducted among 1,103 adolescents. Latent class analysis was used to examine developmental trajectories of bullying across 2 years. Four profiles of adolescents were found: nonstop traditional bullies, (traditional and cyber) bullies with decreasing perpetration, (traditional and cyber) bullies with increasing perpetration, and noninvolved. No separate nonstop cyberbullying class was found. In a next step, latent growth curves of SI were calculated for each profile. Nonstop traditional bullies had the lowest levels of SI and their level remained low. Further implications of these results for prevention and intervention, and for research are discussed.