The present study examined links between perceived teacher unfairness and bullying behavior in early adolescence, and the potential mediating role of instrumental social goals (specifically, agentic and separate goals). Based on social information processing theory, our model of proactive aggression was evaluated using path analysis in a sample of 662 Italian students aged between 11 and 13 years old (mean age = 12.55, SD = 0.99; 50.6% males). Results showed that perceived teacher unfairness positively relates to bullying, and that this relationship is partially mediated by the endorsement of instrumental goals. Our findings offer promising implications for future research and for intervention programs that aim to prevent school bullying through modifying the classroom context.
ArsenioW.AdamsE.GoldJ. (2009). Social information processing, moral reasoning, and emotion attributions: Relations with adolescents’ reactive and proactive aggression. Child Development, 80, 1739-1755.
2.
ArsenioW.GoldJ. (2006). The effects of social injustice and inequality on children’s moral judgments and behavior: Towards a theoretical model. Cognitive Development, 21, 388-400.
3.
BatemanH. V. (2002). Sense of community in the school: Listening to students’ voices. In FisherA. T.SonnC. C.BishopB. J. (Eds.), Psychological sense of community: Research, applications, and implications (pp. 161-179). New York, NY: Plenum.
4.
BeiswengerK. L.GrolnickW. S. (2010). Interpersonal and intrapersonal factors associated with autonomous motivation in adolescents’ after-school activities. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 30, 369-394.
5.
BollenK. A. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
6.
BronfenbrennerU. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
ByrneB. M. (1989). Multigroup comparison and the assumption of equivalent construct validity across groups: Methodological and substantive issues. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 24, 503-523.
8.
CampbellM. K.TorgersonD. J. (1999). Bootstrapping: Estimating confidence intervals for cost-effectiveness ratios. The Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 92, 177-182.
9.
ChiaH. B.FooM. D.FangR. (2006). Workplace as communities: The role of social networks in who seeks, gives, and accepts information on justice issues. Journal of Community Psychology, 34, 363-377.
10.
Chory-AssadR. M.PaulselM. L. (2004). Classroom justice: Student aggression and resistance as reactions to perceived unfairness. Communication Education, 53, 253-273.
11.
CrickN.DodgeK. (1994). A review and reformulation of social-information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 74-101.
12.
CropanzanoR.ByrneZ. S.BobocelD. R.RuppD. E. (2001). Moral virtues, fairness heuristics, social entities, and other denizens of organizational justice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 164-209.
13.
DalbertC.StöberJ. (2002). Gerechtes Schulklima [Just school climate]. In StöberJ. (Ed.), Skalendokumentation “Persönliche Ziele von SchülerInnen” (Hallesche Berichte zur Pädagogischen Psychologie Nr. 3, pp. 32-34). Halle/Saale, Germany: Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg.
14.
DorseyS.ForehandR. (2003). The relation of social capital to child psychosocial adjustment difficulties: The role of positive parenting and neighborhood dangerousness. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 25, 11-23.
15.
DueP.HolsteinB. E.LynchJ.DiderichesenF.GabhainS. N.ScheidtP. (2005). Bullying and symptoms among school-aged children: International comparative cross-sectional study in 28 countries. European Journal of Public Health, 15, 128-132.
16.
ElgarF. J.PickettK. E.PickettW.CraigW.MolchoM.HurrelmannK.LenziM. (2013). School bullying, homicide and income inequality: A cross-national pooled time series analysis. International Journal of Public Health, 58, 237-245.
17.
GarbarinoJ. (1997). Growing up in a socially toxic environment. In CicchettiD.TothS. (Eds.), Developmental perspectives on trauma: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 141-154). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
18.
GiniG. (2008). Italian elementary and middle school students’ blaming the victim of bullying and perception of school moral atmosphere. Elementary School Journal, 108(4), 1-20.
19.
GiniG.PozzoliT. (2009). Association between bullying and psychosomatic problems: A meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 123, 1059-1065.
20.
GiniG.PozzoliT.HauserM. (2011). Bullies have enhanced moral competence to judge relative to victims, but lack moral compassion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 603-608.
21.
HobfollS. E.JacksonA.HobfollI.PierceC. A.YoungS. (2002). The impact of communal-mastery versus self-mastery on emotional outcomes during stressful conditions: A prospective study of native American women. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30, 853-872.
22.
JacksonB.KubzanskyL. D.WrightR. J. (2006). Linking perceived unfairness to physical health: The perceived unfairness model. Review of General Psychology, 10, 21-40.
LeBlancL.SwisherR.VitaroF.TramblayR. E. (2008). High school social climate and antisocial behavior: A 10 year longitudinal and multilevel study. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 18, 395-419.
25.
LeventhalG. S. (1980). What should be done with equity theory? In GergenK. J.GreenbergM. S.WillisR. H. (Eds.), Social exchange: Advances in theory and research (pp. 27-55). New York, NY: Plenum.
26.
NakamotoJ.SchwartzD. (2009). Is peer victimization associated with academic achievement? A meta-analytic review. Social Development, 19, 221-242.
27.
NationM.VienoA.PerkinsD. D.SantinelloM. (2008). Bullying in school and adolescent sense of empowerment: An analysis of relationships with parents, friends, and teachers. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 18, 211-232.
28.
OjanenT.GrönrossM.SalmivalliC. (2005). An interpersonal circumplex model of children’s social goals: Links with peer-reported behavior and sociometric status. Developmental Psychology, 41, 699-710.
29.
PeetersM.CillessenA. H. N.ScholteR. H. J. (2010). Clueless or powerful? Identifying subtypes of bullies in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39, 1041-1052.
30.
PozzoliT.GiniG.VienoA. (2012a). Individual and class moral disengagement in bullying among elementary school children. Aggressive Behavior, 38, 378-388.
31.
PozzoliT.GiniG.VienoA. (2012b). The role of individual correlates and class norms in defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying: A multilevel analysis. Child Development, 83, 1917-1931.
32.
R Development Core Team. (2012). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available from http://www.R-project.org/
33.
ReijntjesA.KamphuisJ. H.PrinzieP.TelchM. J. (2010). Peer victimization and internalizing problems in children: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34, 244-252.
34.
RosseelY. (with contributions from many people). (2012). lavaan: Latent variable analysis (R package version 0.4-12). Retrieved from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lavaan
35.
SantinelloM.VienoA.De VogliR. (2011). Bullying in Italian schools: The role of perceived teacher unfairness. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 26, 235-246.
36.
ShapiroE. G. (1990). Effect of instructor and class characteristics on students’ class evaluations. Research in Higher Education, 31, 135-148.
37.
SijtsemaJ.VeenstraR.LindenbergS. S.SalmivalliC. (2009). Empirical test of bullies’ status goals: Assessing direct goals, aggression, and prestige. Aggressive Behavior, 34, 1-11.
38.
SolbergM. E.OlweusD. (2003). Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire. Aggressive Behavior, 29, 239-268.
39.
SuttonJ.SmithP. K.SwettenhamJ. (1999). Bullying and “theory of mind”: A critique of the “social skills deficit” model of anti-social behavior. Social Development, 8, 117-127.
40.
TylerT. R.LindE. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 115-192.
41.
TylerT. R.SmithH. J. (1999). Justice, social identity, and group processes. In TylerT. R.KramerR. M.JohnO. P. (Eds.), The psychology of the social self (pp. 223-264). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
42.
VienoA.GiniG.SantinelloM. (2011a). Different forms of bullying and their association to smoking and drinking behavior in Italian adolescents. Journal of School Health, 81, 393-399.
43.
VienoA.GiniG.SantinelloM.LenziM.NationM. (2011b). Violent behavior and unfairness in school: Multilevel analysis of Italian schools. Journal of Community Psychology, 39, 534-550.
44.
VienoA.NationM.PerkinsD. D.PastoreM.SantinelloM. (2010). Social capital, safety concerns, parenting and early adolescents’ antisocial behavior. Journal of Community Psychology, 38, 314-328.
45.
VienoA.PerkinsD. D.SmithT. M.SantinelloM. (2005). Democratic school climate and sense of community in school: A multilevel analysis. American Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 327-341.
46.
VienoA.SantinelloM.PastoreM.PerkinsD. D. (2007). Social support, sense of community in school, and self-efficacy as resources during early adolescence: An integrative, developmentally oriented model. American Journal of Community Psychology, 39, 177-190.
47.
WendorfC. A.AlexanderS. (2005). The influence of individual- and class-level fairness-related perceptions on student satisfaction. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 190-206.
48.
WilcoxP.ClaytonR. R. (2001). A multilevel analysis of school-based weapon possession. Justice Quarterly, 18, 509-541.
