Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Aggression and Violent Behavior

A synthesis of person- and relational-level factors that influence bullying

and bystanding behaviors: Toward an integrative framework
Idean Ettekal a,⁎, Becky Kochenderfer-Ladd a, Gary W. Ladd a,b
a
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, USA
b
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this article, we attempt to integrate several theoretical models with the goal of explicating more broadly the
Received 17 March 2015 determinants of bullying and bystanding behaviors. In particular, participant role perspectives (e.g., models in
Accepted 13 May 2015 which bullying is conceptualized in the context of multiple participants) serve as an overarching frame for exam-
Available online 22 May 2015
ining and formulating hypotheses about two additional types of determinants: (a) child attributes—specifically,
the role of children's person-related development (i.e., social-cognitive, emotion, and moral processing), and
Keywords:
Bullying
(b) children's experience with multiple socializing agents (i.e., peers and teachers). Empirical evidence is
Peer victimization reviewed to identify relevant constructs, and critical analyses of evidence within and across conceptual domains
Participant roles are utilized to formulate novel hypotheses about how person- and relational-level (socialization) processes may
Aggression contribute to individual differences in bullying and bystanding behaviors.
Social cognitions © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1.1. Overview of synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1.1.1. Overview of person-level factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1.1.2. Overview of relational-level factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
1.1.3. Overview summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2. Person-level factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.1. Social cognitive processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.1.1. Overview of social cognitive processing perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.1.2. Social cognitive processing models and bullying and bystanding behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.1.3. Implications of social cognitive processing perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.2. Emotion processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.2.1. Overview of emotion processing perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.2.2. Role of emotion processing on bullying and bystanding behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.2.3. Synthesis of emotion processing and the SIP framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.3. Moral processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.3.1. Overview of moral processing perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.3.2. Role of moral processing on bullying and bystanding behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.3.3. Synthesis of moral processing and the SIP framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3. Relational-level factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1. Peer influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1.1. Overview of peer influence processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1.2. Peer influence processes and bullying and bystanding behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1.3. Implications of peer influence processes for hypothesis generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.2. Teacher influence processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.2.1. Overview of teacher influence processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.2.2. Role of teacher influence processes on bullying and bystanding behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

⁎ Corresponding author at: T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, P.O. Box 873701, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2502, USA.
E-mail address: Idean.Ettekal@asu.edu (I. Ettekal).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.05.011
1359-1789/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
76 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86

3.2.3. Implications of teacher influence processes for hypothesis generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

1. Introduction bullying behaviors which are aimed at supporting or defending victims

Over the past two decades, research on bullying has proliferated, and
the school context (e.g., classrooms, hallways, playgrounds, cafeterias,
lavatories) has been the principal place where researchers have studied
this phenomenon. It is now clear that bullying (e.g., repeated aggressive
behavior aimed at intentionally harming an individual who is weaker or
in a more vulnerable social position than the perpetrator) is an interna-
tional problem that crosses gender, socioeconomic, cultural and racial
lines (see Jimerson, Swearer, & Espelage, 2010). Central to this body of
research is the question of what factors encourage, contribute to, and
sustain bullying behavior in school contexts. Moreover, because it has
been argued that bullying is a group phenomenon that, in addition to
bullies and their victims, involves bystanders who take active
participant roles in bullying (e.g., reinforcing or assisting bullies;
defending victims; see Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, Osterman, &
Kaukiainen, 1996), researchers have also expanded their research to
examine factors that influence bystanders' behavior.
Investigators have worked from a diversity of theoretical assump-
tions, frameworks and premises to advance our understanding of the
bullying phenomenon (e.g., see Espelage & Swearer, 2010; Hong &
Espelage, 2012; Salmivalli, 2010; Schwartz, Kelly, Duong, & Badaly,
2010; Veenstra et al., 2007). Collectively, this large, and growing, body
of research has provided valuable insight into the nature of bullying
and bystanding behaviors, including the individual characteristics and
social motivations of the participants, as well as how social context
factors contribute to, and sustain, bullying behavior. However, because
investigators tend to examine these premises independently rather
than jointly, it is less clear how multiple variables, operating conjointly,
interact with one another to influence bullying and bystanding
behaviors.
Accordingly, our goal for this article is to review what is known
about the factors contributing to bullying and bystanding behavior in
school contexts, and begin to synthesize findings in ways that offer
promising avenues for extending research in novel directions. Although,
individually, theoretical perspectives provide unique insights, we posit
that the integration of premises and constructs across perspectives
would provide for a more systematic and nuanced understanding of
the multifaceted causes of bullying and bystanding behaviors. Thus, it
is our hope that this synthesis will not only extend investigative
agendas, but also encourage greater integration of the theoretical
perspectives that drive research in this area.
1.1. Overview of synthesis
Consistent with the conceptualization of bullying as a group process
(Atlas & Pepler, 1998; Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000b), this article is
grounded in a participant role perspective (Salmivalli et al., 1996). The
central proposition of this perspective is that bullying and bystanding
behaviors can be construed as a function of the larger social context in
which they occur. In other words, it is argued that the extent to which
bullying arises and is sustained is dependent not only upon the involve-
ment of bullies and their victims, but also the behavioral responses of
those who witness it (i.e., bystanders; see Salmivalli, 2010; Salmivalli
et al., 1996). For example, some participant roles (i.e., assistants and re-
inforcers) are characterized by pro-bullying bystanding behaviors such
as joining in, applauding, or enticing bullying. In contrast, other partici-
pant roles (i.e., defenders) may be regarded as demonstrating anti-
and discouraging bullying. Thus, throughout this synthesis, we examine
how each of the determinants reviewed may differentiate among pro-
bullying and anti-bullying bystanding behaviors and roles.
To organize this large and diverse literature on the factors that con-
tribute to bullying and bystanding behaviors, we utilize a child (person)
and environment (relational) framework (see Kochenderfer-Ladd,
Ladd, & Kochel, 2009 for similar treatment of risk factors for peer victim-
ization). To identify person-level factors that contribute to bullying and
bystanding behaviors, we draw from social cognitive theories broadly,
and social information processing (SIP) models in particular. According
to SIP models (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; Crick & Dodge, 1994; Lemerise
& Arsenio, 2000), it is postulated that three forms of processing operate
conjointly within the individual (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and moral) to
organize and guide social behavior. Consistent with these perspectives,
we examine research on each of these types of processes as a means of
identifying person-level factors that may be implicated in bullying and
bystanding behaviors. At the relational (environment) level, we consid-
er children's experience with multiple socializing agents (i.e., peers and
teachers) that may account for individual differences in bullying and
bystanding behaviors.
Using this person and relational framework, the remaining sections
of this article are used to: (1) identify and critically analyze within
person and relational factors (processes) that may underlie individual
differences in bullying and bystanding behaviors, and (2) propose
promising avenues for integrating perspectives on bullying and
bystanding behaviors by generating hypotheses about potential causal
pathways among the identified processes.
1.1.1. Overview of person-level factors
At the person level, models that attempt to explain how children's
social-cognitive development impacts their behavioral decisions are rel-
evant to research on bullying and bystanding behaviors. For example,
social information processing (SIP) perspectives (Crick & Dodge, 1994)
have been used to generate hypotheses regarding how children's
aggressive behavior may stem from poor information processing at
various ‘steps’ in the decision process (i.e., cognitive processing). More
recently, reformulations of the SIP framework have been proposed
which more explicitly integrate children's emotion and moral
processing with social cognitive processes (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004;
Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). Applying this reformulated SIP perspective
to the study of bullying allows for a more complex and nuanced set of
hypotheses to be tested. Specifically, the reformulated SIP model
theoretically argues that collective variations in children's social cogni-
tive (e.g., social goals, interpretations of social interactions and outcome
expectations), emotion (e.g., emotion understanding, affective ties
between children, and empathy), and moral (e.g., moral knowledge,
reasoning, and disengagement) processing interact in ways that orga-
nize and motivate children's behavior. Extending this logic, it is reason-
able to hypothesize that the likelihood that children engage in specific
bullying or bystanding behaviors would depend on person-level factors
in these three domains. Thus, in this paper, relevant frameworks,
premises, and findings from SIP perspectives which include social
cognition, emotion and moral development perspectives are reviewed.
Although important insights have been achieved by investigating
each of these developmental processes individually, by examining the
interactions and functioning of multiple domains simultaneously, new
hypotheses can be formed to better understand how these interrelated
 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
processes collectively predict bullying and bystanding behaviors. Spe-
cifically, we propose that combinations of social cognitive, emotion,
and moral processes have synergistic effects on bullying and bystanding
behaviors that better account for individual differences in these
behaviors than any one process alone. In the sections that follow, we
offer specific hypotheses to test the proposition that bullying and
bystanding behaviors (and their corresponding participant roles) may
be distinguishable based on unique profiles of social-cognitive, emotion
and moral processing.
1.1.2. Overview of relational-level factors
At the relational level, it is proposed that two salient socializa-
tion influences operating within the school context—peers and
teachers—collectively impact bullying and bystanding behaviors. These
socialization agents are theorized to influence bullying and bystanding
behaviors via two process mechanisms: proximal (i.e., direct) and distal
(i.e., indirect) influences. With respect to proximal influences, it is argued
that by directly intervening in bullying episodes, peers and teachers are
able to influence bullying and bystanding behaviors. In comparison, distal
mechanisms include factors that indirectly effect bullying and bystanding
behaviors via their influence on children's person-related development
(i.e., social cognitive, emotion and moral processing).
It is important to recognize that other socializing agents, besides
peers and teachers, also influence children's person-related develop-
ment. For instance, parents engage in socialization processes
(e.g., parenting styles and parent–child attachment) that also
contribute to children's social cognitive, emotion, and moral develop-
ment (e.g., see Dykas & Cassidy, 2011). However, because this review's
focus is school-related bullying and bystanding behaviors, peers and
teachers receive primary consideration. Both of these socialization agents
are present in school environments and, therefore, are most likely to be
involved in (and affect) bullying and bystanding behaviors.
1.1.3. Overview summary
Undoubtedly, across childhood and adolescence, children's social
cognitive, emotion and moral processes become more sophisticated
and their socialization experiences with peers and teachers evolve. As
children strive for greater independence and autonomy and rely
increasingly on peers for support, it is reasonable to expect that teacher
influences wane as peer influences increase, reflecting normative devel-
opmental changes. Thus, although we offer integrative hypotheses that
are broadly applicable for school-aged children and adolescents, it is
important to note that there most likely are developmental variations
in the causal mechanisms that predict bullying and bystanding behav-
iors as children mature and experience normative changes in their
person-related development and in the role and influence of multiple
socialization processes.
In the following sections, each person-level factor (i.e., social cogni-
tive, emotion and moral processes) and relational influence (i.e., peer
and teacher) is reviewed. In particular, each section begins with a
broad theoretical overview and summarizes the central arguments
that can be gleaned from each perspective. Next, relevant research
and empirical evidence specific to bullying and bystanding behaviors
are reviewed in light of these perspectives. Finally, based on these the-
oretical rationales and empirical evidence, each section ends with a
set of suggestions for integration across perspectives and delineating
relevant testable hypotheses.
2. Person-level factors
2.1. Social cognitive processes
2.1.1. Overview of social cognitive processing perspectives
Earlier formulations of the social information processing (SIP)
perspective (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994) focused primarily on social
cognitive processes; specifically, they delineated five social cognitive
77
steps that influence individuals' behavioral responses during social in-
teractions. These steps involve: 1) attending to and encoding social
cues, 2) interpreting cues, 3) selecting a social goal (clarification),
4) generating possible responses (access or construction of possible
response), and 5) selecting and enacting a response (decision; outcome
evaluation). During the first two steps, individuals attend to a specific
social cue or event and interpret why the event occurred and what
resulted from it. In the third and fourth steps, a social goal is selected
for the event based on desired outcomes, and memories of prior
outcomes and responses to the social cue. In the final step, potential re-
sponses are evaluated and the one with the most favorable evaluation is
selected. Although these steps are described in a relatively sequential
process, their real-time functioning occurs in parallel, with numerous
feedback loops.
An integral component of this perspective is that individuals form
cognitive mental representations (i.e., the database; see Crick & Dodge,
1994) from which they can access stored information pertaining to
their long-term memories, social knowledge, acquired social rules or
norms and relational schemas. Presumably, this stored information (in
this database) is the accumulation of individuals' experiences across
their life history and reflective of their collective socialization experi-
ences and interactions. Stored information influences online cognitive
processing, and over time, these processes result in revisions to the
database. Thus, when children begin formal schooling, their prior
socialization experiences with caretakers are likely to influence their
expectations about their interactions with peers, and in turn, children's
interactions with peers subsequently contribute to revisions in the
database.
2.1.2. Social cognitive processing models and bullying and bystanding
behaviors
Although Crick and Dodge's (1994, 1996) SIP framework was initial-
ly applied to the study of the development of aggressive behaviors
(e.g., proactive and reactive aggression), their social cognitive process-
ing steps can be readily applied to the study of bullying and bystanding
behaviors. By differentiating each of the social cognitive steps and iden-
tifying the tendencies (or ‘biases’) that children exhibit at each step, it
may be possible to predict whether or not children will engage in bully-
ing or specific bystanding behaviors. For example, it could be theorized
that bullying and pro-bullying bystanding behaviors may be due to spe-
cific processing biases at various steps, such that: 1) the child attends to
specific forms of peer behavior which can be 2) interpreted as provoca-
tive, annoying, or vulnerable. Their dominance or status goals may be
activated (step 3), aggressive or bullying responses are accessed (step
4), and it is determined that such goals can be achieved with little or
no personal consequence (step 5).
With respect to how children encode and interpret social cues from
peers (steps 1 and 2), there is evidence that bullies seem to look for, and
attend to, peer behavior that can be interpreted as vulnerable and
offering an easy target. Specifically, investigators have found that bullies
selectively target peers who are vulnerable in the sense that they may
be physically weaker, have lower social standing and are disliked by
other children (i.e., rejected), or are perceived to have fewer or no allies
(e.g., friends or classmates) with higher social standing or status
(Hodges & Perry, 1999; Salmivalli & Isaacs, 2005; Veenstra et al.,
2007). Thus, it is plausible that when children with a tendency to
bully interpret social cues that indicate a child is defenseless, they are
more likely to consider behaving aggressively.
Social goals (step 3) are also critical to the application of SIP perspec-
tives to understanding bullying and bystanding behaviors. For instance,
where some children see a defenseless peer as an opportunity to gain
status or tangible rewards, others may see a peer in need of protection
or help. In acknowledgement of the importance of social goals, investi-
gators have identified two broad types of goals that appear to underlie
motivations for bullying and various types of bystanding behaviors.
The first type may be conceptualized as goal-directed which
78 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
encompasses instrumental, dominance and agentic goals (related to ac-
quiring influence and admiration). It has been hypothesized that chil-
dren who endorse goal-directed social goals would evidence higher
rates of bullying behaviors (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Salmivalli, Ojanen,
Haanpää, & Peets, 2005; Sijtsema, Veenstra, Lindenberg, & Salmivalli,
2009). Support for such hypotheses comes from social dominance
(Pellegrini & Long, 2002) and resource control theories (Hawley,
1999), according to which children are inherently motivated to attain
higher and more powerful social status positions which can hypotheti-
cally be attained by bullying. In contrast, the second type of social goals
are conceptualized as relational goals; children who tend to endorse re-
lational and communal goals (related to making friends, and
prosociality) are hypothesized to have lower rates of bullying behaviors
and higher rates of anti-bullying bystanding behaviors such as
supporting or defending the victim and intentions to intervene (Rigby
& Johnson, 2006; Rigby & Slee, 1993; Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004;
Salmivalli et al., 2005).
In addition to attending to social cues, and selecting social goals, that
make bullying or pro-bullying behaviors appealing to some children,
before selecting an aggressive response, they also have to believe they
are capable of engaging in such types of behavior (step 4) and that
acting aggressively will “pay off” in expected ways (step 5). In other
words, before selecting a response to enact, children form outcome
expectations about what the likely result will be. For instance, if past
experiences behaving aggressively were ineffective or met with serious
consequences, children may not see aggression as a viable option. How-
ever, if prior aggression was rewarded with status, or desired tangible
possessions, aggression becomes a real option. Researchers have found
that children who believe that aggression will lead to desirable out-
comes have a tendency to act aggressively (Crick & Dodge, 1996;
Perry, Perry, & Rasmussen, 1986). Moreover, not only do some children
associate positive outcome expectations with bullying, but they also
tend to minimize the potential costs associated with possible negative
outcomes (e.g., getting in trouble, the victim retaliating, the harm
caused to the victim; see Boldizar, Perry, & Perry, 1989). Considering
that bullying, by definition, is a behavior that is repeated over time
and characterized by a power differential, the likelihood of a positive
outcome seems inherently favorable for bullies (in terms of their goal
achievement), which in turn would encourage them to engage such
behaviors.
Extending this argument beyond bullies, it is plausible that children
who engage in anti-bullying bystanding behaviors are more likely to be-
lieve that bullying results in negative outcomes and defending or
supporting the victim in positive outcomes (see Rigby & Johnson,
2006). Moreover, children's outcome evaluations are likely to be influ-
enced by their self-efficacy for enacting a behavior successfully. Thus,
children who have higher self-efficacy beliefs in their abilities to defend
victims are more likely to actively intervene on behalf of a victim as
opposed to being passive bystanders (i.e., outsiders; Gini, Albiero,
Benelli, & Altoè, 2008; Pöyhönen, Juvonen, & Salmivalli, 2010).
2.1.3. Implications of social cognitive processing perspectives
Future investigations may benefit from considering that bullying
responses are most likely activated by a combination of three social
cognitive biases pertaining to how children interpret social cues, select
social goals, and have positive outcome evaluations about bullying. Con-
sidering that these three processes are in a dynamic state of continual
feedback, it is plausible that when children are motivated by dominance
and have positive evaluations about bullying, they are more selectively
attending to social information in their environments that will allow
them to be dominant (i.e., they will look out for easy targets). Consistent
with Reijntjes et al.'s (2013) argument, it could be hypothesized that
bullying is most likely to occur when children recognize opportunities
to attain their status goals, and achieving these goals outweigh the po-
tential drawbacks. Thus, even if children are motivated by goals that
increase the chances of bullying, it is plausible that they are less likely
to pursue these goals when they interpret social cues that discourage
these behaviors (e.g., a high likelihood of retaliation or bystander
intervention) or have negative expectations about whether bullying
can be used to attain their status goals. These points serve as a theoret-
ical premise for bystander interventions that attempt to reduce bullying
behaviors. That is, if bystander interventions can promote anti-bullying
behaviors such as supporting or defending the victim, they may alter
bullies' typically positive outcome evaluations about bullying. Without
such interventions or negative peer feedback, bullying tends to result
in a favorable outcome thereby reinforcing the child's more stable nor-
mative beliefs about the use of aggressive behavior, which subsequently
increase the likelihood of bullying in future social interactions.
Similar hypotheses regarding the interactions among these social
cognitive processes can be generated for other participant roles and
may help to differentiate children with anti-bullying attitudes who
actively intervene (i.e., defenders) from those who respond more
passively when bullying occurs (i.e., outsiders). For example, depending
on the nature of their social goals, children who have negative expecta-
tions about bullying behaviors and express anti-bullying attitudes may
exhibit considerably different response patterns when they observe
social cues that indicate that bullying might occur. On the one hand,
those with relational goals are hypothesized to enact response options
such as supporting the victim, intervening (i.e., defending the victim),
or supporting other children who actively intervene (Rigby & Johnson,
2006; Rigby & Slee, 1993; Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004). On the other
hand, those with an avoidance goal in favor of self-protection and
remaining uninvolved (to avoid also being victimized) are more likely
to be passive bystanders and those with instrumental or status goals
are more likely to passively (or actively) support the bully so as to not
jeopardize their own social standing (Juvonen & Galván, 2010). In
evaluating each of these goals and response options, children must
access prior experiences and beliefs (stored within their database) in
order to select a response that is associated with the most desirable
goals and favorable outcome evaluations. When accessing this stored
information, emotion and moral processes are also likely to influence
children's decision making. We turn to an examination of these factors
in the next two sections.
2.2. Emotion processes
2.2.1. Overview of emotion processing perspectives
In addition to social cognitive processing, more recent SIP frame-
works have clarified and highlighted the role of emotion processes in
social information processing and subsequent behavioral responses
(Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). According to these reformulated perspec-
tives, emotion processes are theorized to organize and motivate
children's social cognitions and in turn influence their subsequent
goal-directed behaviors (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). Researchers have
focused their attention on two aspects of emotion processes believed to
be intricately linked to SIP generally and to bullying and bystanding be-
haviors specifically; namely, emotion understanding and empathy.
These two emotion processes are themselves so intertwined that before
children can feel and express empathy, they must first recognize and un-
derstand others' emotion cues (Feshbach, 1978). This interconnectedness
is reflected in the construal of empathy as a multi-dimensional construct
that includes both a cognitive and affective component (Davis, 1994)
wherein the cognitive component includes the ability to recognize and
understand other children's emotions whereas the affective component
refers to the ability to share or experience others' emotions. Thus, within
the reformulated SIP framework, the cognitive component of empathy is
reflected in the early stages of SIP when children encode and interpret
social cues that would also include the emotion cues of their peers
(Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). The extent to which such cues are accurately
interpreted or met with empathic responses likely depends on the child's
social goals or processing at later steps.
 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
2.2.2. Role of emotion processing on bullying and bystanding behaviors
Considering that bullying is an emotionally provocative phenome-
non, the role of emotions in understanding bullying and bystanding
behaviors cannot be overstated. It is our contention that any model of
the factors that contribute to bullying and bystanding behaviors would
not be complete without consideration of these important processes. In
other words, children's emotion understanding (i.e., emotion cue detec-
tion), empathy, and emotional or affective ties with other children are
theorized to be important determinants of individual differences in bully-
ing and bystanding behaviors.
Despite the importance of emotion processes in understanding
bullying-related behaviors, there has been little research done in this
area—and much speculation, assumption, and debate. For example,
because SIP perspectives assume bullying stems from deficits or biases
in children's processing, there seems to be a tacit assumption that emo-
tion processing deficits are partly culpable. That is, there has been some
debate among researchers as to whether or not bullies have the ability
to accurately encode or interpret others' emotion cues (cognitive empa-
thy) and act empathically (affective empathy). For example, it is reason-
able to speculate that bullies do not refrain from hurting others because
they do not recognize the distress that is being caused to another child
(i.e., lack emotion cue detection). Moreover, their apparent lack of re-
morse seems to stem from a lack of realization that their behaviors
have hurt or had damaging consequences for their victims. Thus, it is
not hard to understand why some may believe that bullying results
from emotion processing deficits, especially at the cognitive empathy
level.
However, what little evidence we have to address this issue indi-
cates otherwise. Specifically, researchers have found that bullies do
not target peers for harassment at random, but rather select targets
who appear vulnerable (Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988)—and some aggres-
sors even feel rewarded when their attacks lead to expressions of fear
and distress in their victims (Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates, & Pettit,
1997; Smithmyer, Hubbard, & Simons, 2000). Moreover, children who
are chronically victimized are more likely to report fearful emotions as
opposed to anger (Kochenderfer‐Ladd, 2004), suggesting that bullies
are detecting this fear and viewing such peers as easy targets for further
harassment.
Moreover, in their paper addressing the debate on social deficit
models of bullying, Sutton, Smith, and Swettenham (1999a) argue
that bullies do not suffer from social skills deficits per se, but instead
may be quite socially savvy and skilled manipulators. Most relevant to
the present synthesis, is that they argue that bullies have the
perspective-taking skills (i.e., theory of mind) to recognize and under-
stand other children's emotions, but choose to bully anyway (Sutton,
Smith, & Swettenham, 1999b). Some support for this position can be
garnered by a study conducted by Caravita, Di Blasio, and Salmivalli
(2009). Specifically, they found a moderation effect of empathy and so-
cial status such that cognitive (but not affective) empathy was positive-
ly related to bullying for popular girls—but not for unpopular girls. Such
findings suggest that these popular girls were using their emotion
knowledge to select targets for bullying who would further their social
standing or help them maintain their social status. It is important to
note that no such findings were found for boys; moreover, findings
did not indicate whether or not such girls evidenced affective empathy
toward their victims, as no correlation was found.
Nevertheless, while arguing that bullies are skilled at emotion pro-
cesses such as cognitive components of empathy (emotion understand-
ing), Sutton et al. (1999a) also acknowledge that bullies may lack the
affective dimension of empathy. Proponents of SIP perspectives counter
argue that the lack of affective empathy is a form of social processing
deficit. Thus, by understanding their victims are afraid and recognizing
that their behavior is causing distress, but deciding nonetheless to en-
gage in bullying to attain their goals is evidence of processing deficits
(Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006). Moreover,
there is some preliminary evidence to suggest that affective empathy,
79
at least for adolescent boys, is negatively associated with their likeli-
hood of engaging in bullying behaviors (Caravita et al., 2009; Jolliffe &
Farrington, 2011). However, the evidence base in support of similar as-
sociations among adolescent girls or for younger children of either sex is
sparse (Caravita et al., 2009; Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoè, 2007; Jolliffe
& Farrington, 2011).
While the debate continues, research is clearly needed to help clarify
the role emotion processing, especially cognitive and affective compo-
nents of empathy, plays in bullying behavior. Findings thus far have
been sparse and equivocal; in particular, as suggested above, the role
of empathy in bullying behavior appears to vary according to the com-
ponent of empathy examined, sex, and age of sample.
In addition to the findings on empathy and bullying, investigators
have also examined the role of empathy on bystanding behaviors.
They tend to find that empathy—and in particular, affective empathy—is
positively associated with defending behaviors (Caravita et al., 2009;
Gini et al., 2007; Pöyhönen et al., 2010). Notably, a study by Gini et al.
(2008) found that higher empathy was associated with both active
defending behaviors and passive bystanding behaviors. Thus, although
empathy appears to be an important antecedent to promoting
children's active intervention in bullying episodes, examining it inde-
pendent of other person-related processes was not sufficient in differ-
entiating children who actively intervened on behalf of the victim
from children who responded passively (i.e., outsiders). Moreover,
Pöyhönen et al. (2010) found that affective empathy was more strongly
associated with defending behaviors among children with higher social
status, suggesting that empathic children are more likely to engage in
defending behaviors (as opposed to passive bystanding) when their
social position affords them the opportunity (i.e., social power or stand-
ing) to more effectively engage in these behaviors with fewer risks of
retribution.
Another emotion process that can contribute to children's goal-
directed behaviors and subsequently their decision to bully is the
emotional or affective tie that characterizes the relationship between
two children (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). In support of this notion,
there is evidence that bullies selectively target victims who they dislike
(Veenstra et al., 2007). In contrast, when there is a strong positive affec-
tive tie, children are more likely to support or defend a victim who they
like or consider a friend (Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999;
Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997).
2.2.3. Synthesis of emotion processing and the SIP framework
In this section, we attempt to integrate hypotheses about emotion
and cognitive processing (SIP premises) in ways that could potentially
extend research on bullying and bystanding behaviors. It is our conten-
tion that emotional and cognitive social-information processes have a
synergistic effect on bullying and bystanding responses such that each
of the emotion processes discussed (i.e., emotion cue detection, empa-
thy, emotional ties) influence children's processing at each SIP step
(e.g., social goals; outcome expectations), and the combination of
these person-level factors have greater explanatory power in predicting
bullying and bystanding behaviors than examining them separately.
Working from a participant role framework, it can be posited that
bullying or bystanding behavior is the result of a unique set (or profile)
of person-level (cognitive and emotional) factors. For example, one hy-
pothesis stemming from this work worthy of testing is that a combina-
tion of dominance goals, positive expectations about bullying, negative
emotional ties with their targets, lack of empathy, and cue interpreta-
tion signifying weakness (e.g., fear or distress) would predict bullying
roles more accurately than any factor alone. In contrast, emotion pro-
cesses such as positive emotional ties, high empathy, and inattention
to emotion cues that signal vulnerability, are expected to dampen
children's motivation or goals to be dominant and thereby reduce the
likelihood of bullying.
In addition to dominance goals, some children appear to be more
motivated by perceived popularity, a related but conceptually distinct
80 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
dimension of children's social standing (Cillessen, Mayeux, Ha, de
Bruyn, & LaFontana, 2014). When bullying is motivated by a desire for
popularity, it may function more as a means of ‘fitting in’ and being
accepted by other popular children; thus, the emotion cues of
bystanders, who can confer or withhold status, become more important
than those of potential victims. In this case, children motivated by
popularity are more apt to selectively focus their attention on the emo-
tion cues of bystanders who via their affective and behavioral responses
provide either support or disapproval of these behaviors. Thus, it may be
that some children do not attend to the emotion cues of their victims,
but instead focus on other social cues that are more pertinent to their
goals. This rationale is consistent with participant role perspectives
which highlight the role of reinforcers and assistants, children who pro-
vide direct reinforcement and support for the bully (Salmivalli et al.,
1996).
With respect to other participant roles and forms of bystanding be-
haviors, some bystanders may express feelings of anxiety or fear when
they witness bullying, similar to victims. These emotional reactions, in
combination with having a negative emotional tie with the victim, are
likely to activate avoidance goals and behavioral responses such as
staying uninvolved or not doing anything to intervene. Such responses
are characteristic of the outsider role in which children respond to bully-
ing in passive ways (Pozzoli & Gini, 2010). In contrast, some children
may experience feelings of excitement, and in combination with instru-
mental goals and a negative affective tie with the victim, these emotion
processes may encourage them to support the bully (consistent with re-
inforcer and assistant participant roles). Alternatively, children who are
empathic, feel sad or upset when they observe bullying, have a positive
affective tie with the victim and relational goals are more likely to inter-
vene (consistent with the defender role; Barhight, Hubbard, & Hyde,
2013; Pozzoli & Gini, 2010). Moreover, empathic children are more like-
ly to actively intervene when they have characteristics that are indica-
tive of having positive outcome evaluations of defending behaviors
(e.g., they have high social self-efficacy or high social status; see Gini
et al., 2008; Pöyhönen et al., 2010).
Each of these propositions imply an emotion by social-information
processing interaction (i.e., a moderated effect), in which the combina-
tion of, and variations in, person-level factors predict individual differ-
ences in bullying and bystanding behaviors more efficiently and
accurately, than examining them in isolation. Future investigations of
such propositions are clearly warranted and could make a significant
advancement in our understanding of the determinants of bullying
and bystander behavior.
2.3. Moral processes
2.3.1. Overview of moral processing perspectives
Drawing upon Arsenio and Lemerise's (2004) reformulation of Crick
and Dodge's (1994) SIP model, children's moral processes are viewed as
an integral part of bullying and bystanding behaviors because these ac-
tions inherently involve issues of morality; that is bullying is an event
that raises questions of right and wrong, fairness, human rights, and
ethical behavior. Moreover, the integration of moral domain perspec-
tives with the SIP framework is a natural extension given that theories
of moral development assume that children's moral reasoning about so-
cial events have an influence on their behavioral responses. Using a
moral domain perspective, interpretations of social events and evalua-
tions of possible behavioral responses involve distinguishing between
moral and non-moral events. In other words, when a situation is viewed
as one of morality, issues of right and wrong are raised. In contrast, if the
social situation is not construed as one of morality, behavior is more
likely to be guided by social conventions based on social norms or expec-
tations derived from authority figures, traditions and customs regarding
appropriate behavior (see Nucci, 1981, 2001). Specifically, according to
Arsenio and Lemerise's (2004) integrative framework, children store
knowledge about moral-relevant events in their long-term memory
(i.e., latent mental structures) and retrieve this information during online
SIP. When children access and retrieve moral knowledge related to a
specific event during processing, they are more likely to consider the
moral implications of their behaviors. In contrast, if such knowledge is
not retrieved, then behavioral responses are likely to be enacted with-
out consideration of the moral implications.
The integrative perspective proposed by Arsenio and Lemerise
(2004) highlights the potential disconnect between children's moral
values and behaviors, but it does not explicitly consider the potential
role of moral disengagement as an explanatory framework. However,
Bandura's (1999, 2002) social-cognitive theory of moral agency offers
a framework for considering moral disengagement as an important
determinant of bullying and bystanding behaviors. According to his
theory, children adopt moral standards over time and use these stan-
dards to guide future behaviors. Moreover, his theory delineates several
mechanisms, collectively described as moral disengagement, which are
theorized to mediate the association between children's moral stan-
dards and their actual behaviors. An examination of such mechanisms
can be useful in understanding how children can believe that bullying
is wrong and harmful, and yet engage in these behaviors despite such
beliefs.
2.3.2. Role of moral processing on bullying and bystanding behaviors
Given that bullying is clearly a moral transgression, it is important to
consider the degree to which children are aware of the moral implica-
tions of their bullying or bystanding behaviors. For example, it is possi-
ble that children who engage in bullying lack adequate moral
knowledge and reasoning skills (e.g., do not have moral knowledge
that can be retrieved during SIP). Alternatively, such children may
have the ability to think about the moral implications of their behaviors
more broadly, but do not activate their moral reasoning when deciding
to bully another child. Evidence tends to favor the latter perspective.
Specifically, researchers (Dodge et al., 1997; Menesini et al., 2003)
have found that children who engage in bullying are capable of recog-
nizing the harmful intentions of behaviors that are directed at them,
but do not consider the harmful intentionality of their behaviors
targeted at other children. Thus, it appears that children who bully selec-
tively access moral knowledge (values) when it is to their advantage,
but are less likely to access it when they bully others.
Consistent with this analysis of moral processes, one possible
explanation for why children selectively apply their moral values to
self-referent (but not other-referent) events is that when children are
in the act of bullying, they do not view their behaviors as a moral
issue and thus, do not consider the moral implications of their behav-
iors. Stated differently, bullies are less likely to judge the wrongness
(i.e., harm) of their own behaviors and are more likely to use personal
or social conventional reasoning rather than moral reasoning when
evaluating aggressive behaviors (Menesini et al., 2003; Murray‐Close,
Crick, & Galotti, 2006). Conversely, when they are the targets of bullying,
it is easier for them to recognize the moral implications of such behav-
iors (e.g., that it is wrong and hurtful).
In light of findings indicating that children know that bullying is
wrong and harmful, an important question becomes “why do some
still choose to engage in such harmful behavior?” Bandura's (1999,
2002) mechanisms of moral disengagement offers insights into this
apparent disconnect between beliefs and action. In particular, moral dis-
engagement refers to a set of social-cognitive mechanisms that children
use to reduce the moral consequences (e.g., blame, guilt, shame) of their
behaviors, and to rationalize using bullying in self-serving ways.
Bandura (1999, 2002) delineates several social cognitive mechanisms
through which individuals are able to exercise moral disengagement to
justify or rationalize immoral behavior. First, cognitive restructuring refers
to multiple processes including: a) moral justification (e.g., “I was just
protecting myself” or “I was teaching him a lesson”), b) euphemistic
labeling (e.g., “I was only joking”), and c) advantageous comparison
(e.g., comparing one's behavior to others' that are even more immoral
 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
or harmful). Second, displacement or diffusion of responsibility refers to
minimizing one's role in the harmful behavior to reduce personal
responsibility (e.g., “Everyone does it”). Third, minimizing, ignoring or
misconstruing negative consequences refers to how individuals distort
the outcomes of their behaviors (e.g., “No one got hurt”). Fourth, dehu-
manization and blaming the victim refer to how individuals attribute
the behavior to the victim by thinking that the victim deserved to be
harmed. Collectively, these cognitive strategies suggest multiple ways
that children can reduce feelings of guilt and shame when they bully
others and to evaluate their behaviors in a more positive manner.
It is conceivable that certain forms of moral disengagement are partic-
ularly relevant for distinct bullying and bystanding behaviors. For in-
stance, whereas bullies may justify their behaviors by blaming the
victim (e.g., “because they are annoying”), children who take on more
supportive roles (e.g., assistants, reinforcers) may also engage in other
strategies such euphemistic labeling (e.g., “that they are just joking
with the victim”) and minimizing their personal role. Similarly, passive
bystanders (outsiders) may place the responsibility on adults or other
children to intervene rather than assuming personal responsibility. How-
ever, research is still needed to determine whether different forms of
moral disengagement are role specific; thus far, measurement work sug-
gests that different mechanisms of moral disengagement tend to load
onto a single factor. Consequently, the vast majority of extant research
has assessed moral disengagement as a unitary construct (Gini, Pozzoli,
& Hymel, 2014b; Hymel, Schonert-Reichl, Bonanno, Vaillancourt, & Hen-
derson, 2010).
Considering the different mechanisms of moral disengagement collec-
tively, children who engage in bullying tend to have the highest levels of
moral disengagement and these effects appear to be more pronounced in
adolescence as compared to childhood (Barchia & Bussey, 2011a; Gini,
Pozzoli, & Bussey, 2014a; Gini et al., 2014b). Moreover, compared to chil-
dren who take on more supportive roles (i.e., assistants and reinforcers),
those who are ringleaders appear to be more morally disengaged (Gini,
2006). In contrast, those who engage in defending and passive bystanding
behaviors tend to have lower levels of moral disengagement (Almeida,
Correia, & Marinho, 2009; Gini, 2006). Notably, although children who
take on more passive bystanding roles (i.e., outsiders) tend to have
lower levels of moral disengagement, there is some evidence of heteroge-
neity within this participant role such that passive bystanders who are
unconcerned about the bullying have higher moral disengagement than
passive bystanders who express more guilt (see Obermann, 2011).
In light of evidence that both defenders and passive bystanders tend
to have lower levels of moral disengagement (compared to children
with pro-bullying behaviors), this construct alone does not adequately
differentiate children who actively intervene in bullying (i.e., defenders)
from those who are passive bystanders (i.e., outsiders). Thus, moral
engagement appears to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for
active bystander intervention (Thornberg & Jungert, 2013). Indeed,
Thornberg and Jungert (2013) found that although both defending and
passive bystanding (outsider) behaviors were associated with lower
moral disengagement, what differentiated these two forms of bystanding
behaviors was the degree to which children felt self-efficacious about
their ability to intervene during bullying episodes. Children with high
defender self-efficacy were more likely to engage in defending behaviors
and those with low self-efficacy for defending engaged in passive
bystanding.
2.3.3. Synthesis of moral processing and the SIP framework
To incorporate children's moral knowledge and reasoning into
hypotheses about bullying and bystanding behaviors, it is proposed
that children who bully have adequate moral reasoning skills and can
retrieve moral relevant knowledge, but only consider the harmful intent
of bullying behaviors when they are the victims—not when bullying
others. There are several explanations for why children may exhibit
discrepancies in their self- versus other- referent responses to bullying.
One explanation pertains to empathy such that empathic
81
responsiveness functions as a prerequisite for more advanced forms of
moral reasoning and retrieval of morally relevant information. Children
who lack empathy are less likely to retrieve moral knowledge when bul-
lying others (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; Gini, 2006). Alternatively, chil-
dren may also lack moral sensitivity (i.e., the ability to recognize
immoral behaviors and their harmful consequences) which reduces
the tendency for moral reasoning and increases moral disengagement
(Thornberg & Jungert, 2013).
In addition to empathy and moral sensitivity, other aspects of
children's SIP—in particular their social goals and outcome
expectations—are hypothesized to influence whether children access
moral knowledge. For example, it is possible that certain social goals
(i.e., instrumental or dominance goals) discourage children from constru-
ing bullying as a moral issue, thereby reducing the likelihood that they ac-
cess moral knowledge (from their database) which, in turn, increases
their likelihood of bullying. Further, children's social goals contribute to
how they weigh the advantages gained from bullying against the cost
of harming another child, such that children with instrumental goals
are more likely to favor the personal gains whereas those with relational
goals are more likely to be concerned with how their behaviors affect
others (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Thus, one hypothesis worth examining is
that children who endorse instrumental goals and think bullying is easy
and effective for goal attainment are less likely to access morally relevant
knowledge, and more likely to exercise moral disengagement, which in
turn increases the chances that they will engage in bullying.
Similar hypotheses could be generated by considering the conjoint
effects of moral, emotion and social-information processes on children's
bystanding behaviors. For example, the combination of low moral
disengagement, high moral sensitivity, high empathy, relational goals,
positive outcome evaluations for defending victims along with greater
self-efficacy for defending—are proposed to have a synergistic effect
on anti-bullying bystanding behaviors.
In sum, a synthesis of research on person-level factors offers a rich
foundation from which to generate novel hypotheses regarding the
role of children's social cognitive, emotion and moral processing in bul-
lying and bystanding behaviors. By integrating multiple person-level
factors into single testable models, we can begin to have a more com-
prehensive framework for predicting individual differences in bullying
and bystanding behaviors.
3. Relational-level factors
3.1. Peer influence
3.1.1. Overview of peer influence processes
Borrowing from the participant role perspective, it is argued that
bullying is a social phenomenon that is influenced by the social context
in which it occurs. One process through which the social context asserts
its influence on bullying and bystanding behaviors is via peer group
norms. Peer group norms reflect the salient and collective beliefs,
attitudes or values of the larger peer group which function as guides
for individuals to act in ways that are acceptable to other group mem-
bers. Whether specific group norms converge or diverge with children's
personal attitudes, they nevertheless influence their social experiences
and affect their behaviors. In support of this contention, the theory of
reasoned action (see Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) argues that individuals'
behaviors are the cumulative result of their personal attitudes, their
subjective norms (e.g., perceptions of the group's normative or collec-
tive beliefs about a behavior), and the interaction of the two. Thus,
there is likely a synergistic effect between children's person-level fac-
tors (e.g., social cognitive, emotion, and moral processes) and their ex-
periences within their peer groups.
3.1.2. Peer influence processes and bullying and bystanding behaviors
There has been a growing body of research on the role of peer
influence on bullying and bystanding behaviors, and investigators
82 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
have examined multiple processes using varying methodological
approaches. For this synthesis, we focus on how multiple peer group
norms collectively contribute to the normative relational climate and as-
sert pressure on these behaviors. More specifically, at least four distinct
types of peer group norms have been identified (see Gini et al., 2014a;
Pozzoli, Gini, & Vieno, 2012): 1) collective bullying attitudes which reflect
the group's salient beliefs or judgments about the social acceptability or
unacceptability of bullying and bystanding behaviors (e.g., pro-bullying
and anti-bullying attitudes), 2) injunctive norms which reflect children's
perceptions of what they are expected to do in various situations, 3) de-
scriptive norms which describe children's actual behavioral responses
and the extent to which various bullying-related behaviors exist within
the group, and 4) collective moral disengagement which reflects percep-
tions that the larger peer group is morally disengaged and sanctions bul-
lying behavior. Findings on each of these group norms are reviewed and
support the premise that multiple group norms coexist and collectively
influence bullying and bystanding behaviors.
Collective bullying attitudes have been conceptualized as the extent
to which children in a peer group collectively endorse pro-bullying
(e.g., making fun of classmates, joining in bullying when it occurs) and
anti-bullying (e.g., supporting the victim, trying to actively intervene)
beliefs and expectations for group members' behavior. Evidence of the
influence of these group norms can be culled from Salmivalli and
Voeten's (2004) study in which they found that students were more
likely to defend victims, and less likely to bully others or reinforce
bullying behaviors, if their peer groups (i.e., classrooms) supported
anti-bullying attitudes more strongly. It is important to note that these
findings were more pronounced among early adolescents (i.e., 6th
graders) than younger children (i.e., 4th graders), indicating that per-
haps the influence of peer group norms may be stronger in adolescence
as compared to childhood.
In addition to group attitudes about bullying, injunctive
norms—which reflect peers' expectations about how others should
behave when they witness bullying situations—have also been investi-
gated. Specifically, researchers conceptualize injunctive norms about
bullying and bystanding behaviors as perceived peer pressure to inter-
vene in bullying (i.e., class normative pressures to help victims;
Pozzoli et al., 2012; Rigby, 2005; Rigby & Johnson, 2006). Findings
from these studies indicate that adolescents who do not believe their
friends expect them to be supportive of victims are more likely to
engage in bullying behaviors. In contrast, adolescents who perceive
peer pressure to intervene on behalf of victims and believe that their
friends expected them to provide support for victims are more likely
to engage in defending behaviors and less likely to be passive
bystanders (Pozzoli & Gini, 2010; Rigby & Johnson, 2006).
Consistent with participant role perspectives, multiple descrip-
tive norms may coexist within a peer group and reflect distinct
bystanding behaviors. Therefore, investigators have used various
conceptualizations of descriptive norms to assess the distinct behav-
ioral norms that characterize the peer relational climate. For in-
stance, Pozzoli et al. (2012) measured two forms of descriptive
norms which reflected the peer group's tendencies to engage in
defending or passive bystanding behaviors. They found that in addi-
tion to group attitudes and injunctive norms, descriptive norms
about defending were positively associated with defending and neg-
atively with passive bystanding behaviors. In other words, when
children and adolescents were in classrooms that made more collec-
tive efforts to defend victims, they were themselves more likely to
defend victims and less likely to be passive bystanders. In contrast,
in classrooms in which passive bystanding was the social norm, stu-
dents were more likely to be passive bystanders. Considering that
these findings on descriptive norms were in addition to
(i.e., controlling for) the effects of group attitudes and injunctive
norms, they reflect how children's behavioral responses to bullying
depend on the influence of multiple peer group norm processes
(i.e., group attitudes, injunctive and descriptive norms).
In addition to the descriptive norms described above, the extent to
which children collectively practice moral disengagement can also be
conceived as a group norm that contributes in distinct ways to bullying
and bystanding behaviors. In support of this premise, Gini et al. (2014a)
found that, beyond children's own level of moral disengagement, when
children perceive their classmates to be morally disengaged they are
more likely to engage in aggression and passive bystanding and less
likely to engage in defending behaviors. More specifically, findings
revealed that collective moral disengagement amplified the effect of in-
dividual moral disengagement on aggression such that when collective
moral disengagement was low, individual moral disengagement was
not associated with aggression, but when collective moral disengage-
ment was high, children with high moral disengagement were
considerably more likely than those with low disengagement to act
aggressively.
Consistent with the theory of reasoned action, one implication of the
above findings is that peer group norms may moderate the effects of
child-level factors on bullying and bystanding behaviors. Support for
the premise that the associations between child-levels factors and bul-
lying and bystanding behaviors is moderated by relational processes
can also be gleaned from investigations on injunctive norms about by-
stander intervention. For instance, in peer groups with high perceived
peer pressure to intervene, adolescents had high levels of defending be-
haviors irrespective of their individual personal responsibility (Pozzoli
& Gini, 2010). However, when they believed peer pressure to intervene
in bullying was low, they were significantly less likely to engage in
defending behaviors if they also had low levels of personal responsibil-
ity. Collectively, these findings illustrate how the peer context can func-
tion as both a risk and protective factor that either suppresses (buffers)
or amplifies children's individual risks.
3.1.3. Implications of peer influence processes for hypothesis generation
It could be argued that peer group norms impact subsequent
bullying and bystanding behaviors via their influence on children's
person-related (i.e., social-cognitive, emotional, and moral) develop-
ment. For example, children bring their personal characteristics, such
as need for dominance or social status or the desire for a close friend,
with them into the classroom—and then, based on their social interac-
tions within their peer group, they form cognitive representations
about their perceptions of group norms that guide how they act to
achieve their goals. In this manner, generalized beliefs or attitudes
about the social acceptability of bullying could be expected to influence
children's evaluations of the effectiveness of engaging in bullying
behaviors to achieve their goals. In contrast, when children and adoles-
cents associate bullying with peer rejection and social disapproval, they
are more likely to believe that their peer group endorses anti-bullying
norms (e.g., “If I bully someone, my classmates are not going to like
it”). In turn, when they think their peers disapprove of bullying, they
are more likely to consider the potential disadvantages of this behavior-
al response and select non-aggressive responses with more favorable
outcome evaluations. Thus, the influence of peer group norms can be
conceptualized as being indirect and via their influence on children's
own social cognitive, emotion and moral processes which in turn influ-
ences their subsequent bullying or bystanding response.
Notably, individual attitudes and group norms about bullying do not
necessarily match, and discrepancies can be partly attributable to
children's prior person-related development, their social experiences
in previous peer groups (e.g., other schools or classes they had previous-
ly attended), as well as other socializing influences (e.g., parents,
teachers). In other words, children's person-related development is pre-
sumably the result of a host of socialization experiences that accumulate
over their lifespan. It is plausible that well before their experiences in
formal schooling where children are exposed to peers (and teachers),
parental socialization experiences influence their long-term memories,
beliefs, attitudes and relational schemas (contained within their cogni-
tive database) which subsequently influence their social-cognitive,
 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
emotion and moral processing and their relationships with other social-
izing agents (i.e., peers and teachers). Thus, due to children's cumulative
socialization experiences, their individual attitudes about bullying and
bystanding behaviors are not necessarily congruent with the values of
the collective peer group.
In consideration of these discrepancies, it is hypothesized that group
norms also function to buffer or amplify (i.e., moderate) the degree to
which children's social-cognitive processing is linked with their subse-
quent behavioral responses. That is, when discrepancies arise, group
norms are hypothesized to explain inconsistencies between person-
level processes and subsequent behavioral responses. For example,
children may endorse dominance goals and have positive expectations
about bullying, but are less likely to act on these social-cognitive biases
(i.e., bully) when they are in a social environment in which their peers
do not condone bullying (i.e., suppression effect). Thus peer influence
processes appear to have a synergistic effect on (e.g., amplify or suppress)
children's person level tendencies to engage in bullying or bystanding
behaviors.
The premise that peer groups can function to sanction person-level
tendencies to engage in bullying behaviors and promote anti-bullying
behaviors serves as in impetus for intervention efforts that have
attempted to alter the salient peer group norms or beliefs about the so-
cial acceptability of bullying and bystanding behaviors. Based on this
area of research, intervention efforts may be more effective by using a
multi-tiered approach that incorporates universal and targeted strate-
gies to alter both the peer group's collective norms about bullying and
bystanding behaviors as well as altering the attitudes of children who
are most at-risk for bullying.
Examining the influence of peer group norms from a developmental
perspective, it is also important to consider how the role and influence
of the peer context changes as a function of developmental timing. As
children get older, they spend increasing amounts of time with peers
and strive to become more autonomous and independent from adult
figures. Consistent with this rationale it is hypothesized that peer influ-
ence processes are more salient during adolescence and have a stronger
association with bullying and bystanding behaviors during this devel-
opmental period than other socializing mechanisms (e.g., teachers;
see Pozzoli et al., 2012; Rigby, 2005), which are more likely to have
more pronounced effects during childhood.
3.2. Teacher influence processes
3.2.1. Overview of teacher influence processes
In addition to peers, teachers are in a unique position to directly
influence children's bullying and bystanding behavior—and there are
several mechanisms through which their influence occurs. Through
their behaviors and beliefs, and social interactions with their students,
teachers foster salient classroom norms and in turn affect the expecta-
tions that students have in subsequent interactions with peers.
3.2.2. Role of teacher influence processes on bullying and bystanding
behaviors
Not surprisingly, because schools have served as the focal setting for
investigating bullying and bystanding behaviors, investigators have ex-
amined both characteristics of teachers and teacher–child interactions
that are associated with these behaviors (see Holt & Keyes, 2004; Holt,
Keyes, & Koenig, 2010; Salmivalli, 2010). Not only are teachers expected
to monitor and discipline problem behaviors, such as bullying, but they
can also influence salient norms and attitudes about bullying and anti-
bullying bystanding behaviors within their classrooms.
Relatedly, one line of investigation has been on teachers' awareness of
bullying within the school context. Studies suggest that teachers may not
be as aware of bullying episodes as they believe (Bradshaw, Sawyer, &
O'Brennan, 2007; Rigby, 2005; Rigby & Bagshaw, 2003), and their aware-
ness appears to worsen as children mature (Holt et al., 2010; Schwartz
et al., 2010). Although teachers are more aware of bullying when it occurs
83
within their classrooms, bullying often occurs outside the purview of
teachers. Moreover, bullying may go unreported for a variety of rea-
sons, such as when students feel their teachers are not effective in
their intervention efforts, or they feel that they are expected to han-
dle bullying on their own; thus, bullying often goes unnoticed and
teachers remain unaware of much of the bullying that occurs
among their students (Atlas & Pepler, 1998; Fekkes, Pijper, &
Verloove-Vanhorick, 2005; Olweus, 1978). Such findings most likely
account for discrepancies between teacher and student reports of the
prevalence of bullying.
While awareness is a necessary condition for teacher intervention, it
does not sufficiently predict whether they actually intervene. Thus,
several investigators have assessed the conditions in which teacher in-
terventions are most likely to occur. Toward this end, several factors
have been studied including teachers' characteristics and contextual-
level (i.e., classroom and school) influences. With respect to teachers'
characteristics, investigators have assessed the role of: 1) teachers'
beliefs about bullying, 2) their preparedness to intervene, and 3) and
their self-efficacy for effectively intervening. With respect to contextual
influences on teacher intervention, investigators have assessed the role
of the classroom and school climate.
More specifically, one line of investigation has been on teachers' be-
liefs and attitudes about whether bullying is normative. On the one
hand, when teachers feel more sympathy and empathy for the victim-
ized child, they tend to identify bullying, accurately weigh the serious-
ness of the event, and intervene in support of the victim (Craig,
Henderson, & Murphy, 2000a). In turn, when teachers report a greater
willingness to intervene, their students are also more likely to intervene
on behalf of victims (Espelage, Polanin, & Low, 2014). On the other
hand, when teachers believe that bullying is a normative behavior and
minimize the severity of bullying, they are less likely to intervene
(Kochenderfer-Ladd & Pelletier, 2008), less likely to reprimand aggres-
sors, and more likely to use passive response strategies such as telling
victims to cope with their bullying problems on their own (Troop-
Gordon & Ladd, 2015).
Collectively, these findings are indicative of a mediated (indirect)
pathway from teachers' beliefs to bullying behaviors. That is, teachers'
beliefs that bullying is normative are associated with more bullying
and peer victimization among students when these beliefs thwarted
teachers from intervening (Hektner & Swenson, 2012). Indeed,
teachers' beliefs about bullying may result in a number of different
response strategies including contacting parents, separating bullies
and victims, reprimanding bullies, suggesting victims avoid their bullies,
advising victims be assertive, and telling victims to handle their bullying
problems on their own. Exactly how teachers act on their beliefs
(i.e., their responses strategies) impacts the nature of children's bullying
behaviors (see Troop-Gordon & Ladd, 2015).
With respect to teachers' preparedness and self-efficacy to inter-
vene, evidence indicates that when teachers are informed by students
about a bullying episode, or observe it for themselves, they are more
likely to intervene (i.e., coach and support victims) when they feel
adequately prepared to, but less likely to respond to bullying when
they felt unprepared (Novick & Isaacs, 2010). Similarly, Veenstra,
Lindenberg, Huitsing, Sainio, and Salmivalli (2014) reported that in
classrooms with teachers who have high-self efficacy for intervening,
students report lower levels of bullying. Moreover, teacher efficacy
buffered the effects of children's intervention efforts on bullying behav-
iors. In other words, when children reported low levels of effort in inter-
vening, bullying was less likely when teachers had high self-efficacy and
more probable when teachers had low self-efficacy. Indeed the combina-
tion of low student effort and low teacher efficacy for intervening was as-
sociated with higher rates of bullying than any other combination of
these two factors (Veenstra et al., 2014). Together, these findings have
important implications for intervention efforts that seek to target bully-
ing behaviors by promoting teachers' competencies (e.g., preparedness
and self-efficacy) to effectively mitigate these behaviors.
84 I. Ettekal et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 23 (2015) 75–86
Similar to earlier propositions about how the peer group environment
(e.g., peer group norms) influences children's individual attitudes and be-
haviors, the classroom—and school climate more broadly—impacts the
likelihood of teacher intervention. Teachers are more likely to intervene
when they feel confident that administrators and other teachers and
school staff are supportive of their actions (Mishna, Pepler, & Wiener,
2006). Indeed, when teachers reported greater administrative support,
students reported lower levels of bullying (Espelage et al., 2014). These
findings speak to the importance of having clear school policies related
to bullying and which encourage school administrators to support
teachers in their intervention efforts.
3.2.3. Implications of teacher influence processes for hypothesis generation
It seems likely that theory and research would be enhanced by incor-
porating hypotheses about teacher influence processes within broader
models of children's bullying and bystanding behaviors. It is theorized
that teachers are more likely to intervene, and therefore subsequently
reduce bullying behaviors and increase anti-bullying bystanding behav-
iors when they: 1) are aware of when bullying occurs both inside and
outside of their classroom, 2) possess personal characteristics and pro-
cesses that promote intervention (e.g., anti-bullying attitudes, empa-
thy), 3) feel prepared and self-efficacious in their abilities to intervene,
4) have positive teacher–child interactions characterized by respect
for all children (e.g., supporting victims, creating a tolerant classroom
environment), and 5) perceive their school climate to be supportive of
their efforts to intervene (e.g., clear school policies against bullying, per-
ceptions that administrators do not tolerate bullying and encourage
teacher intervention).
When teachers intervene, their influence is direct when they stop
bullying as it occurs; but teachers can also indirectly influence bullying
and bystanding behaviors via their influence on children's person-
related development. In this regard, it is hypothesized that teachers in-
fluence children's bullying attitudes and social-cognitive biases which
in turn affects bullying and bystanding behavior. More specifically,
teachers' reactions and responses to bullying are hypothesized to in-
fluence children's attitudes about whether bullying is normative and
socially acceptable, and their outcome expectations related to bully-
ing. In other words, based on observing how teachers respond to bul-
lying, children form cognitive representations for how their teachers
will likely respond in subsequent bullying episodes. When children
believe that teachers tolerate bullying, it further reinforces their be-
liefs that bullying is acceptable and an approved behavioral re-
sponse. In contrast, when children believe that teachers do not
tolerate bullying, it can influence their outcome evaluations and de-
cisions about bullying and serve as a model for how they should ex-
ercise anti-bullying bystanding behaviors.
Although teacher and peer socialization are theorized to indepen-
dently influence children's person-related development and in turn
their bullying and bystanding behaviors, combined or conjoint effects
should also be considered. It is proposed that peer and teacher socializa-
tion have a synergistic effect on children's person-related development
and subsequently their bullying and bystanding behaviors. That is,
when the attitudes and beliefs that children receive via multiple socializ-
ing agents are concordant, they are more likely to internalize these values
and apply them in subsequent social interactions. For instance, investiga-
tors have explored the role of collective efficacy to intervene—construed
as individuals' perceptions of the ability of classmates and teachers to
work together to intervene effectively in bullying situations—on the oc-
currence of bullying and bystanding behavior (Barchia & Bussey, 2011a,
2011b). Findings from this line of inquiry suggest that when children be-
lieve their classmates and teachers are effective at intervening, they are
more likely to engage in defending behaviors. In contrast, those with
low collective efficacy beliefs were more likely to engage in aggressive
behaviors (Barchia & Bussey, 2011a, 2011b). Moreover, when the social
messages children receive from socializing agents are discordant, the in-
fluence of one agent may be tempered or suppressed by others. Thus,
examining the combined effects of multiple socialization agents may pro-
vide new insights that cannot be assessed by examining these processes
independently.
4. Conclusion
The primary objective of this article was to bring about an integra-
tion of multiple theoretical perspectives on the determinants of bullying
and bystanding behaviors. Toward this end, a preliminary synthesis was
undertaken as an attempt to incorporate multiple person-level
(i.e., social-cognitive, emotion, and moral processing) and relational-
level (i.e., peer and teacher) influences on bullying and bystanding
behaviors. Although it was outside the scope of this review to empirical-
ly test the tenets that emerged from this synthesis, it is conceivable that
such efforts could spur investigative innovations and generate novel in-
sights. With respect to children's person-related factors, greater explan-
atory power might be achieved by simultaneously examining person-
related factors from multiple domains. Much remains to be learned
about how children coordinate social cognitive, emotional, and moral
processes, and how these factors are interconnected and associated
with bullying and bystanding behaviors. Further, even less is known
about how relational experiences (i.e., socialization contexts and pro-
cesses) shape the development of person-related factors, and
how—over the course of development—differing combinations of
person- and contextual factors influence children's bullying and
bystanding behaviors.
Expanding the knowledge base on the determinants of bullying and
bystanding behaviors could also have significant implications for inter-
vention efforts aimed at reducing school related bullying and victimiza-
tion. The factors identified within this preliminary synthesis suggest
that there are multiple potentially malleable personal and relational
processes that would be suitable targets for intervention efforts with
the most promising chances of reducing bullying and victimization
and promoting anti-bullying bystanding behaviors.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge Dr. Larry Dumka and Dr. Sabina Low for their feed-
back on earlier versions of this manuscript.
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