Moral cognition and Bullying in Secondary School – a Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between moral evaluation, moral cognition and bullying behavior in high school students from the Netherlands and Colombia. It was examined how moral reasoning, moral value evaluation as well as self-serving cognitive distortions are related to bullying behavior. The sample consisted of 287 Dutch students (aged 12-18) and 142 Colombian students (aged 11-15). No negative associations between moral reasoning and bullying behavior could be established. An inverse relationship between moral value evaluation and bullying behavior was found for boys only in both samples. Self-serving cognitive distortions were positively associated with bullying behavior in the Netherlands. An association between moral reasoning and self-serving cognitive distortions could be found in both samples except for Colombian girls. The results show a negative association between moral value evaluation and self-serving cognitive distortions in the Dutch sample but not in the Colombian sample. Only self-serving cognitive distortions appeared to predict bullying behavior when multiple factors were taken into account. The implications of these results for intervention programs and further research are discussed.