A Different View on Bullies’ Cognitions: Examining Bullies’ Beliefs About Their Victims’ Initial Views of Them

Abstract

Bullying is a common problem among adolescents. Bullies often have agentic goals which includes having social status and dominance using aggression to pursue those goals. This makes them popular, but not well liked. It is important to investigate why bullies maintain this behaviour despite its negative consequences in terms of likeability. In this study we will investigate the following question: Do bullies think their victims would not have liked them anyway and therefore have nothing to lose in terms of likeability? The first explanation we will study is if bullies value their popularity more than their likeability. The second possible explanation is that bullies endorse beliefs that their victims dislike them even before the bullying starts. The present study included 383 Dutch adolescents (232 participants) in the first and second year of secondary education. The participants filled out questionnaires about themselves and their peers on bullying and peer status. Results show a significant positive correlation between bullying and perceived popularity, but no correlation between bullying and likeability was found. Furthermore, bullies were found to be more likely than others to value popularity more than likeability. Bullying was not a significant positive predictor off the belief that peers dislike bullies in bullying scenarios and for the belief that the victim disliked the bully before the bullying started. Adolescents who score high in popularity tend to think that peers do not like the bully and that the victim already disliked the bully before the bullying started.