Aggressive Attitudes and Prevalence of Bullying Bystander Behavior in Middle School

• NCJ Number: 251348
• Journal: Psychology in the Schools Volume: 53 Issue: 8 Dated: September 2016 Pages: 804-816
• Author(s): P. Datta; D. Cornell; F. Huang
• Date Published: September 2016
• Length: 13 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2012-JF-FX-0062
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study tested the hypothesis that pro-aggressive attitudes in middle school would deter students from standing up to bullying and encourage them to reinforce bullying behavior.

Abstract

Separate lines of research find that pro-aggressive attitudes promote peer aggression and that bystanders play a pivotal role in deterring or facilitating bullying behavior. In the current study, middle school students (n = 28,765) in 423 schools completed a statewide school-climate survey that included an aggressive attitudes scale and their bystander response to a recent episode of bullying, which was categorized as upstanding, reinforcing, or passive. Multilevel logistic regressions indicated that higher aggressive attitudes were associated with less upstanding behavior at the school level and less upstanding behavior and more reinforcing behavior at the individual level, while controlling for other school and student demographic variables. These findings suggest that anti-bullying programs might address student attitudes toward aggression as a means of boosting positive bystander intervention. (Publisher abstract modified)