Bolmer

Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006) 803828
www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp
Reactions to bullying and peer victimization:

Narratives, physiological arousal, and personality
Julie M. Bollmer, Monica J. Harris , Richard Milich
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, USA
Available online 25 October 2005
Abstract
A mediational model of bullying and victimization is proposed and tested. Ninety-nine 10- to 13-
year-old children provided two oral narratives of their victimization experiences, as perpetrator and
victim, with their physiological arousal being measured while they told the narratives. The children
and one of their parents also completed a variety of questionnaires, including a Big 5 measure of per-
sonality and measures of bullying and victimization tendencies. Mediational analyses indicated that
children who score low on Conscientiousness and high on Neuroticism are more likely to experience
negative aVect during peer conXict, such as feeling angrier, blaming the bully more, and forgiving less,
and that these reactions are related to higher levels of victimization. For bullies, relations among
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and bullying appear to be mediated by lesser feelings of guilt and
gains in physiological arousal while telling a bullying narrative. Advantages of a mediational model
of peer victimization processes and implications for interventions are discussed.
2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Peer victimization; Bullying; Personality; Big 5; Physiological arousal; Narrative analysis; Mediation

First authorship is shared equally by the Wrst two authors. Julie Bollmer is now at Westat Corporation. This
research was supported by a grant from the University of Kentucky Research Foundation. We are deeply grateful
to the children and families who participated in our study. We thank Jenny Butler, Jennifer Gardner, Stephanie
Haddix, Kyle Linneman, Melissa Maras, Jennifer Milburn, Thomas McCann, and Paul Rosen for their help in
data collection and coding. We are also grateful to Charles Carlson and Suzanne Segerstrom for consultations on
the physiological measurement and Don Lynam and Rick Hoyle for their statistical help.
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +1 859 323 1979.
E-mail address: harris@uky.edu (M.J. Harris).
0092-6566/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2005.09.003
804 J.M. Bollmer et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006) 803828
1. Introduction
Adults tend to glamorize childhood as a time of carefree innocence and joy. But child-
hood is not always carefree, and nearly every child experiences at least occasionally
some form of victimization by peers. In the last decade, researchers have noted the detri-
mental eVects of peer bullying on the mental health of children (Glover, Gough,
Johnson, & Cartwright, 2000; Nansel et al., 2001; Olweus, 1995, 2003). Considerable
research has appeared identifying the predictors and consequences of peer victimization
(Hodges & Perry, 1999; Juvonen & Graham, 2001; Marsh, Parada, Craven, & Finger,
2004; Olweus, 2003; Perry, Hodges, & Egan, 2001). The present study adds to this bur-
geoning literature in three primary ways: First, we identify the stable personality traits
that place children at risk for peer victimization and bullying, anchoring it within the Big
5 literature, the dominant model of adult personality. Second, we examine the aVective,
cognitive, and physiological experiences that occur during the retelling of a bullying and
victimization event. Third, and most important, we propose and test a theoretical model
of peer victimization that examines how the relations between personality and bullying
and victimization are mediated by the aVective, cognitive, and physiological processes
occurring within the child.
1.1. Theoretical model of victimization
As a theoretical framework for proposing and testing mediational hypotheses of bully-

ing and victimization, we propose the following model (see Fig. 1). The model describes
two separate mediation pathways, one for bullies and one for victims. In each case, person-
ality variables are posited to aVect bullying and victimization through their eVects on aVec-
tive and cognitive responses that occur in the moment of a peer-conXict situation. In other
words, stable individual diVerences such as personality will determine more transient and
narrower behaviors within a speciWc context, and it is these speciWc behaviors and how
they are construed by the child that help shape a childs status as a bully or victim. Our
model thus endorses the seminal concept proposed by Caspi and Bem (1990) that the rela-
tion between personality and behavior is not static but rather dynamic; that is, personality
aVects how an individual may interpret and respond to a speciWc event, which in turn can
inXuence the probability with which that event may reoccur in the future. To oVer a speciWc
example from the victimization literature, a child high in Neuroticism may exhibit high lev-
els of distress when being victimized, which in turn may reinforce bullies to pick on this
child at a high rate in the future (Patterson, Littman, & Bricker, 1967).
Our model and predictions are consistent with existing theories and models of aggres-
sion and bullying (e.g., Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Hubbard, Dodge, Cillessen, Coie, &
Schwartz, 2001; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000; Neuman & Baron, 2003). The major diVerence
between existing models in the literature and ours lies in the choice and speciWcation of the
distal individual diVerence variables and proximal mediating variables. For example,
Dodge and Pettits (2003) model speaks of biological predispositions that inXuence con-
duct problems, with biological predispositions encompassing a broad range of potential
variables such as polygenetic factors, prenatal toxicities, nervous system reactivity, behav-
ioral facilitation and inhibition systems, and temperament. Our model, on the other hand,
is more speciWc and focuses solely on the Big 5 personality factors, which the Dodge and
Pettit (2003) model does not explicitly include.
J.M. Bollmer et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006) 803828 805
BULLIES VICTIMS
Personality Personality
Neuroticism (+) Individual Neuroticism (+)
Agreeableness (-) Difference Agreeableness (-)
Conscientiousness (-) Variables Conscientiousness (-)
Extraversion (+) Extraversion (-)
Affective and Cognitive Affective and Cognitive

Mediators Immediate Mediators
Physiological arousal Responses to Physiological arousal
Positive affect Bullying Incident Emotion dysregulation
Enjoyment Visibledistress
Reduced guilt Negative affect
Hostile attributional bias
Increased Increased
Bullying Long-term Outcomes Victimization
Fig. 1. Theoretical model of bullying and victimization.
Another diVerence between our and existing models is our decision to include both
bullying and victimization pathways within a single model. The advantage of so doing is
that it makes explicit the social interactional components of peer victimization. Thus, in
our model, we draw a causal connection between the victims reactions to a bullying inci-
dent and subsequent increases in aggressive behaviors on the part of the bully. This path-
way argues that visible signs of distress on the part of the victim serve as an important
reinforcement and source of pleasure to the bully (Arsenio & Lover, 1997; Perry,
Williard, & Perry, 1990), thus increasing the likelihood that the bully will engage in
future bullying behavior, both with this particular victim as well as with other children.
We do not draw an analogous pathway between bullies reactions and victims outcomes
because we believe that how bullies react is less important in predicting a particular
childs victimization. In other words, we believe that a victims response to being bullied
is a better predictor of subsequent bullying than is a bullys behavior during bullying in
predicting later victimization.
1.1.1. Personality predictors of victimization and bullying

A primary goal of the current study is to apply a structural model of personality to
understanding bullying and victimization. As noted earlier, considerable research has
been devoted to identifying individual diVerence predictors, including social information
processing biases, of bullying and victimization (see Sanders & Phye, 2004, for an excel-
lent recent review); for example, an early eVort documented that victimized children
were more likely to be physically weak, introverted, selWsh, aggressive, and attention
seeking (Lowenstein, 1978). Less attention has been paid, however, to the role of struc-
tural models of personality such as the Big 5; our literature search identiWed only two
studies that have looked at the relation between the Big 5 personality factors and speciWc
measures of bullying/victimization (Jensen-Campbell et al., 2002; Tani, Greenman,
Schneider, & Fregoso, 2003).
Compelling reasons exist to consider the role of personality, and the Big 5 traits in par-
ticular, in bullying and peer victimization. Concentrating Wrst on predictions for victims,
previous research with adults has found that people who reported having been teased more
often as a child scored higher on Neuroticism (Georgesen, Harris, Milich, & Young, 1999);
in a sample of 232 Italian children, Tani et al. (2003) found a similar relation between neu-
roticism and victimization. This Wnding is consistent with theoretical conceptions that
childhood victims display high levels of distress and negative aVect (Perry et al., 2001), and
we thus predict that neuroticism will be positively associated with victimization in the cur-
rent sample.
Both Tani et al. (2003) and Jensen-Campbell et al. (2002) found that Agreeableness was
negatively associated with victimization. Consistent with these Wndings is work by Ehrler,
Evans, and McGhee (1999) showing that Agreeableness was negatively related to social
problems, a broad category that included interpersonal rejection and being teased. Based
on these Wndings and the reasoning that Agreeableness would be the Big 5 dimension most
closely related to peer relations, we therefore predict that children scoring higher on Agree-
ableness would be less likely to be victimized.
Tani et al. (2003) also found that victimization was negatively related to Conscientious-
ness. The basis for this relation is less intuitively obvious, although it it is possible that chil-
dren who are more conscientious, and therefore more determined and strong-willed, are
better able to fend oV potential attacks by perpetrators. Alternatively, low conscientious
children may be more likely to act in antisocial ways that elicit retaliation and subsequent
victimization from peers. Based on this previous work, we oVer, more tentatively, the pre-
diction that victims will score lower on Conscientiousness.
With respect to bullying, the developmental literature indicates that there is no sin-
gle, homogeneous bully personality type; instead, there appear to be fairly discrete
subgroups of bullies. One subgroup is the category called bully-victims, that is, chil-
dren whose own aggressive behavior elicits subsequent retaliation and bullying by oth-
ers (Schwartz, 2000; Schwartz, McFadyen-Ketchum, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1999).
These children appear to be the most impaired with respect to long-term outcomes and
internalizing psychopathology (Swearer, Song, Cary, Eagle, & Mickelson, 2001). Thus,
the existence of the bully-victim subgroup would lead to the hypothesis that bullies
should score higher on Neuroticism, a hypothesis that has found support in two studies
that looked at correlations between bullying and scores on the junior version of the
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Connolly & OMoore, 2003; Mynard & Joseph,
1997).
A second subgroup consists of children who Wt more closely the classic stereotype of a
bully, that is, the dominant, imposing child who aggresses against others without fear of
retaliation. With this subgroup, bullying appears to share some overlap with conduct dis-
order, which is a noted precursor of antisocial personality (McMahon & Wells, 1998).
Other research has shown that individuals with antisocial personality are low on Agree-
ableness and low on Conscientiousness (Miller & Lynam, 2001). It is reasonable to assume
that the personality factors associated with antisocial personality would generalize to bul-
lying, especially pure bullying, and thus we predict that children who score high on bul-
lying will also score low on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Support for this
prediction is also found in two other studies: Georgesen et al. (1999), who found in a sam-
ple of adults that individuals who reported a history of teasing others in childhood scored
lower on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and Ehrler et al. (1999), who found that
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness was negatively related to teacher reports of students
conduct problems, a category that included losing ones temper and picking Wghts with
peers. Tani et al. (2003) similarly found bullies to score lower on Agreeableness.
With respect to the remaining two variables in the Big 5 model, Extraversion and Open-
ness to Experience, fewer relations between these variables and bullying and victimization
have been documented in the literature. A few isolated Wndings suggest that victims may be
less extraverted (Mynard & Joseph, 1997) and bullies may be more extraverted (Tani et al.,
2003) or (for boys) more popular (Slee & Rigby, 1993). However, because these relations
have not held up consistently in the studies reviewed above or in research from our labora-
tory, we include and analyze Extraversion and Openness to Experience only in an explor-
atory fashion.
1.1.2. AVective and cognitive responses of bullies and victims during conXict
According to our model, individual diVerence factors such as personality aVect peer vic-
timization outcomes through their mediating eVects on the aVective and cognitive reac-
tions children have in the moment of a peer victimization experience. Past research that has
attempted to identify the emotional reactions of bullies and victims has utilized primarily
retrospective, paper-and-pencil measures. For example, Borg (1998), using a forced-choice
inventory, found that a signiWcant minority of bullies (21%) reported feeling satisWed about
their bullying, although a higher percentage (50%) reported feeling sorry. Age, however,
was a signiWcant moderator of this Wnding such that older bullies were more likely to feel
satisWed and young bullies to feel sorry (Borg, 1998). In a multicultural study, Menesini
et al. (2003) found that when bullies, victims, and bystanders were asked to imagine how a
bully would feel in a hypothetical bullying situation, bullies reported higher levels of disen-
gagement and egocentrism, and were more likely to indicate a lack of empathy, than did
the other two groups. Relatedly, Smith, Bowers, Binney, and Cowie (1993) had bullies, vic-
tims, and control children view videotaped episodes of bullying and respond to questions
about how the individuals in the videotape felt. Bullies were much more likely to say that
bullies felt happy about the incident and much less likely to say that the victims were
unhappy.
The studies reviewed above thus suggest that bullies should report more satisfaction,
happiness, and less empathy in a bullying situation. However, one limitation of the previ-
ous research is that it involved either retrospective self-reports or reactions to a Wctional
bullying event, thus raising the possibility that the previous Wndings are contaminated to
unknown degrees by social desirability biases. Given the methodological diYculties of
assessing childrens thoughts and feelings about victimization during actual conXict situa-
tions, we have adopted a narrative methodology as an attempt to provide a more authentic
picture of the emotions associated with peer victimization experiences. In this methodol-
ogy, we ask children to provide stories of actual victimization events from their own lives.
Narratives of life events usually convey a richness of emotion and detail that is not cap-
tured by traditional Likert-type questionnaires. Narrative methodology can also be less
biasing in that participants are free to construe their experiences in a way that has the most
meaning for them, rather than trying to accommodate the sometimes arbitrary concerns of
the researcher.
Narrative analysis has been used successfully in the topic areas of interpersonal conXict
and teasing, at least for adults (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990; Bollmer, Harris,
Milich, & Georgesen, 2003; Georgesen et al., 1999; Kowalski, 2000). In one such example,
Georgesen et al. (1999) collected narratives of college students memorable teasing experi-
ences. A wide range of incidents were reported, ranging from humorous teasing among
friends to long-remembered and traumatic incidents of hostile taunting in childhood. Partic-
ipants personality and teasing histories were also measured, and analyses focused on how
these variables were related to the students narratives. For the teaser narratives, students
who reported teasing other children more often during their childhood were more likely to
accept blame for the incident in the teasing narrative. Participants who were rated as show-
ing more empathy for the victim were also more likely to express remorse over their actions.
With respect to the victim narratives, students who reported being a more frequent victim of
childhood teasing were less likely to report forgiving the teaser. Interestingly, students with a
history of more frequently teasing other children were more likely to forgive their teaser,
perhaps because they were aware they had often been guilty of the same oVense. Victim for-
giveness was also positively related to victim self-blame for the event.
These and other studies (e.g., Kowalski, 2000) indicate that adults can generate
detailed narratives of interpersonal conXict that are valid and relate to personality and
other variables in meaningful ways. This methodology has not yet been used in studies of
childhood peer victimization, however, and such an application is one of the major con-
tributions of the current study. With respect to the current study, we oVer the following
hypotheses regarding the narratives told by our sample. Children who score higher on
our bullying index should tell narratives that are more positive in nature; that is, they
should enjoy the incident more and feel less remorse about it. Children who score higher
on our victimization index should tell narratives that are more negative in tone; that is,
they should be angrier at and less forgiving of the perpetrator and feel more distressed
by the incident.
1.1.3. Contributions of a physiological approach to understanding peer victimization

An additional major contribution of the current study is its measurement of physiologi-
cal arousal, as indexed by skin conductance levels, while children are telling their
narratives. A theoretical basis exists for predicting diVerences between chronic victims and
non-victims in physiological arousal during conXict experiences. For example, several
researchers have argued that one of the factors that predispose children to repeated victim-
ization is that they experience a debilitating emotional arousal that precludes them from
coping well during a victimization event (Perry et al., 2001). There is also evidence to sug-
gest that aggressors are particularly drawn to victims who respond to provocation with
emotional displays of distress and anger (Perry et al., 1990; Schwartz, 2000).
Thus, the literature suggests strongly that chronic victims should experience greater
emotional arousal during victimization incidents. Although this hypothesis has not yet
been tested directly empirically, indirect support is found in a study by Hubbard et al.
(2001). In this study, childrens levels of reactive and proactive aggression were measured
and related to changes in skin conductance levels (SCL) while playing a game in which
they lost to a confederate who cheated, a presumably anger-provoking incident. Analy-
ses showed that reactive aggression, but not proactive aggression, was related positively
to increases in SCL during the game. Because chronic victims are more likely to score
higher on reactive aggression (Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates, & Pettit, 1997), these
results provide an encouraging basis for our hypothesis that children scoring high on
victimization in our sample should display greater gains in SCL while describing a vic-
timization incident.
An argument can be made that increased emotional arousal will also be evident in
bullies (see Scarpa & Raine, 1997, for a review of the relation between violent behavior,
poor emotion regulation ability, and psychophysiological indicators). For example,
Eisenberg et al. (1995) found in a longitudinal study that aggression in elementary
school children could be predicted by displays of negative emotionality (reacting to
provocation with anger) and lack of emotion regulation in preschool; Shields and Cic-
chetti (2001) similarly found in a sample of 8- to 12-year-old children that bullies scored
higher on emotion dysregulation than a normal control group. An alternative
perspective is that children who engage in repeated bullying of peers do so because
they Wnd it rewarding and enjoyable; as the Perry et al. (1990) study described
earlier notes, some bullies react positively upon seeing the distress and anger of their
victims.
In sum, we arrive at a similar prediction for both bullies and victims: They should show
greater increases in physiological arousal when talking about their respective bullying and
victimization experiences compared to children who score lower on the bullying and victim-
ization measures. However, we propose that this increase in arousal means something diVer-
ent for bullies vs. victims. Because skin conductance levels indicate only the degree of
physiological arousal and not its underlying nature (Dawson, Schell, & Filion, 2000), we will
look at the emotions expressed in the narratives to approach the question of what the arousal
means. For victims, we predict the physiological arousal will be negative in nature and stem-
ming from the fear, anger, and humiliation that accompanies such attacks. For bullies, on the
other hand, we believe the arousal will be more positive in nature, reXecting an excitement or
rush that develops in such children upon witnessing another childs distress. Recent work
by Owens and his colleagues supports the basis for this prediction; in qualitative analyses of
teenage girls use of relational aggression, they have found that a key motive for engaging in
aggression was to create excitement in their lives (Owens, Shute, & Slee, 2000a, 2000b). Arse-
nios work on the happy victimizer is also consistent with this interpretation; he and his
colleagues have found that preschool children who exhibit happy facial expressions while
aggressing against other children were more likely to initiate aggression and experience peer
rejection (Arsenio, Cooperman, & Lover, 2000; Arsenio & Lover, 1997).
We chose skin conductance levels as our index of physiological arousal for both theoreti-
cal and methodological reasons. First, SCLs have been shown to be reliably related to expres-
sions of emotion (Dawson et al., 2000), especially negative emotions (Hughes, Uhlmann, &
Pennebaker, 1994). Second, SCL measurement is more robust and produces less noise during
conversation than does heart rate, which is inXuenced to a greater extent by the changes in
respiration and chest volume that accompany speech, and which may reXect an orienting
response more than emotional arousal (Hubbard et al., 2002).
1.1.4. Mediational hypotheses

The preceding sections describe the simple associations predicted by our model between
childrens personality and their aVective and cognitive reactions during victimization and their
subsequent victimization and bullying. Our model goes beyond positing simple associations,
however, to making mediational hypotheses: we predict that a childs personality will deter-
mine in part the responses he or she has to a victimization encounter, and that it is these imme-
diate reactions that are the primary determinant of a childs bullying or victimization status.
SpeciWcally, with respect to bullying, we predict that children who score low on Agree-
ableness and Conscientiousness will be more likely to respond positively when they aggress
against another child, feeling more enjoyment and less guilt and becoming more physiolog-
ically aroused, and that these positive aVective and cognitive reactions will lead to higher
levels of bullying. With respect to victimization, we predict that children who score higher
on Neuroticism and lower on Conscientiousness will react with greater anger and distress
while being victimized, as well as showing greater physiological arousal, and these reac-
tions will lead to higher overall levels of victimization.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants were 99 children (50 boys, 49 girls) between the ages of 10 and 13
(M D 11.46, SD D 0.97). Participants were recruited through a newspaper advertisement for
a study of peer relationships. Families were paid $30 for their participation. The ethnic
composition of the sample reXected the demographics of the Lexington, Kentucky area,
with 86% of the children being White, 12% Black, and 2% Other.
2.2. Procedure
2.2.1. Physiological recording

Leads for the physiological equipment were attached to two Wngers of the childs non-
dominant hand. Skin conductance levels (SCL) data were recorded with a J + J I-330 comput-
erized physiograph that integrated data at a rate of 50 samples per second and computed an
average score for each experimental phase. Although SCL data were recorded continuously,
we were interested primarily in four distinct phases: resting baseline, control narrative, bully
narrative, and victim narrative. The resting baseline consisted of the 3rd7th min of a 10-min
period during which the children were instructed to sit quietly while watching a videotape of
a saltwater aquarium. The three narratives are described later.
2.2.2. Childrens self-report data

Children were asked to complete two self-report measures:1
1
Children were also asked to complete a measure of friendship quality, and parents were asked to complete the
CBCL, for a study looking at the role of friendships in moderating peer victimization; these data are reported
elsewhere (Bollmer, Milich, Harris, & Maras, 2005).
(1) Perception of peer support scale (PPSS; Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002;
Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1997). The PPSS is a 12-item self-report scale that asks chil-
dren to indicate on a three-point response scale (never, sometimes, and a lot)
the extent to which they encounter a range of victimization experiences. The measure
begins with four Wller items to familiarize the participant with the scale format; these
items ask if there were ever times, for example, when the respondent had ice cream
for dessert or rode the bus to school. The four Wller items are followed by the ques-
tion stem Does anyone in your class ever:, which is then followed by 22 items,
including 12 victimization items that tap into both physical and relational victimiza-
tion (e.g., pick on you at school, call you names, say bad things about you to
other kids at school, tease you at school, and beat you up at school.) The 12 vic-
timization items are interspersed with 10 positively worded Wller items (e.g., say they
like your clothes and talk about school work with you) so as to deXate the nega-
tive aVect that might be aroused by responding to the items. The Wller items are not
analyzed. In the current sample, the PPSS had a coeYcient of .81.
(2) Reactive-proactive aggression questionnaire (RPAQ; Raine et al., in press). The
RPAQ is a recently created scale that yields scores on reactive and proactive aggres-
sion subscales, as well as a total aggression score. The measure consists of 23 items,
measured on three-point scales (never, sometimes, often), that ask children to
respond how often they engage in a certain behavior. For the current study, we were
interested in the proactive aggression subscale only, which consisted of items such as
How often have you had Wghts with others to show who was on top? How often
have you used force to obtain money or things from others? and How often have
you threatened and bullied someone? The coeYcient reported by Raine et al. (in
press) for the proactive subscale was .84, and the for our sample was .70. Conver-
gent validity of the proactive subscale has been documented through signiWcant cor-
relations with the aggression, delinquency, and hostility-aggression subscales of the
CBCL, and criterion validity was documented through signiWcant correlations with
maternal ratings of psychopathy, use of violent strong-arm tactics, initiating Wghts,
and self-reported delinquency (Raine et al., in press).
2.2.3. Narrative tasks

Following completion of the measures, the narrative tasks were introduced. Children
were told that we wanted them to make a personal diary about themselves, but instead
of writing, we would videotape them talking out loud. We Wrst had all children spend
two minutes providing a control narrative by talking about their past school year. We
gave children a reminder sheet listing topics to talk about deliberately chosen to elicit
factual information that would be largely devoid of emotion; example topics included
what their teachers name was; what the classroom looked like; what they typically ate
for lunch; what classes they had; and the kind of homework they did. We had no sub-
stantive interest in the content of the school narrative; the primary purpose was simply
to get children accustomed to talking about themselves and using the reminder sheet, as
well as to provide a control for the physiological changes associated with talking out
loud.
After the school narrative was Wnished, participants were asked to provide two narra-
tives, one about an incident in which they were a victim of bullying or hostile teasing and
one about an incident in which they were involved in teasing or bullying another child.
Order of narrative was counterbalanced across participants. The instructions provided to

participants for this task included a deWnition of victimization adapted from Olweus
(1978); for example, the instructions for the victim narrative were:
All kids at some time or another experience problems with other kids. These prob-
lems can include being bullied, picked on, or teased in a hostile manner. When we
talk about bullying or hostile teasing, it is diYcult for the person being bullied to
defend him or herself. We also call it bullying when a student is teased repeatedly in a
mean and hurtful way. But we do not call it bullying when the teasing is done in a
friendly and playful way. In other words, we are talking about times when kids do
something really mean to another kid. We would like you to describe a time in your
life when you experienced a problem like this with another kid or group of kids doing
something mean to you, like bullying, making fun of, picking on, or teasing you in a
mean manner.
At this point the experimenter handed children a reminder sheet of points to cover while
providing the narrative. We instructed them to talk for at least 2 min and delivered stan-
dardized prompts if they stopped talking before the two minutes were up. Pilot testing of
this procedure conWrmed that it was eVective in producing narratives that were complete in
terms of detail as well as being closely matched in terms of duration.
Instructions for the perpetrator narrative asked participants to describe a time in your
life when you did something mean to another kid or group of kids, like bullying, picking
on, or teasing them in a mean manner If a participant claimed not to have a relevant
perpetrator narrative, the experimenter delivered a standardized prompt stressing that
everybody has times in their lives when they have said or done something to hurt some-
body else. These instructions and prompts were eVective, as only 1 of the 99 children
claimed he or she could not generate a perpetrator narrative and only two children were
unable to generate a victim narrative.
2.2.4. Structured interview

Following each narrative, participants completed a structured interview. Questions
were administered orally, with the experimenter presenting visual guides that provided
the response scale and appropriately phrased anchors. For the victim narrative, we
asked how the participants felt during the event; how they thought the bully felt; and
how mad they feel at the bully now. Questions for the perpetrator narrative were simi-
lar in content although rephrased to reXect the diVerent perspective. At the conclusion
of both the narratives and structured interviews, the children were asked four questions
on Wve-point scales about their frequency of victimization experiences as both victim
and perpetrator: two questions about how often they tease other children and get
teased, and two questions about how often they physically hurt other children or get
physically hurt.
2.2.5. Parent data

While the children were undergoing the above procedures, the parent was asked to com-
plete several questionnaires. Parent reports were obtained so as to avoid the interpreta-
tional problems caused by relying solely on child reports. Considerable evidence exists
attesting to the validity of parent reports of childrens internal states and abilities in gen-
eral (Kamphaus & Frick, 1996) and parent reports of childrens personality and behavior
and peer diYculties in particular (Angold & Costello, 1996; Barbaranelli, Caprara,
Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003; Bierman & McCauley, 1987). Moreover, research by Ladd
and Kochenderfer-Ladd (2002) supports the superiority of multi-informant indices of peer
victimization over single source measures. The measures completed by parents in the cur-
rent study were:
(1) Parent report of victimization and bullying. Several items asked parents to rate their
childs victimization experiences. The Wrst item asked Does your child tease, pick on,
or bully other children more or less often compared to other children your childs
age? The second item asked, Does your child get teased, picked on, or bullied by
other children more or less often compared to other children your childs age? Par-
ents rated both items using Wve-point scales with anchors of much less than others
and much more than others. An additional Wve items, all on Wve-point Likert
scales, asked parents more speciWcally (a) the extent to which their child had
expressed distress over being teased or picked on by peers; (b) how often their child
had been the victim of physical attacks; (c) how often their child had been involved in
teasing or picking on other children; (d) how often their child had been involved in
physical attacks on his or her peers; and (e) how often they had been contacted by
others complaining about their childs interpersonal behavior toward peers.
(2) Little Five personality questionnaire (LFPQ; Lynam et al., 2005). The LFPQ is a 62-item
personality questionnaire completed by parents regarding their child and is designed to
measure the Big Five personality dimensions of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscien-
tiousness, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience in children and adolescents. For
each item, respondents indicate on a Wve-point scale how characteristic the item is of
their child. In our sample, coeYcient s were .83 for Neuroticism, .88 for Agreeableness,
.78 for Conscientiousness, .74 for Extraversion, and .78 for Openness to Experience,
thus indicating that the LFPQ is reliable for children of our age range.
(3) Perception of peer support scaleParent version (PPSS-P). We adapted the PPSS
(Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002) for completion by parents. The basic item content
remained identical to the child version; items were merely rephrased from the perspec-
tive of the parent responding about the child. For example, the item Does anyone in
your class ever pick on you at school? was rephrased Does anyone in your childs
class ever pick on your child at school? and the item Does anyone in your class ever
say mean things to you? was rephrased to Does anyone in your childs class ever say
mean things to your child? We also changed the three-point response scale used in the
child version to a Wve-point response scale (ranging from 1 D never happens to my child
to 5 D happens very often to my child) in order to increase the sensitivity of the mea-
sure. The coeYcient for the current sample for the PPSS-P was .92.
2.2.6. Coding of narratives and structured interviews

Five judges, blind to the victim/bully scores of the children, observed the videotaped nar-
ratives and rated them on a number of dimensions. Dimensions were chosen because they
were of theoretical relevance and/or had been shown to be useful in previous studies in our
laboratory. Judges were extensively trained prior to coding the tapes, through a process of
supplying them with deWnitions and examples of each of the dimensions rated. For example,
judges were asked to rate how much empathy the participant expressed toward the victim
while telling the bullying narrative. Empathy was further deWned as to what extent did the
subject talk about how the victim must have felt during the incident? Judges then practiced
making ratings as a group and then individually on subset of the videotapes to ensure they
were agreeing suYciently in their ratings prior to rating the entire sample. Ratings were made
on Wve-point scales, with anchors of 1 D none or not at all with respect to the dimension
being rated and 5 D complete or extreme levels of the dimension.
Interrater reliabilities were computed using procedures given by Rosenthal and Rosnow
(1991). This method involves computing the mean interrater correlation for each rating, and
then computing an eVective reliability coeYcient that corrects for the number of raters using
the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula. The dimensions rated and eVective reliabilities are
as follows: for victim narratives, the judges rated how much anger the children expressed
(r D .74), how much they took responsibility for the incident and blamed themselves (r D .74),
how much they blamed the perpetrator (r D .80), how much the children forgave the bully
(r D .78), and how distressed the children appeared to be feeling at the time of the videotaping
about the incident (r D .81). For the bully narratives, coders rated how much guilt the children
expressed (r D .86), how much they seemed to enjoy the bullying (r D .80), how much they held
the victim responsible for the incident (r D .84), how much empathy the children expressed
toward the victim (r D .84), how much they attempted to rationalize their bullying behavior
(r D .65), and how vivid their narratives were (r D .80). Means of the Wve judges for each vari-
able were then computed and used in subsequent analyses.
2.2.7. Creation of victimization and bullying scores

We created composite variables of bullying and victimization to reduce the number of
variables and increase the reliability of measurement. We created the indices by standardiz-
ing the items of the corresponding measures and computing a mean Z-score across items
for each child. The bullying composite measure consisted of (a) parents reports of how
often their child bullied others; (b) how often their child teased others; (c) how often their
child physically attacks others; (d) how often they received complaints about their childs
interpersonal behavior; (e) the childs self-report of how often they teased others; (f) how
often they hurt others physically; and (g) the proactive anger subscale of the RPAQ. The
coeYcient for the bullying composite variable was .80.
The victimization composite measure consisted of (a) parents reports of how often
their child was teased by others; (b) the degree to which their child was distressed by
teasing; (c) how often their child was the victim of attacks; (d) the adult version of the
PPSS; (e) the childs self-reports of how often they were the victim of teasing; (f) how
often they were physically hurt by peers; and (g) the child version of the PPSS. The vic-
timization composite variable had a coeYcient of .91. Our indices are therefore broad,
reliable measures that reXect both verbal and physical bullying/victimization and both
child and parent report.2
2
To assess the convergence between parent and child reports, mean Z-scores for the parent and child measures
of victimization and bullying were computed separately and then intercorrelated. We found that childrens and
parents reports were signiWcantly correlated for both bullying, r (97) D .44, p < .05, and victimization experiences,
r (97) D .45, p < .05. Thus, our data are consistent with other research showing good agreement between parents
and children (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002). Moreover, Ladd and Kochenderfer-Ladd (2002) argue that a
cross-informant composite helps reduce the impact of shared-method variance and provides a more accurate pre-
dictor of relational adjustment than any single informant, providing further justiWcation for our decision to com-
bine parent and child data in our composites.
The bullying and victimization composites were moderately intercorrelated,

r (97) D .43, p < .05. As a check to ensure that we were justiWed in conceptualizing and
analyzing these composites separately, we entered all of the bullying and victimization
variables comprising the composite variables into a factor analysis with varimax
rotation. Inspection of the scree plot indicated that a two-factor solution was optimal,
with eigenvalues of 4.22 and 1.85, respectively. Inspection of the factor loadings
indicated that, with the exception of a single variable, the victimization items loaded on
the Wrst factor and the bullying items loaded on the second factor. The only item that
did not load as predicted was the parent report of how often their child was the
victim of physical attacks, which loaded more strongly on the second factor. Because
of its theoretical relevance to victimization, however, and because reliability
analysis indicated that including it increased the coeYcient , we decided to retain it in
the victimization composite. In sum, the factor analysis supports the distinction
between bullying and victimization and our analyses of the composites as separate
variables.
3. Results
3.1. Overview of analyses
Our intensive laboratory-based protocol resulted in a broad, multimethod data set

containing several distinct sets of variables. The framework adopted for our analyses
was to follow the outlines of the model shown in Fig. 1. First, we look at the relations
between bullying and victimization and the Wve personality dimensions. Next, we focus
on the relations between bullying, victimization, and the aVective and cognitive
variables coded from the narratives. Third, we look at eVects of bullying and victimiza-
tion on the physiological arousal of our participants while telling their narratives.
Finally, we oVer a series of mediational analyses testing our hypotheses that the cogni-
tive and aVective variables taken from the narrative and physiological measurements
would mediate the relation between personality and bullying and victimization
tendencies.
3.2. Personality predictors of bullying and victimization
Our Wrst set of analyses involved identifying personality variables that predict childrens
experiences with peer victimization as either the target or perpetrator.3 Table 1 shows the
correlations between the Big 5 measures and the bullying and victimization composites. As
predicted, children who scored higher on the bullying composite were described by their
parents as being less Agreeable and less Conscientious. The predictions that bullies would
also score higher on neuroticism and extraversion were not supported. In sum, the picture
3
We also conducted initial analyses examining gender and race (Black vs. White/Other) diVerences on the nar-
rative variables, bullying and victimization composites, and physiological arousal. These analyses revealed only
one signiWcant diVerence for gender (boys scored higher on the bullying composite than did girls, t (97) D 3.48,
p < .05, r D .33), and one signiWcant diVerence for race (Black children reported feeling less good about themselves
when telling a bullying narrative than did White children, t (96) D 2.61, p D .05, r D .26).
Table 1
Relations between bullying and victimization composites and individual diVerence measures
Individual diVerence measure Composite scores
Victimization Bullying
Little Five personality questionnaire
Agreeableness .14 .36
Extraversion .02 .10
Neuroticism .18 .13
Conscientiousness .31 .20
Openness to experience .08 .03

p < .10.
p < .05.
of a bully that emerges from this analysis is a child who breaks rules, has less self-control,
and behaves unpleasantly toward peers.4
With respect to personality correlates of victimization, as seen in Table 1, as predicted,
children scoring higher on the victimization composite scored signiWcantly lower on Con-
scientiousness. As predicted, victimization was also positively associated with Neuroticism.
Although this correlation is not statistically signiWcant, given that we had predicted this
relation a priori and the increased Type II error rate due to the relative low power of the
study, we feel that this correlation warrants some attention. The correlations between
Agreeableness, Extraversion, and victimization were not signiWcant.
3.3. Bullying and victimization as expressed in childrens narratives
In this set of analyses, our interest is in how children who are bullies and victims
describe speciWc bullying and victimization events. Correlations were computed between
the victimization and bullying composite variables and the intervening variables derived
from the victim and bully narratives, which include both the ratings made by blind judges
from the videotapes and the childrens self-reports obtained in the structured interviews
following the narratives (see Table 2).
With respect to the victim narratives, we hypothesized that victimization scores would
be related to more negative aVect. Strong support was obtained for this hypothesis. When
asked to talk about a time in which they were teased or bullied by another child, children
who scored higher on our index of peer victimization were rated as sounding signiWcantly
angrier at the bully, blaming the bully more for the incident, forgiving the bully less, and
appearing to have been more distressed by the incident. They also told narratives that were
rated by our judges as being more vivid. These impressions of our judges were additionally
conWrmed by the childrens self-reports in the structured interview. Children who scored
higher on victimization reported feeling worse about the incident, being signiWcantly
angrier at the bully, and believing that the bully had felt good during the incident.
4
Although in the results and discussion we periodically use the terms bullies and victims, it is important to
keep in mind that our analyses adopted a dimensional approach, and we do not identify discrete subgroups of
bullies and victims. Rather, we use these terms as convenient shorthand labels to represent children scoring rela-
tively high on these dimensions.
Table 2
Correlations between victim/bully composite scores and narrative variables
Dependent variable Composite scores
Victimization Bullying
Victim narrative variables
Rated by judges
Victim anger .34 .08
Victim takes responsibility .14 .00
Victim blames bully .30 .08
Victim forgiveness of bully .31 .09
Victim distress .34 .06
Vividness of narrative .25 .06
Childrens self-reports
How good victim felt .20 .04
How good bully felt .26 .18
How mad victim was .21 .06
Bully narrative variables

Rated by judges
Bully guilt .15 .20
Bully enjoyment of incident .12 .11
Victim was responsible .17 .14
Bully empathy for victim .15 .11
Bully rationalization for incident .10 .09
Vividness of narrative .14 .07
Childrens self-reports
How good bully felt .04 .28
How good victim felt .08 .05
How sorry bully was .07 .16

p < .05.
With respect to the bullying narratives, we hypothesized that bullying scores would be
related to more positive aVect. Partial support was found for this hypothesis, as children
scoring higher on the bullying index were rated by our judges as expressing less guilt about
the incident, and they reported feeling better during the bullying incident. Somewhat sur-
prisingly, bullying was not signiWcantly related to rated enjoyment of the incident, rated
empathy, or narrative vividness. It is possible that social desirability concerns (children
know they are not supposed to express enjoyment in hurting others) attenuated the rela-
tions for these variables.
In sum, even though they received identical instructions for the narratives, children with
histories of bullying or being victimized tell very diVerent stories about their experiences,
and these diVerences fall into meaningful and predicted patterns. Victims tell stories of vic-
timization that are full of negative aVect, involving both visible distress and anger directed
at their perpetrators. Bullies, on the other hand, tell stories of bullying that minimize the
negative aVect involved or even put a positive spin on the incident; they felt better and less
guilty for their victims compared to children who scored lower on the bullying index. The
obtained pattern of results is noteworthy also in that it provides impressive evidence of
discriminant validity: Scores on the victimization composite variable are related to
variables coded from the victim narrative but not the bully narrative, and scores on the
bullying composite variable are related to variables coded from the bully narrative but not
the victim narrative.
3.4. Physiological arousal while telling bullying and victimization narratives
3.4.1. Changes in arousal across narratives

The preceding analyses focused on the thoughts and emotions of children as they
described incidents of bullying and victimization. Our next research question focused on the
physiological reactions of children while they are telling their stories. The Wrst step was to
document that the children became emotionally aroused when discussing bullying and vic-
timization experiences and that this arousal was not merely an artifact due to the cognitive
and physiological demands of talking out loud. We thus conducted 2 (sex) 3 (experimental
phase: resting baseline, control narrative, and bully/victim narrative) repeated measures
ANOVAs with a priori contrasts, computed separately for the bully and victim narratives.
With respect to the bully narratives, the phase factor was highly signiWcant, F(2, 192) D 45.55,
p < .05. A priori contrasts showed that children exhibited signiWcantly greater skin conduc-
tance levels when they were telling a bully narrative (M D 10.74) compared to both the resting
baseline period (M D 9.27), contrast F(1, 96) D 71.08, p < .05, r D .65, and the control narrative
period (M D 10.31), contrast F (1, 96) D 9.08, p < .05, r D .28.
Similar results were obtained for the victim narrative, with the omnibus phase factor
being signiWcant at F (2, 190) D 45.93, p < .05. Contrasts revealed that children telling victim
narratives had signiWcantly higher SCL (M D 10.82) than when they were in the resting
baseline period (M D 9.40), contrast F (1, 95) D 74.87, p < .05, r D .66, or when telling the
control narrative (M D 10.43), contrast F (1, 95) D 8.38, p < .05, r D .28. Childrens gender did
not signiWcantly aVect SCL in either analysis, nor did gender interact with the narrative
phase factor, all Fs < 1.0.
These analyses thus provide reassuring evidence that our narrative instructions were
eVective in getting children to talk and think about emotionally tinged events. Talking
about a time in which one was either victimized or engaged in victimization of another
signiWcantly increased the amount of physiological arousal as indexed by SCL. More-
over, we know that this arousal was not caused merely by the task demands of mentally
creating a narrative and telling it out loud, as the contrasts comparing the bully and vic-
tim narratives to the control narrative, which involved similar cognitive demands, were
signiWcant.
3.4.2. Relations among arousal, bullying, victimization, and personality

To look at the relations among physiological arousal, bullying, victimization, and per-
sonality, we next created residualized gain scores by regressing SCLs while telling either the
bully or victim narrative on SCL while telling the control narrative. The residualized gain
scores for the two narratives were then correlated with the victimization and bullying com-
posites and personality and are shown in Table 3. It is worth noting that SCLs for the con-
trol narrative were highly correlated with SCLs for both the bully and victim narratives,
r (98) D .91, p < .05 and r (97) D .92, p < .05, respectively. Thus, in the analyses using the
residualized gain scores, our tests are stringent indeed; we are attempting to explain the small
amount of leftover variance in SCLs for the bully and victim narratives after partialling out
the over 80% of the variance that is attributable to individual diVerences in SCLs while
talking.
Table 3
Personality predictors of changes in physiological arousal while telling bullying and victimization narratives
Individual diVerence measure Change in arousal
Victim narrative Bully narrative
Bullying composite .12 .22
Victimization composite .02 .11
Little Five personality questionnaire
Agreeableness .23 .30
Extraversion .22 .17
Neuroticism .02 .02
Conscientiousness .20 .23
Openness to experience .14 .06
Note. Change in physiological arousal was indexed by the residualized gain scores obtained by regressing skin
conductance levels while telling the bully or victim narratives on the control narrative SCL.

p < .05.
As seen in Table 3, contrary to prediction, physiological arousal while telling the victim
narratives was not signiWcantly related to childrens status on the victimization composite.
However, arousal while telling the bully narrative was signiWcantly positively related to
scores on the bullying composite. Thus, our prediction was conWrmed that children who
consistently engage in bullying others would experience more physiological arousal while
talking or thinking about their bullying.
We had also predicted that change in physiological arousal should be related to the per-
sonality variables theorized to be related to bullying and victimization. As shown in Table
3, increased arousal while telling the bully narrative was negatively related to both Agree-
ableness and Conscientiousness. Increased arousal while telling the victimization narrative
was also negatively related to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. In addition, change in
arousal for the victim narrative was negatively related to Extraversion. Our hypothesis that
arousal would be associated with Neuroticism for both narratives was not supported.
Looking at the individual diVerence correlates of changes in arousal thus helps to inter-
pret the nature of these changes. With respect to the bullying narrative, the children who
show the largest gains in arousal score higher on the traits that were shown earlier to be
most strongly related to the bullying composite, and so their arousal may reXect the
rewarding properties and their greater enjoyment of these incidents. This interpretation is
supported by a signiWcant correlation between SCL residualized gain scores for the bully-
ing narrative and ratings of how much the child enjoyed the bullying incident, r (92) D .28,
p < .05. With respect to the victimization narrative, although change in arousal was not sig-
niWcantly related to scores on the victimization composite, it was signiWcantly negatively
related to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, personality traits that were themselves
related to victimization.
3.5. Joint eVects of bullying and victimization
Collecting measures of both victimization and bullying tendencies from the same sam-
ple allows the question of overlap between victim and bully status to be raised. We corre-
lated childrens scores on the bullying and victimization composites and found that they
were indeed signiWcantly related, r (97) D .43, p < .05. Our results are thus consistent with a
review by Schwartz, Proctor, and Chien (2001), who report correlations ranging between
.20 and .50 across studies that directly addressed the relation between aggression/bullying
and victimization.
Because our sample was not large enough to analyze distinct subgroups of bullies and
victims, we addressed the issue of bullying/victimization overlap through a series of regres-
sion analyses in which the narrative and physiological arousal variables were regressed on
the bullying and victimization composite variables, entered in the Wrst step, and the
bullying victimization interaction term, entered in the second step. These analyses were
conducted using the standard Aiken and West (1991) procedure, whereby continuous pre-
dictors were centered prior to analysis, and interactions were interpreted using predicted
values 1SD below and above the mean.
These regressions revealed no signiWcant interactions between bullying and victimiza-
tion for any of the bullying narrative and physiological variables, all ts < 1.7, ps > .09.
SigniWcant bullying and victimization interactions, however, were found for three of the
ten victimization variables: (a) how much forgiveness the victims appeared to express
toward the bully, t (91) D 2.15, p < .05, r D .24; (b) the childrens self-report of how good
they felt during the incident, t (93) D 2.05, p < .05, r D .23; and (c) the childrens self-report
of how mad they felt at the bully, t (93) D 3.32, p < .05, r D .36. The nature of the interac-
tion was identical for all three variables: no diVerences as a function of victimization for
the high bullying children, but signiWcant eVects as a function of victimization for the
low bullying children. In other words, children scoring high on both the victim and bul-
lying composites behaved the same as the high bully low victim children, consistent with
the notion of a subgroup of aggressive victims who react similarly to the pure bullies.
However, for children low on bullying, those scoring high on victimization reacted more
negatively (i.e., they forgave less, felt angrier, and felt worse about themselves) than did
low-victim children. In sum, these analyses suggest that the Wndings we report between
victimization and the narrative variables in Table 2 appear to be accounted for more by
pure victimization in the traditional sense, rather than a subgroup of aggressive
victims.
3.6. Mediation analyses: Do narrative and physiological variables mediate the personality-
bullying/victimization link?
The preceding analyses have shown that personality is related to bullying and victimiza-
tion in meaningful ways. We have also shown that childrens narratives of peer victimiza-
tion events, and their physiological arousal while telling these events, are related to
bullying and victimization. In our Wnal set of analyses, we address the question of primary
importance: To what extent do the narrative and physiological arousal variables mediate
personalitypeer victimization relations?
We adopted the following strategy in conducting our mediational analyses. First, to reduce
the number of potential analyses conducted, we did not test mediational analyses for all of
the Big 5 factors, only those for which we had either a priori predictions or which had been
shown in our initial correlational analyses to be signiWcantly associated with bullying and vic-
timization. Second, we decided to analyze only those mediators that came from a diVerent
source than either the personality or outcome variables, namely, the six variables coded by
objective judges and the residualized gain scores reXecting change in physiological arousal.
Although this removed several potential mediators from consideration, it reduced the total
number of analyses involved and had the beneWt of ensuring that any signiWcant mediating
eVects obtained could not be attributed to shared method variance.
The statistical procedure we used to test mediation was the product of coeYcients
approach recommended by MacKinnon and colleagues in a recent article that reviewed
and compared diVerent methods (including the more common Baron and Kenny
approach) of testing mediation (MacKinnon, Lockwood, HoVman, West, & Sheets, 2002).
In the product of coeYcients approach, a series of regression analyses are run whereby the
mediating variable is regressed on the independent variable, and the dependent variable is
regressed on both the independent and mediating variable. Then, the regression coeYcients
representing the IV-mediator and mediator-DV links are converted into Z scores, and the
product of the two Z-scores (ZAZB) is computed and compared against the distribution of
the product of two normal random variables (MacKinnon et al., 2002), with the critical
value of the distribution for p < .05 being 2.18.
Looking Wrst at the mediators of victimization, none of the narrative or physiological
variables appeared to mediate the Agreeablenessvictimization relation, all ZAZB 6 1.85.
However, several signiWcant mediators of the Conscientiousnessvictimization and Neu-
roticismvictimization relations were obtained. With respect to Conscientiousness, vari-
ables that emerged as signiWcant mediators included the degree of anger displayed in the
narrative (ZAZB D 4.71), how distressed the children appeared to objective raters while tell-
ing the narrative (ZAZB D 6.59), how much they blamed the bully (ZAZB D 4.61), and their
degree of forgiveness of the bully (ZAZB D 6.03), all ps < .05.
Consistent with the idea of neuroticism as reXecting negative emotionality, signiWcant
mediators of the Neuroticismvictimization relation included degree of anger expressed at
the bully (ZAZB D 5.55), blaming the bully (ZAZB D 2.26), and ratings of distress while tell-
ing their narratives (ZAZB D 3.65), all ps < .05.
Less evidence for mediation was found in the analyses of the bullying composite vari-
able, where signiWcant results were obtained for only two of the mediating paths. Chil-
drens feelings of guilt appear to mediate the relation between Agreeableness and bullying,
such that highly agreeable children feel more guilty when they bully other children and
therefore engage in bullying to a lesser degree, ZAZB D 2.18, p < .05. Increases in physiolog-
ical arousal while telling the bullying narrative also appears to mediate the relation
between Conscientiousness and bullying, such that children who score low on conscien-
tiousness showed greater gains in skin conductance levels while telling the bullying narra-
tive, which in turn was related to higher levels of bullying, ZAZB D 2.80, p < .05.
In sum, our mediational analyses support the hypothesized model that for victimization,
and bullying to a lesser degree, the inXuence of personality on subsequent victimization
and bullying is accounted for by childrens aVective responses to the event. In the case of
victimization, the important mediators appear to be related to negative emotionality in
general, including distress, lack of forgiveness, anger at the bully, and blaming the bully. In
the case of bullying, the crucial mediators appear to be a lack of guilt and an increased
physiological arousal that appears to reXect a positive reaction to the event.
4. Discussion
Through either hard experience in our own childhoods or popular culture, most of us
can easily summon a mental picture of childhood bullies and their victims. Research on
peer victimization in recent years has focused on developing a more scientiWc description
of this picture. The current study proposed and tested a mediational model of bullying and
victimization that extends existing research on the correlates of peer victimization through
providing a fuller understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved in peer victimiza-
tion.
4.1. Understanding the Who in peer victimization: Personality predictors and narratives of
bullying and victimization
4.1.1. Who are the bullies?

Our study is one of the Wrst to approach the question of individual diVerences in
bullying and victimization using a structural model of personality. Using a recently
developed measure of the Big 5 traits in childhood, we discovered that bullies scored
lower on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Individuals with this proWle tend to be
rebellious, hostile, lacking in sympathy and warmth, antisocial, impulsive, self-cen-
tered, manipulative, and confrontational. Whereas previous research has tended to
focus on aggressive, conduct-disordered behaviors displayed by bullies, the
current study is one of the Wrst to anchor bullying in the broader, dispositional
traits that may predispose children to antisocial behavior and help to explain their
behavior.
Examination of the narratives the bullies told provides insight into what might be
accounting for the personalitybullying relations. The lack of remorse and apparent
glee expressed by some of our participants while telling a bullying narrative was chilling
to observe. This was seen in the objective coding of the narratives as well as the struc-
tured interview following the narrative, both of which revealed that bullies felt less
guilty and sorry about their behavior and reported feeling better during the incident.
Such an interpretation was supported by our mediational analyses, which found that
the relation between Conscientiousness and bullying was mediated by lower levels of
guilt and greater physiological arousal while telling the narrative. The following
excerpt from a bullying narrative given by one of our participants captures these char-
acteristics well:
I kind of did an accident on someone that I really hate. It was at gym class during
around the last day of the yearTravis had kicked a ball toward us (the kid I hate
the most). We were playing a game of scoop ball. He asked, Hey, give us the ball
back. And he turned around for a couple of seconds to answer what his friends was
saying. I picked up the ball and chucked it at him. Fortunately and unfortunately, it
conked him on the head. He ran to the gym teacher crying. I felt kind of happy until
Travis told the gym teacher.
Past research on peer aggression has similarly implicated bullies positive aVect while
aggressing as being particularly problematic. For example, Arsenios work on the
happy victimizer has shown that preschool children who display facial expressions of
happiness while aggressing against a peer were more likely to be the initiators of aggres-
sion, were less accepted by peers, and were judged as less socially skilled by their teachers
(Arsenio et al., 2000). Our Wndings extend this work to a middle-school population, as
well as documenting that the positive aVect experienced by some bullying children plays
an important mediating role in accounting for the relation between personality and sub-
sequent bullying.
4.1.2. Who are the victims?

Victimization in our study was signiWcantly related to low Conscientiousness and,
although it did not reach statistical signiWcance, high Neuroticism. Although not statisti-
cally signiWcant, the magnitude and direction of the Neuroticism association was predicted
by our model and thus worthy of further investigation. Obviously, ascertaining the direc-
tion of causality is impossible with our correlational data. Certainly it is plausible that
children who exhibit lots of angry emotionality would elicit bullying by peers, but it is
equally plausible that being chronically victimized would lead a child to express angry
emotionality.
The association between victimization and Conscientiousness is less intuitive. Why
should low Conscientious children be more likely to be victimized? One possibility is that
these children reXect the subgroup of aggressive victims in our sample. Another possibility,
raised earlier, is that conscientious children, who possess traits of determination and being
strong-willed, are better able to resist bullying from peers. It is also possible that the nega-
tive aVect associated with Neuroticism creates a particular vulnerability to victimization
when it is combined with the lack of restraint associated with low Conscientiousness. Chil-
dren scoring high on Neuroticism and low on Conscientiousness may be especially prone
to being unable to regulate their behavior in a conXict situation, thereby reacting in a way
that may exacerbate the situation. Unfortunately, our sample was too small to enable iden-
tiWcation of a discrete group of high-N and low-C children; it would be valuable to explore
such subtype analyses in future research.
When providing their narratives, victims were also judged to be angrier at the perpetra-
tor, blaming him or her more, and being less forgiving. Our mediational analyses further
conWrmed the pivotal role these variables play in the victimization process. These Wndings
suggest that ruminating over a victimization event and holding a grudge in particular,
although understandable, may be especially counterproductive. Rather, in our sample,
children who were high on Conscientiousness, and therefore are more reXective and delib-
erate in their interactions, seemed better able to recognize the beneWts of forgiving the bully
or at least of letting go of the negative experience and were in fact victimized less often.
This Wnding is consistent with recent work on the importance of forgiveness in victims
recovery from traumatic experiences at the hands of others (Witvliet, Ludwig, &
Vander-Laan, 2001). Although our data are correlational in nature, they raise the intrigu-
ing question of whether an intervention designed to help victims let go of the pain and
resentment they feel regarding the incident could actually result in fewer subsequent vic-
timization experiences.
Our Wndings also reinforce the idea in the literature that how a victim responds visibly
to the provocation may be critical in determining whether the attack persists or reoccurs.
When parents and teachers advise children to just ignore it, their well-meant but often
impossible-to-follow advice captures this idea that a child who shows distress upon being
teased or physically attacked is actually inviting further abuse. A narrative provided by
one of our participants illustrates this point vividly:
Okay, it was at schoolmy friends and I playing a game of freeze tag. I stink at, I
stink at running so when I was It, I couldnt really catch anyone.Well, I was trying
to run away from whoever was It or posing to be It. I ran right near one of my good
friends and, puV, he was It. Getting me frozen. People kept on tagging me even when
I told them not to. Then I, uh, it happened. I started crying, whining, trying to get
them to stop freezing me. I even pleaded at some point. I was feeling really angry and
sad at that moment because no one would leave me alone. I told Mom and Dad
about it but they said just to avoid it. I think it happened because they all know that
it is more fun to pick on me.
4.2. Physiological bases of bullying and victimization
Some of our most intriguing results concerned the role of physiological arousal in chil-
dren while telling a bullying narrative. Our analyses revealed that gains in arousal were
associated with childrens scores on the bullying composite variable; moreover, physiologi-
cal arousal mediated the associations among Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and bully-
ing. Although skin conductance levels cannot be unambiguously interpreted by themselves,
some of our other results provide important clues for understanding what the increase in
physiological arousal for the bullies means. The gain in arousal, rather than reXecting anx-
iety or guilt over the incident, appears instead to reXect a meaner set of emotions: The chil-
dren who show this arousal are less Agreeable and Conscientious in terms of personality
and they appear to naive coders to have enjoyed their bullying of another child.
This interpretation points to some troubling implications for intervention eVorts
designed to reduce the frequency and severity of peer victimization, especially in light of
the personality traits shown to be related to bullying in our sample. Children who are not
motivated to treat others well or to follow rules are not likely to respond well to appeals
for better behavior. Indeed, our results may help to explain why interventions for conduct-
disordered children are often not eVective (Kazdin, 2001). Such interventions, which tend
to rely on training adaptive cognitive and social skills in the children or training parents on
better behavior management practices, may fail because they do not recognize that chil-
dren who engage in bullying receive considerable internal positive reinforcement from their
acts. If it feels good to bullies to engage in these acts, intervention eVorts need to be
directed toward making it feel bad to act cruelly toward another child.
4.3. Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research
The current study possesses several important strengths. We used a multi-pronged strat-
egy capitalizing on a variety of methodological approaches: self- and parent-report, behav-
ioral observations, participant narratives, structured interviews, and physiological data.
One of the most important advantages of our design is that it is unlikely our obtained rela-
tions are an artifact of common method variance, and indeed, we deliberately tested only
those mediational pathways that would be uncontaminated by shared method variance.
Parents judgments of their childrens victimization histories and personality were related
to stories that the children told about speciWc incidents (many of which the parents were
completely unaware), which were related to objective judgments made by coders who were
blind to the childrens victimization histories, which were related to the childrens physio-
logical arousal while telling the stories. The convergence of our results across such widely
varying methodologies is impressive indeed and increases greatly our conWdence in our
Wndings.
The comprehensiveness of our data collection procedures, however, necessarily resulted
in a limitation in our procedures, which is that the sample was not large enough to permit
structural equations analysis that might have shed additional light on underlying peer
victimization processes. Furthermore, the cross-sectional nature of our design precludes

drawing Wrm causal inferences regarding the temporal ordering of our variables.
Another consequence of our sample size and recruiting procedures is that we were
unable to select children at the extremes of bullying and victimization. As a result, we were
not able to analyze diVerences among subtypes of victims or bullies. The correlation of .43
we obtained between our bullying and victimization composites suggests that at least some
of our victims could be considered provocative victims, that is, children whose own
aggressive behavior prompts retaliation from others. We do not view this limitation as seri-
ous, as the regression analyses we conducted that included the interaction of bullying and
victimization oVered reassuring evidence that our results were not solely attributable to the
subgroup of provocative victims. Further, our data collection focused on the two major
roles of bully and victim; there are other roles children may assume (e.g., bystander,
defender) that should be addressed in future studies.
A related limitation is that our recruitment method (advertising in the newspaper) did not
allow us to collect sociometric or peer nomination data, generally considered the optimal
method of measuring bully/victim status but which requires data collection in classrooms.
Although the literature in general suggests adequate agreement among self- and other-
reports of victimization (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002; Pellegrini, 2001), future research
might wish to include peer nomination measures of bullying and victimization. In particular,
it is possible that the parent- and self-reports of bullying obtained in the current study,
although suYciently reliable, underestimated the degree of bullying engaged in by our partic-
ipants. We do not view this limitation as being especially problematic, however, as the eVect
of underestimating bullying should only make it harder to detect signiWcant relations.
4.4. Concluding thoughts
Bullying is a part of most childrens lives, but unlike other childhood rites of passage,
bullying possesses few redeeming features. No child should have to live in fear of being bul-
lied, and for societys sake if not their own, no child should revel in the abuse they wreak
on other children. By studying the factors that are associated with peer victimization from
a variety of perspectives and methodologies, we hope to improve our understanding of
what makes children hurt other children. Finally, we think it is important to stress that we
do not wish to be seen as engaging in a form of blaming the victim or suggesting that vic-
tims are somehow responsible for bringing about their mistreatment. Our goal was to
understand better the vulnerability factors that increase a childs risk for victimization or
engaging in bullying behaviors. While we believe that victims reactions can in some cases
be maladaptive, in the sense of reinforcing bullies and increasing the likelihood of future
victimization, this does not absolve bullies of the blame or responsibility for their cruel
behavior. Identifying aspects of victims behavior that increases their subsequent victimiza-
tion is oVered instead in the hopes that this knowledge can be used in designing interven-
tions for peer victimization, so that more childrens childhoods can be as carefree as our
nostalgic memories would have them be.
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Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006) 803828

Reactions to bullying and peer victimization:

Available online 25 October 2005

1.1. Theoretical model of victimization

As a theoretical framework for proposing and testing mediational hypotheses of bully-

Affective and Cognitive Affective and Cognitive

Fig. 1. Theoretical model of bullying and victimization.

1.1.1. Personality predictors of victimization and bullying

1.1.3. Contributions of a physiological approach to understanding peer victimization

1.1.4. Mediational hypotheses

2.2.1. Physiological recording

2.2.2. Childrens self-report data

2.2.3. Narrative tasks

Order of narrative was counterbalanced across participants. The instructions provided to

2.2.4. Structured interview

2.2.5. Parent data

2.2.6. Coding of narratives and structured interviews

2.2.7. Creation of victimization and bullying scores

The bullying and victimization composites were moderately intercorrelated,

3.1. Overview of analyses

Our intensive laboratory-based protocol resulted in a broad, multimethod data set

3.2. Personality predictors of bullying and victimization

3.3. Bullying and victimization as expressed in childrens narratives

Bully narrative variables

3.4. Physiological arousal while telling bullying and victimization narratives

3.4.1. Changes in arousal across narratives

3.4.2. Relations among arousal, bullying, victimization, and personality

3.5. Joint eVects of bullying and victimization

4.1.1. Who are the bullies?

4.1.2. Who are the victims?

4.2. Physiological bases of bullying and victimization

4.3. Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research

victimization processes. Furthermore, the cross-sectional nature of our design precludes

4.4. Concluding thoughts

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