Citation

Thornberg R, Pozzoli T, Gini G, Hong JS. Psychol. Sch. 2017; 54(9): 1189-1201.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/pits.22054

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Bullying is a moral transgression. Recognizing the importance of approaching bullying from a moral perspective, the present study examines whether children's judgments and reasoning to justify their judgments differ between bullying and repeated conventional transgressions. Our study also explores differences by gender and differences among bullies, victims, and uninvolved students. Participants included 381 students from 13 elementary schools in Sweden.

FINDINGS indicate that children judge bullying as more wrong than repeated conventional transgressions; use moral reasons more frequently in their justifications about bullying than about repeated conventional transgressions; and use conventional reasons more frequently to justify their judgments on repeated conventional transgressions as compared with bullying. Female students and nonbullies judged bullying and repeated conventional transgressions as more wrong and used moral reasons more frequently in their justifications of judgments of bullying than did male students and bullies. Male students reported bullying more than did female students. Implications for practice are also discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

bullying; moral reasoning; social domain theory; transgression judgment