Decreasing Bullying with Self-Affirmation: A Test of the Compensation Model

通过自我肯定减少欺凌：补偿模型的测试

• 批准号: 8433746
• 负责人: Elson Michael Bihm
• 金额: $ 28.66万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8433746
• 关键词: Address; Advocate; Aggressive behavior; Attention; Behavior; Behavioral; Child; Childhood; Climate; Cognitive; Conscious; Counseling; Effectiveness; Ego; Etiology; Experimental Designs; Family; Feeling; Financial compensation; Goals; Health Benefit; Individual; Intervention; Jordan; Laboratories; Link; Literature; Measurement; Measures; Mental Health; Methods; Modeling; Nail plate; Narcissism; Nature; Participant; Personality; Personality Traits; Process; Psychological adjustment; Quality of life; Reporting; Research; School-Age Population; Schools; Self Concept; Self Perception; Spouses; Staging; Structure; Students; Suggestion; Techniques; Testing; Therapeutic; Therapeutic Intervention; Veins; Victimization; Writing; bullying; design; effective intervention; effective therapy; essays; feeding; improved; middle school; motivational enhancement therapy; peer; programs; psychological outcomes; public health relevance; social; teacher; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bullying and victimization remain significant problems among school-age children (Cook et al., 2010). Greater understanding of this behavioral process is necessary to create more effective interventions and treatments toward the goal of improving the quality of life for children. One theory of bullying is the compensation model of aggression (Nail, Bihm, & Simon, in press; Staub, 1989). It proposes that bullying is driven primarily by the personality of the bully, as bullies attempt to compensate, or make up for, their own feelings of weakness and vulnerability by dominating others. Essentially, the bully's feelings of insecurity are thought to be turned outward and converted into aggression against others-typically those who are physically weaker and readily available, such as smaller classmates (Kaukiainen et al., 2002) or a bully's spouse (Gondolf, 1985). The compensation model has been supported by a number of studies that have found a positive correlation between a defensive personality structure and bullying or aggression in schools (e.g., Nail et al., in press; Sandstrom & Jordan, 2008). Defensive personality can be operationally defined in various ways, but one is defensive egotism-i.e., students who think too highly of themselves and always want to be the center of attention. A major problem with the support for compensation model, however, is that almost all of the findings to date have been correlational in nature, whereas the model proposes that a defensive personality causes bullying. The proposed research will address this problem. It is well established in the literature that manipulated laboratory threats can cause increases in aggression, especially for those with a defensive personality structure (e.g., Bushman et al., 2009). It is also well established that threat-induced defensiveness can be reduced or eliminated by interventions that allow people to affirm core aspects of their self image (e.g., McGregor, Nail et al., 2005). What is not known is whether self-affirmation interventions can cause decreases in bullying. The defensive egotism of seventh graders will be assessed by the reports of their classmates and teachers. Later on a Monday morning, randomly chosen students will write an essay explaining (a) why their most important values are important to them (viz., self-affirmation participants) or (b) why their least important values migt be important to others (non-self-affirmation/control participants). On Friday afternoon of that week, students and teachers will report the dependent variables-the bullying and aggression of their classmates and students, respectively, over the past week. If the compensation model is correct, only non-self- affirmation/control participants will show the usual positive link between defensive egotism and bullying/aggression. Self-affirmation participants should have little need to feed their ego by bullying others that week because their self-concept will have been bolstered by the writing task. Such findings will point to the need for a more holistic model of bullying reduction-one that combine's current whole-school, administrative efforts with targeted, therapeutic interventions for bullies.

描述（由申请人提供）：欺凌和受害仍然是学龄儿童中的重要问题（Cook等人，2010年）。更好地理解这一行为过程是必要的，以创造更有效的干预和治疗，以实现改善儿童生活质量的目标。欺负的一个理论是侵略的补偿模型（Nail，Bihm，& Simon，in press; Staub，1989）。它提出，欺凌主要是由欺凌者的个性驱动的，因为欺凌者试图通过支配他人来补偿或弥补自己的软弱和脆弱感。从本质上讲，欺负者的不安全感被认为是向外的，并转化为对他人的攻击-通常是那些身体较弱和容易获得的人，如较小的同学（Kaukiainen等人，2002）或恶霸的配偶（贡多夫，1985）。补偿模型得到了许多研究的支持，这些研究发现防御性人格结构与学校欺凌或攻击之间存在正相关关系（例如，Nail等人，印刷中; Sandstrom & Jordan，2008）。防御性人格可以通过各种方式进行操作性定义，但其中一种是防御性人格，即，那些自视过高，总想成为众人瞩目的焦点的学生。然而，支持补偿模型的一个主要问题是，迄今为止几乎所有的研究结果都是相关的，而该模型认为防御性人格会导致欺凌。拟议的研究将解决这个问题。在文献中已经确定，操纵实验室威胁会导致攻击性增加，特别是对于那些具有防御性人格结构的人（例如，Bushman等人，2009年）。同样公认的是，威胁诱导的防御性可以通过干预来减少或消除，这些干预可以让人们肯定他们自我形象的核心方面（例如，McGregor，Nail等人，2005年）。目前尚不清楚的是，自我肯定干预是否会导致欺凌行为的减少。七年级学生的防御性自我主义将通过他们的同学和老师的报告进行评估。周一上午晚些时候，随机选择的学生将写一篇文章，解释（a）为什么他们最重要的价值观对他们很重要（即，自我肯定参与者）或（B）为什么他们最不重要的价值观对其他人来说可能很重要（非自我肯定/控制参与者）。在那一周的星期五下午，学生和教师将报告因变量--在过去一周里，他们的同学和学生分别受到的欺凌和攻击。如果补偿模型是正确的，只有非自我肯定/控制的参与者才会表现出防御性自我中心和欺凌/攻击之间通常的积极联系。自我肯定的参与者在那一周应该不需要通过欺负别人来满足他们的自我，因为他们的自我概念已经被写作任务所支撑。这些发现将指出需要一个更全面的减少欺凌的模型一个结合联合收割机目前全校的管理努力和针对欺凌者的有针对性的治疗干预的模型。