Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new measure of children's social reasoning about bully victimization, the Children's Bully/Victim Survey (CBVS). The CBVS attempts to assess what children think are appropriate behavioral responses to hypothetical scenarios about being victimized by bullies and about witnessing bully victimization. The study also examined how children explain or justify their actions. Participants in the study included children enrolled in the 5th grade and their teachers from schools in the southeast. This study examined how the quality of children's Action Choices in hypothetical stories about bully victimization relates to their Justification Choices. This study includes the influence of demographic variables such as gender, intellectual ability, bully/victim group membership, story character role, and story form of victimization on children's Action and Justification Choices. Teacher reports of children's behavior were compared with children's self-reports of Action and Justification choices. Significant relationships were found between children's Actions Choices and Justification Choices. However, teacher reports of children's social behavior with peers did not significantly relate to children's self reports of how they would respond to hypothetical bully victimization scenarios. Additionally, child demographic variables did not reflect significant variation between teacher groupings for children's intellectual ability and bully/victim group membership. However, there were significant differences in children's Action Choices and Justification Choices based on gender, story character role and story form of victimization.
