Abstract
Bullying is one of the most common peer-relational problems experienced by children and adolescents worldwide. One reason bullying is so widespread is that it is a dynamic, group process that involves multiple roles-namely, bullies, followers, victims, bully-victims, defenders, and outsiders. Given the profoundly negative impact of exposure to bullying on well-being across development, researchers have sought to identify the social-emotional intelligence profiles of the different bullying roles to develop effective interventions. The present meta-analysis integrated findings from 128 studies involving 187,454 children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years of age to investigate how four interrelated but distinct facets of social-emotional intelligence-affective empathy, cognitive empathy, affective theory of mind (ToM), and cognitive ToM-relate to different bullying roles. Significant associations were found for bullies, followers, and defenders, but not for being the victim, bully-victim, or outsider. For bullies and followers, we found negative relations with both affective and cognitive empathy (rs = -.11 to -.22), but no relation with either type of ToM. For defending, we found positive relations with all four facets of social-emotional intelligence (rs = .18-.32). These findings suggest that a successful antibullying program may entail a combination of motivating children and adolescents with bullying tendencies to care about others' feelings, and empowering their classmates to become strong perspective-takers who can stand up for those in need of help.
Public Significance Statement This meta-analysis reveals that children and adolescents who bully their peers are capable of taking other people's perspectives, but may be motivated to engage in antisocial acts due to deficits in empathy. Children and adolescents who defend the victims of bullying have both insights into other people's perspectives and empathy toward others in need.