Higher percentages for shame were found in early primary age age 6—8 years in all kinds of situations of bullying verbal, physical, relational, and exclusion , while these percentages decreased in subsequent years. In contrast, all the other moral emotions increased as the children got older. No significant differences were found in the forms of verbal bullying Table 4.
Statistically significant differences were observed between those who admitted to being aggressors and those who did not. In both forms of bullying, higher percentages of attribution of shame were observed in those who had never been victims and of indifference in those who had been victims, according to the ASR Table 6.
The ASR showed that shame was the most commonly identified emotion in the first stage of schooling for all forms of bullying. In contract, blame was the least commonly recognized emotion the first stage for all manifestations of bullying, although it was identified increasingly more in the higher cycles for the forms of exclusion and physical bullying. In verbal bullying, indifference and pride were commonly identified in the last educational stage Table 7.
No significant differences were found for the cartoon of verbal aggression Table 8. The interpretation that school children make of their own and other feelings reveals the moral conception that is built in the years of primary school.
The ethical schemes move the social climate of the school and, in a world in crisis of solidarity and commitment to the needs of health and social welfare Giorgi et al. In general, the moral criterion is different when you have been a victim than when you have not. This implies a selfishness and a lack of moral sensitivity in school children that only makes them appreciate more ethically what happens to the victim when they have been previously victimized.
What is clear is that most boys and girls at these ages recognize the phenomenon of bullying and assign moral emotions to the victims. This study has attempted to demonstrate that the moral attribution made by primary school children for the four commonest types of bullying verbal, physical, relational, and social exclusion depends to a large extent on the perspective from which they view and analyze the phenomenon.
They adopt certain roles when they see the stick-figure cartoons representing these types of behavior, and this has a decisive influence on what they think the victim of bullying feels. We have analyzed the moral self-attributions and attributions to others made by primary school students for the victims of bullying in order to check whether the differences depend on the role they take victim, aggressor, or not involved.
The results show that most primary school students admit to having been involved, occasionally, in situations of verbal, physical, relational, and exclusion bullying. All of them recognize the situations, and 8 out of 10 acknowledge that they have been involved at some time in the behavior shown in the stick-figure cartoons.
They tell us that verbal and relational aggression are the commonest forms of bullying in primary schools. These results are similar to those found in previous studies where self-report instruments were used Zych et al.
The procedure used in this study let go deeper in the way of thinking and moral attribution of children aged 6—8 years, about whom there is little information available, mainly because they have only just learnt how to read or write. We may confirm from these results, however, that bullying in its simplest and most characteristic forms occurs frequently at these ages.
In fact, most of them affirm to have previous experience of being victimized, and many have experience in using verbal, physical, relational aggression, or exclusion against one of their peers.
Primary school children recognize that this behavior entails a moral transgression, but so far it has been difficult to explore these moral attitudes in detail, for many different reasons, one of them is the natural cognitive egocentricity existent at this age.
The use of stick-figure cartoons, in which it is easy to externalize behavior where there is a clear transgressor, allows them to express their moral attributions and analyze the emotional shades of feeling they are able to recognize in the victim Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger et al. The commonest moral attributions made by primary school students about the emotions of the victims of bullying were shame and guilt, which is in line with previous work Caurcel and Almeida, However, their recognition of these moral emotions is significantly affected when schoolchildren have had personal experiences in bullying.
Children who admitted to having played the role of aggressor tended to produce less attributions of shame and more emotional attribution of indifference to the pain felt by the victim, except in the case of social exclusion. Gasser and Keller , Menesini et al. This may be because being aggressor is related with low levels of moral sensitivity.
Perhaps the denial of guilt enables them to avoid emotional discomfort — or shame — when faced with these types of moral transgressions. On the other hand, students who admitted to having occasionally been victims of the kind of bullying situations shown in the stick-figure cartoons verbal, physical, relational, and exclusion aggression tended to make the same moral attributions as those who had never been through such an experience.
These differences were significant in the case of aggressors for all forms of violence. On the other hand, among those who admitted to having been bullied, the differences were significant in the attributions of verbal and physical aggression, but not in the relational ones. It seems, therefore, that experience of having been bullied is linked to the attribution of indifference, at least in the commonest and most direct forms of bullying.
This differs with the results in attributions to others, where no emotional difference was observed between victims and non-victims of bullying. Similar reflections were already mentioned in the studies by Caurcel and Almeida in which the use of cognitive distortions to justify the transgression is interpreted in terms of keeping up positive self-esteem, neutralizing guilt and avoiding cognitive and moral dissonance when faced with an act which harms others, and it allows the victims to minimize or deny their suffering.
As regards the second objective, we looked at the emotional attributions of the three educational stages that make up primary education. The main moral emotion in the first stage was shame, although this tendency changed to guilt as the children got older. Both emotions reflect the recognition and assumption of sociomoral values and norms Malti et al. This increase of guilt is linked also to a higher individual internationalization of own moral norms Kochanska et al.
Particularly, guilt is present in relational aggression, physical and social exclusion, and hardly appears at all in verbal aggression, which seems to stimulate very little moral attribution in schoolchildren. The frequent use of language riddled with insults and swear words may also blur their ethical qualification of this behavior. In a similar way, the older children assigned more pride, in cases of bullying, than the younger ones. The attribution of feelings of pride to acts of bullying obviously requires a moral disengagement which may result more from socialization and habituation to the phenomena of bullying.
These results differ from those found by Malti et al. It may be that the understanding of the immoral component of social exclusion always stays with us once it has been acquired, which would account for the differences between primary and secondary schoolchildren. In the case of emotional self-attribution, the results show higher percentages of shame in the first educational stages and an increased sense of blame in the third stage, as well as in attributions to others.
In self-attributions, however, there seems to be a greater moral disengagement from the relational and verbal forms of bullying and increased indifference among the older children. As far as the differences between boys and girls are concerned, the attributions to others clearly show that girls recognize higher percentages of guilt in the victims for all kinds of bullying.
Other studies Menesini et al. This discovery is rather difficult to interpret, although other authors have understood it as an expression of stereotypes and gender biases Walter and Burnaford, ; Else-Quest et al. In boys, exclusion is related with attributions of shame when bullying involves physical aggression, perhaps because males associate the humiliation suffered by the victim of physical bullying with shame.
Previous studies highlight this relation as a result of the influence of male role stereotypes Else-Quest et al. As regards self-attribution, the results are similar to those found in attributions to others for exclusion: in other words, girls attribute more guilt and boys more indifference; as shown in other studies, boys showed more pride when they make a moral interpretation of physical and relational bullying Menesini et al.
In short, in primary schoolchildren, having previous experiences as aggressor were linked to less attributions of shame and greater indifference in both and self- and other-attributions. This could be due to an attempt to justify the damage they are causing in their peers moral disengagement. While the previous experience as a victim was not related to significant differences in the moral attributions in children. Likewise, this study is in line with other studies that show an increase in guilt and a decrease in shame with the age, while by gender girls show more emotions of guilt and boys of indifference and pride.
This study highlights the risks of setting a moral criterion based on the lack of solidarity and sensitivity to the suffering of others of school children. This research has used the novel methodology of an interview and a questionnaire supported by stick-figure cartoons representing the four most frequent types of bullying verbal, physical, relational, and social exclusion.
It allowed us to analyze the attributions of moral emotions made by primary schoolchildren for the feelings experienced by a victim of bullying, from the age of 6 years, an age which up to now has been the object of very little research.
It has been shown that primary school children interpret and evaluate aggressive bullying behavior as a moral transgression which triggers emotions such as guilt, shame, and indifference and even the pride of the aggressor.
The limitations of this study should be taken into account in future research: firstly, we have not considered the frequency of violent behavior when defining victims and aggressors; in addition, the size of the effects of association between variables is rather low. It may be because bullying is a complex behavior and different variables are related with it. Other variables like peer support or antibullying programs in schools could be interesting to be considered in future studies to deep in this violent dynamic.
Future research should continue to explore our understanding of these emotional attributions through the use of methodologies which may allow to pinpoint more exactly the nature of the ethical inference made by schoolchildren of a social problem which affects them in their daily life at school.
The study of moral emotions attributions in bystander could be of interest in future studies. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U.
Journal List Front Psychol v. Front Psychol. Published online Jul Eva M. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Romera, se. This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Received May 12; Accepted Jul The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Future research should continue to explore our understanding of these emotional attributions through the use of methodologies which may allow to pinpoint more exactly the nature of the ethical inference made by schoolchildren of a social problem which affects them in their daily life at school.
The study of moral emotions attributions in bystander could be of interest in future studies. The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Arsenio, W. Killen and J. Google Scholar. Moral emotions associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior in school-aged children.
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Ignore the bully and walk away. Bullies like getting a reaction. If you walk away or ignore them, you're telling them that you don't care. Walk tall and hold your head high. Using this type of body language sends a message that you're not vulnerable.
Don't get physical. You're more likely to be hurt and get into trouble if you try to fight a bully. Work out your anger in another way, such as exercising or writing it down make sure you delete or tear up any emails, posts, letters, or notes you write in anger.
Try to talk to the bully. Try to point out that his or her behavior is serious and harmful. This can work well if you notice that a member of your own group has started to pick on or shun another member.
Practice confidence. Practice ways to respond to the bully verbally or through your behavior. Practice feeling good about yourself even if you have to fake it at first.
Talk about it. It may help to talk to a guidance counselor, teacher, or friend — anyone who can give you the support you need. Talking can be a good outlet for the fears and frustrations that can build when you're being bullied.
Find your true friends. If you've been bullied with rumors or gossip, tell your friends so that they can help you feel safe and secure.
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