Personality and family relations of children who bully

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Abstract

There is a paucity of studies on the personality and family relations of children who bully. The aim of the present study was to examine the level of Psychoticism, Neuroticism and Extraversion in a group of school going girls and boys who were bullied. A further aim was to examine the relationships that the children had with their families. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Junior (1975) was used to measure the dimensions of personality and the Family Relations Test (Bene & Anthony, 1957) to elicit both the emotions that the children had towards each member of the family and the reciprocity of their emotions. The study comprised 228 children (aged 6–16 years), 115 of whom had been categorised as ‘bullies’ and 113 ‘controls’. The results indicated that children who bullied exhibited greater emotional inhibition and attributed significantly more negative statements to themselves than children who did not bully. The children who bullied also demonstrated an ambivalent relationship with their siblings, mothers and fathers. The controls on the other hand displayed positive relationships with members of their family. Moreover children who bullied scored higher on extraversion, psychoticism and neuroticism than their counterparts who did not bully. The findings highlight the need for early identification and the involvement of the family in the intervention of children who bully.

Introduction

Significant associations have been reported between the tendency to bully others and poor family psycho-social health (Rigby, 1993). Stephenson and Smith (1987) found that children involved in bullying are three times more likely to have problems in the home. Family therapists have long regarded positive and effective communication in families as a critical determinant of healthy family functioning among adolescents (Duhl & Duhl, 1981). Family factors associated with childhood aggression are absence of a father, loss of a parent through divorce rather than death, a depressed mother, an irritable parent and marital discord (Wolff, 1985). Research indicates children who bully have a negative paternal and maternal relationship, which appears to play a part in the maladjustment of a child (Olweus, 1980). A fundamentally negative or rejecting attitude from the parent creates strong aggressive tendencies and hostility in a child (Bandura and Walters, 1959). Parents of very aggressive boys and delinquents have been characterised by a combination of lax mothers and hostile fathers (Andry, 1960).

Psychoanalysts have laid great emphasis upon the emotional attitudes of parents, especially mothers in the formation of the characters of their children. A cold and rejecting attitude on the part of the mother referred to as “silent violence” have been correlated with the bullying behaviour of the son (Olweus, 1980). Young children who harass or bully others in school tend to have over controlling and dominating home environments, indicating that this type of dysfunctional family doesn't produce empathy in a child (Manning, Heron, & Marshall, 1978). Paternal absence seems to affect boys more than girls, making the boys less aggressive when young, but more aggressive during adolescence (Zigler & Child, 1969).

Adolescents who experience low levels of emotional support and whose families are unsympathetic, are more likely to bully their peers (Rigby, 1994). However, it is not just a matter of parental attitude but the family situation in total. The ability of the family as a whole in sustaining positive and effective communication is seen as a vital component in the development of positive coping, social and personal skills. Adolescents who bully are more likely to come from families who are deficient in such skills. Bullies perceive their family as lacking in cohesion, they see their fathers as more powerful than mothers, and siblings as more powerful than themselves (Bowers, Smith, & Binney, 1992). In a study of young male bullies Olweus (1980) found that their home environments are often violent. The fathers often used violent methods of punishing their children that may be related to the fact that the boy uses violence towards others. Parents who often use physical punishment and power assertive child rearing methods, frequently have aggressive sons. Behaviour towards peers is seen as resulting from a failure in bonding with a parent figure, giving rise to chronic insecurity and a suspicious nature.

The personality of an individual plays a large role in the presence or absence of bullying behaviour. The characteristics of children who bully include aggression (Olweus, 1993) lack of empathy, a strong need to dominate others and a positive attitude towards violence (Olweus, 1978). Bullying behaviour has also been associated with unhappiness, a dislike of school, depression (Slee, 1993) and low self-esteem (Mynard and Joseph, 1997, O'Moore, 2000). A child's personality is greatly influenced by their upbringing and experiences. Therefore the experiences of children who come from less cohesive, or dysfunctional homes may be related to their personality type. A personality based explanation of bullying was favoured by Olweus (1984). At the same time he acknowledged the role of early child rearing practices in bullying. Aggressive children are reported to lack internal controls such as guilt and anxiety over aggressive behaviour and empathy, and that these are an important determinant of whether aggressive behaviour will occur or not (Megargee, 1971, Staub and Conn, 1973).

Insufficient ego development may also point towards impulsivity, the inability to delay gratification and poor behaviour control often observed in aggressive and anti-social individuals. Thomas and Chess (1977) showed that a child's temperament may have an influence on behaviour. Children who are irregular in their eating and sleeping habits, intense in their emotional responses, aggressive, irritable, and who adapt slowly to new situations and show a great deal of negative mood are those most likely to develop behavioural problems. Children who demonstrated these characteristics from birth onwards were reported to push, hit and fight more in nursery school (Billman & McDevitt, 1980) and to have “Difficult Child Syndrome” (Graham, Rutter, & George, 1973). As parents become more assertive in discipline and punishment, the child responds more aggressively which can play a part in the development of a bully (Randall, 1991, Sroufe, 1988).

Interestingly, Eysenck's theory of criminality (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964) and theory of anti-social behaviour (Eysenck, 1977), suggests that such conduct could be found more frequently in people with high scores on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism. Some research has also indicated high psychoticism scales (Slee & Rigby, 1993b) and high neuroticism scales (Byrne, 1994) in children who bully. It is suggested that extraverts are more prone to crime and anti-social behaviour, because they pursue rewards without fear of consequences, and are impatient and impulsive. Extraversion is not the only personality predictor of delinquency and anti-social behaviour. The relationship is usually stronger when high levels of neuroticism are also involved and a high psychoticism level is an even stronger predictor. The high neuroticism scorer has been described as anxious, moody, often depressed and having strong emotional reactions. Neurotic tendencies are believed to intensify emotional reactions. High psychoticism scorers are typical of people who are solitary, lacking in feeling, cruel, hostile and enjoy upsetting others. They seldom feel guilty (Eysenck, 1977). These personality dimensions contain many characteristics of those found in children who bully (O'Moore, 1995, Slee, 1995). Thus, the aim of the present study is to examine further the personality and family relationships of children who bully.

Section snippets

Subjects

There were 228 students who took part in the study. The sample comprised of 107 girls and 121 boys ranging from 6 to 16 years of age, from seven schools, four of which were primary and three post-primary. A modified version of Bankside Boys’ School and Lamont's Girl's schools questionnaire (Keise, 1992) was distributed in group form. On the basis of the questionnaire the participants were categorized into either a bully group or a control group. There were 115 students who were classified as

Family relations

From Table 1 it can be seen that there were significant differences (P<0.05) produced in the Nobody category across each of the four response groups of the Family Relations Test. The bully group assigned less negative and more positive emotions to Nobody. This indicated that the bully group, more than the control group, inhibited the expression of positive emotions towards or from their family members as well as exhibiting more negative feeling to their family. It can further be seen in the

Discussion

The children who bullied in the present study placed more positive and less negative cards in the Nobody box than did the controls. This indicates a greater inhibition among children who bully to express their emotions freely towards the various members of their families. Frost (1969) found that delinquents attributed more negative items to the Nobody box than any other group though the difference was only significant in the Outgoing category. The bully group in the present study also placed

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