Primary School Bullying Research, The Relationship Between Personality Tendencies

Bullying is prevalent among primary school students, and it is aspecial type of special aggression in which the more powerfuloppresses the less powerful without being provoked. The stability ofbullying implies that it is connected with certain characteristics ofpersonality. Significant diffeence in persona1ity between bu11ies,victims and those students not involved into bullying was found inlarge amount of research conducted among prirnary and secondaryschOol students outside China. In the preseni study, anonymousquestionnaires were administered to primary students, and thedifferences of personality' characteristics of bullies, victims, andchildren not involved were examined. The re1ation between theprobabilities of bu1lying others and being bullied and personality wasalso investigated.872 students of grade 3, 4, 5, and 6, with approximately equalnumber of boys and girls, from Yu Xin primary schoo1 in Jinan Cityof Shandong Province participated in ti1e investigation. The age of thestudents was mainly between 7 and l 1 years old. Eysenck Persona1ityQuestionnaire 0unior) (EPQ) into which two questions about bullyingothers and being buIlied this term were inserted, and the Self EsteemQuestionnaire were administered to the panicipants. The results ofdata analysis were as fOllows.1. Conthested with the norm, the bu1lies and victims among primaryschool students scored significa-ntly higher on the NeuroticismSubscale, and the bullies among boys scored significantly higher onthe Psychoticism Subcale, and the victims scored significanily 1ower.IJI2. MAVOVA indicated that significant main effect of children'sstatus (bu1lies, victims and not involved) on the tota1 varia-nce ofpersonality dimensions of EPQ, a-nd on the Psychoticism Subscale,Neuroticism Subscale and Lie Subscale significant main effects ofchi1dren's status were also fOund, however no interaction of age,gender and type was fOund. The scores of bullies on the PsychoticismSubscale were significantly higher than victims and those studentswho were not invo1ved, and victims' scores on the subsca1e were alsosignificam1y higher tha-n those uninvolved. The scores of thoseuninvolved on the Neuroticism SubscaIe were signiflcant1y higherthan those u-ninvolved, and marked difference between bu11ies andvictims was not found. At the same time, Lie scores of buI1ies andvictims were significanly lower than those uninvo1ved. On the otherhand, there was no significan difference of Extraversion scoresbetween three types of chi1dren.3. The variable of children' status has a significant effect onself esteem scores of primary schoo1 studeflts, and those uninvo1vedscored significant1y higher than those invo1ved, however significantinteraction was not found.4. Significam positive correlation was fOund between the frequencyof bullying others and being bullied and the scores on PsychoticismSubscale and Neuroticism Subsca1e, and significant negativecorrelation existed between the frequency of bu1lying others a-ndbeing bullied and SeIf esteem scores and Lie scores, however thecorrelation between the frequency a-nd Extraversion Scores was notfound to be significant. Logistic Regression Analysis trierindicated the very significant effect of the variables of psychoticism,1Vlie and gender on predicting the probabilities of bulling others, andthe effect of selfestCem, neuroticism and age on predicting theprobabilities of being bullied. The higher children scored on thePsychoticism Subscale, and the lower children scored on the LieSubscale, the more probably children would buIly others. At the sametime boys were more likely to bulIy others than girls. On the otherhand. the lower chi1dren scored on the Self eSteem QueStionnaire, andthe higher children scored on the Neuroticism Subscale, the moreprobable children would be bullied. At the saxne time, comPared tol1-year-old children, 9-year-old children were mo...