Poster #227 - Incivility as a Pathway to Bullying: Exploring the Links between Personality, Incivility and Bullying

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Bullying is ubiquitous and researchers have constantly attempted to find explanations of why some adolescents choose to bully, whereas others do not. Personality traits are one possible explanation for adolescent bullying. Another potential mechanism to explain bullying behavior may be incivility, which is defined as a “low intensity, deviant behaviour with ambiguous intent to cause harm” (Andersson and Pearson, 1999, p. 457). These uncivil actions can range from behaviors that are merely rude and inconsiderate (Andersson & Pearson, 1999, p. 457) to behaviors that are deceptive and destructive (Felblinger, 2009). Uncivil behaviors may warrant further study because although they often appear modest in both intensity and outcomes, they may be associated with more severe aggressive and violent behaviours (Clark, 2008). The goal of our study was to test a conceptual model linking adolescent personality traits to bullying, while determining whether subtypes of incivility (intentional and unintentional) represent indirect pathways that can link personality traits to the outcome.
To examine personality we used the HEXACO Personality Inventory (Ashton & Lee, 2009), a six-factor personality model which includes: Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness (O). The sample comprised 396 adolescents (58.2% female) between the ages of 13-18 years (M = 14.64 years; SD = 1.52 years). They completed self-report questionnaires on their personality, attitudes towards incivility and their bullying engagement. Path analysis was conducted using MPlus version 7.2 software (Muthén & Muthén, 2007). Direct paths were estimated from each personality trait to both intentional and unintentional incivility, and to bullying, as well as from both incivility subtypes to bullying. We also tested whether each of the personality traits were indirectly related to bullying via intentional and unintentional incivility.
Results indicated that there were significant direct effects such that lower honesty-humility, lower emotionality and lower conscientiousness were associated with greater intentional incivility (see Table 1). As well, there were significant direct effects from lower honesty-humility, lower agreeableness and lower conscientiousness to higher unintentional incivility. There were also significant direct effects from lower honesty-humility, lower agreeableness and higher intentional incivility to greater bullying engagement. Further, results revealed that there were significant indirect effects from honesty-humility, emotionality and conscientiousness to bullying through intentional incivility. There were no indirect effects from any of the personality traits to bullying via unintentional incivility (See Figure 1).
Since our results demonstrate that various personality traits are differentially associated with varying intensities of antisocial behavior, it is important to continue to measure and understand adolescent individual differences. We must also continue to consider the importance of incivility as a potential explanatory pathway. While previous research has alluded to the link between incivility and bullying having similar antisocial roots (i.e., Marini, 2009), our study demonstrates empirical associations between adolescent attitudes on incivility and bullying. Our data highlight the importance of considering both personality traits and adolescent incivility and to better understand, and intervene against adolescent bullying behavior.

Authors

• Natalie Spadafora, Brock University
  Presenting Author

• Anthony Volk, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author