Guilt in Probullying and in Provictim Roles: What are the Mechanisms?

• In Event: 3-189 - Using Indicators of Social-Emotional Development to Inform Practice

Integrative Statement

Bullying has both short- and long-term consequences for all parties involved, and enhancing children’s responsibility to take action against bullying has been a goal of paramount significance. Previous studies often report bullies, probullies, and bystanders as not feeling guilty in transgressive situations, on the contrary the tendency to feel guilty in social situations has been found to be associated with defending the victim (assuming a provictim role) (Menesini et al., 2003; Menesini & Camodeca, 2008; Rieffe et al., 2012). In the past, studies have used a dispositional guilt proneness measure or a general guilt measure related to vignettes depicting intentional harm.
The current study aims to understand the specific guilt-related mechanisms, which explain probullying and provictim roles, by referring to the distinction proposed by Malti (2016; Malti et al., 2009) between Healthy Guilt (which stems from violating internalized principles of fairness, justice, and/or harm), Sanction-based Guilt (which stems from external consequences of one’s actions), Hedonistic/justifying guilt (which refers to self-centered benefits/excuses for which it was acceptable to transgress). Investigating links between guilt and social behaviors is important because it can help us identify new strategies to nurture children’s social-emotional development and prevent bullying and violence. Here we assume that bullies and probullies will experience less healthy guilt and higher positive feelings for self-centered benefits, whereas a more intrinsic motivation should characterize the sense of guilt of the defenders.
Participants are 469 primary Italian school students (218 males, 251 females) from 4th (40%) and 5th grade (60%). Measures included: 1) Self-reported guilt feelings (healthy guilt, sanction-based guilt, hedonistic/justifying guilt) measured through the Social- Emotional Responding Task (SERT; Malti et al., 2009); 2) Peer report of the Italian Participant Role Questionnaire (Menesini & Gini, 2000; Salmivalli et al., 1996), distinguishing between probullying (assistant and reinforcer) and provictim (defender of the victim) roles.
Multivariate regression model conducted on probullying roles showed their association with higher level of happy feelings for self-centered benefits (β = .13; p < .05), and, at a lower level, with low level of healthy guilt (β = -.09; p < .10). Provictim roles were associated with higher levels of healthy guilt (β = .10; p < .05) and with lower levels of sanction-based guilt (β = -.11; p < .05).
Findings of the current study support the distinction between the three guilt processes, suggesting that different bullying roles are not simply related to different levels of guilt but also to different types of guilt. In fact, probullying roles appear to be more focused on lacking guilt for self-centered benefits, whereas provictim roles tend to be more centered on healthy guilt and less motivated by possible external sanctions in case of reprehensible behavior. Understanding these differences can inform developmentally tailored anti-bullying strategies by focusing on eliciting healthy guilt.

Authors

• Annalaura Nocentini, University of Florence
  Presenting Author

• Ersilia Menesini, University of Florence
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tina Malti, University of Toronto
  Non-Presenting Author