David Warden

Prosocial children, bullies and victims: An investigation of their sociometric status, empathy and social problem-solving strategies

This study investigates links between childrens social behaviour and their sociometric status, empathy and social problem-solving strategies. Sociometric ratings were obtained from a sample of 131 9-10-year-old children drawn from two matched schools. Each child also completed a newly developed and empirically derived Social Behaviour Questionnaire. This questionnaire led to the identification of 21 prosocial children, 23 bullies and 14 victims of bullying. Children in these subgroups were then assessed on measures of empathy and social problem-solving. Prosocial children were significantly more popular than the other role groups, and bully-victims were most frequently rejected by their peers. Prosocial children also showed greater empathic awareness than either bullies or victims, but gender was the significant source of variance. Prosocial children and victims responded more constructively than did bullies to socially awkward situations, and bullies were less aware than prosocial children of the possible negative consequences of their solution strategies.

Perceived Discrimination and Psychological Distress: The Role of Personal and Ethnic Self-Esteem

The present study aimed to draw on 2 theoretical models to examine the relationship between perceived ethnic discrimination and psychological distress in a sample of ethnic minority young people (N=154). Analysis provided no support for the hypothesis derived from the self-esteem theory of depression that self-esteem (personal and ethnic) moderates the discrimination-distress relationship. There was, however, partial support for a mediating role of self-esteem, as predicted by the transactional model of stress and coping. This mediational relationship was moderated by gender, such that both forms of self-esteem exerted a mediating role among men but not women. The authors consider the implications of their findings for theory and future research examining the consequences of discrimination on psychological well-being.

Help seeking amongst child and adolescent victims of peer-aggression and bullying: The influence of school-stage, gender, victimisation, appraisal, and emotion

BACKGROUND An important element of many anti-bullying programmes is encouraging victims to tell someone about their predicament. Research has already reported prevalence of telling, who/when children tell and efficacy of telling. However, seeking help can be viewed as a coping behaviour, and coping processes such as appraisal and emotion may be important predictors of whether pupils ask for help. AIMS To examine the effects that background variables (gender, school-stage), victimisation (duration, frequency), appraisal (threat, challenge, control) and negative emotion have upon support seeking by child and adolescent victims of peer-aggression and bullying. To also examine how effective pupils perceive social support to be. SAMPLE Participants were 830 children (49% male) aged 9-14 years. Three hundred and seventeen pupils were in Primary 6, 307 in Secondary 2 and 206 in Secondary 3. METHOD A self-report bullying questionnaire was completed by the participants within their classes. Questionnaires included items relating to victimisation, appraisal, emotion, and coping strategy choice as well as demographic data. RESULTS Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that gender, challenge appraisals, and emotions were significant predictors of the degree to which child and adolescent victims of peer-aggression and bullying sought help (accounting for 15.8% of the variance): girls were more likely than boys to seek help, as were pupils with high challenge appraisals or those experiencing high levels of negative emotion. Also, girls were more likely than boys to view support as the best strategy for both stopping bullying and for helping them to feel better. CONCLUSION Results suggest that pupils are more willing to seek help when they see the situation as one in which something can be achieved. Pupils also may be seeking support to get help coping with negative emotions, and this may need to be emphasized to teachers.

Perceptions and correlates of peer-victimization and bullying.

BACKGROUND The experiences of peer-victimization and bullying are often treated empirically as though they are conceptually indistinct. Both involve repeated aggression, but definitions of bullying additionally emphasize the importance of aggressor intent and imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim (Olweus, 1978; Whitney & Smith, 1993). AIMS The present study aimed to examine the extent to which peer-victimization and bullying are empirically similar. SAMPLE The sample comprised 1,429 pupils (50.2% male) aged between 8 and 13 years attending mainstream Scottish schools. METHODS Self-report questionnaire assessing peer-victimization and bullying, coping strategy use (WCCL: Hunter, 2000), situational appraisal and depressive symptomatology (Birleson, 1981). RESULTS Almost one-third (30.7%) of pupils reported experiencing peer-victimization, and of these 38.1% (11.7% of whole sample) were categorized as victims of bullying. Victims of bullying perceived higher levels of threat and lower levels of perceived control. They also reported using more Wishful Thinking and Social Support coping strategies, but did not differ on Problem Focused coping. Bullied pupils also reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology. CONCLUSIONS Peer-victimization and bullying appear to be qualitatively different experiences for children and adolescents, with bullying being the more serious phenomenon.

Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour

The aims of this study were to administer an assessment measure that would identify prosocial children, bullies and their victims, and to examine the underlying structure of childrens perceptions of peer social behaviour in these three groups. Three versions (peer nomination, self and teacher rating) of a newly developed child social behaviour questionnaire (CSBQ) were completed by children (aged 9/10 years, n=321) and their teachers in 14 Scottish primary schools. The CSBQ is distinguished from other extant measures by its joint focus on both prosocial and antisocial child behaviours, and by its use of concrete and empirically derived items. In conjunction with sociometric data, which was also elicited from the children, the CSBQ yielded scores on 12 behavioural dimensions. Based upon the peer nomination data, a set of rigorous criteria, capable of reliably identifying children in the three groups, was developed to take account of varying peer nomination practices within and between schools. Factor analysis of the 12 measures yielded four factors (two antisocial factors, a prosocial factor and a victim factor) which accounted for 71% of the variance, and which offer further insight into the organisation of childrens perceptions of social behaviour. Gender differences in peer nomination patterns and comparisons between the different informant groups are discussed in relation to previous work.

Stranger-Danger: What do Children Know?

The current practice in many schools of educating children on how to keep themselves safe from abuse and abduction tends to concentrate on teaching them about stranger-danger and how to avoid it. However, recent research suggests that children may have difficulty in understanding the stranger-danger message (Mayes, Gillies and Warden, 1990). The present study examines 6-, 8- and 10-year-old childrens understanding of the concepts of ‘stranger’ and ‘danger’ by analysing their verbal responses to videotaped sequences depicting child encounters with a variety of known and unknown male adults. Results indicate that, although there is some evidence of developing wariness, children at ages 8 and even 10 years appear still to be vulnerable to approaches made by strangers.

An Evaluation of a Children's Safety Training Programme

Abstract This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a childrens safety training programme,Kidscape, which aims to increase primary school childrens ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situation: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult and to pressure from such adults to keep such intimacy secret. Assessments of childrens safety awareness were carried out in three schools which used the programme, and in three matched control schools which did not, with children at two age levels, 6 years and 10 years. These assessments of childrens awareness were made on three occasions: before, immediately after and 2‐3 months after the training programme for the experimental sample (60 children) and on corresponding occasions for the control sample (60 children). The results revealed a significant improvement in the safety awareness of the experimental (trained) group after training and also a significant difference between the...

Children's understanding of ask and tell

Evidence produced by Chomsky (1969) has suggested that 5-year-old children comprehend the verb tell more easily than the verb ask . This paper analyses the interpersonal context of appropriate use of these verbs and reports the results of two comprehension experiments with 5-year-olds. The first experiment, in attempting to correct an apparent methodological weakness in Chomskys study, reverses her results and elicits a significantly higher frequency of correct responses to the verb ask than the verb tell : the second experiment demonstrates that this age group can consistently identify the speech acts to which the words ask and tell refer. The results are interpreted as support for the conclusion that 5-year-olds can comprehend the meaning of ask and tell , but that their linguistic comprehension is easily dominated by contextual and interpersonal expectations.

Children's Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour, as Perceived by Children, Parents and Teachers

Abstract Within the context of a widespread concern with childrens antisocial behaviour, especially bullying, the development of ‘whole‐school’ policies on bullying, and also recent national guidelines which emphasise the importance of fostering childrens prosocial behaviours, this research examines the extent to which children, parents and teachers exhibit within‐ and between‐group consensus, both in their perceptions and relative judgements of different forms of child prosocial and antisocial behaviours, and in their responses to such behaviours. Less consensus was found in judgements of prosodal than of antisocial behaviours, both within and between groups, and significant between‐group differences are discussed in the context of the teaching of social behaviour.

Long-term stability and reliability of scores on the peer-relations subscale of the self-esteem questionnaire

The stability of scores on the Peer-Relations subscale of the Self-Esteem Questionnaire (SEQ) was examined over 11 to 13 months, longer than in previous research. Participants were 839 mainstream Scottish pupils aged 8 to 14 years old (48% male), allowing for the psychometric qualities of the scale to be assessed in a younger sample than previously examined. The subscale scores displayed good internal reliability and moderate testretest stability. Stability did not differ statistically significantly according to gender or school stage, and there were no gender or school-stage effects in relation to actual scores on the subscale. The Peer-Relations subscale of the SEQ appears to yield reliable scores for use with children as young as 8 years old.