Date of Award
2012
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
W. Grant Willis
Abstract
Bullying, a common, persistent, and detrimental occurrence in schools, adversely affects the social, emotional, behavioral, and psychological well-being of children and youth. Independent variables that have been studied among children and youth involved in bullying in school settings are delineated, ways that bullying has been assessed and reported are described and critiqued, and the effect of hindsight bias is reviewed. Forty-eight vignettes were constructed by crossing (a) four kinds of social contact (physical aggression, verbal aggression, relational aggression, and non-aggression) with (b) male and female actors, (c) male and female and receivers, and (d) reaction of the receiver (aggressive, passive, and no reaction). Participants gave predictions of how the receiver may react to the scenario, rated vignettes on seven items assessing the seriousness, and gave qualitative responses to how they might intervene. Hindsight bias analyses revealed that when a hindsight bias exists, teachers who read an aggressive reaction by the receiver always gave a higher prediction of the likelihood that the victim would respond aggressively. Analyses of the vignettes revealed that physical aggression was perceived as more serious than any other kind of social contact, and situations that depicted female actors and male receivers were perceived as least serious across all kinds of social contact. The qualitative responses demonstrated that teachers report using different intervention strategies with the actors versus the receivers, and different intervention strategies based on kind of contact. Results are discussed in terms of applied implications for teachers in school settings and in terms of directions for future research.
Recommended Citation
Sherman, Karen J., "Teachers’ Perception of Bullying Among Youth: Hindsight Bias in Relation to Victim Responses" (2012). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 1087.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/1087
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