School bullying: belief in a personal just world of bullies, victims, and defenders

Abstract

This paper applies just world research to the analysis of bullying at school and examines the relation between the belief in a personal just world (BJW) and self-reported behavior in bullying situations. The hypotheses tested were that the more strongly students endorse the personal BJW, the less likely they should be to bully others, the less likely they should see themselves as victims, and the more likely they should be to defend victims of bullying. The participants were 187 Portuguese students in the 7th to 9th grade. The results showed that the stronger the adolescents' endorsements of the BJW, the less likely they were to engage in bullying behavior, and this association persisted when controlled for emotional empathy. Defending the victim or becoming a victim was unrelated, however. The implications of these results for further studies on bullying and victimization are discussed.