Bullying and the Big Five

A Study of Childhood Personality and Participant Roles in

Bullying Incidents
FRANCA TANIa, PAUL S. GREENMANb, BARRY H.
SCHNEIDERb and MANUELA FREGOSOa
a
University of Florence, Florence, Italy and bUniversity of
Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

Research on the social context of bullying includes children

who help the victim, assist the bully or remain outsiders. 96 children
from two public schools in Central Italy were classified according to
an Italian version of the Participant Role Scale (Sutton and Smith,
1999) as Defenders of the Victim, Outsiders, Victims or Pro-bullies.
Teacher reports indicated Friendliness and Emotional Instability as
the strongest distinguishing personality factors among the participant
roles, followed by Conscientiousness and Energy. Higher levels of
Emotional Instability and lower levels of Friendliness typified both
Pro-bullies and Victims, relative to their peers. Victims were also low
in Conscientiousness. Defenders exhibited high levels of Friendliness,
whereas Introversion and Independence characterized Outsiders.
These results suggest that personality traits might contribute to
childrens typical behaviour in bullying situations.
ABSTRACT

Introduction
Bullying is a form of verbal, physical or social aggression that consists
of repeated use of force against peers over extended periods of time. It
includes name-calling, threatening, teasing, hitting and exclusion
(Olweus, 1993; Smith et al., 1999). Recent research has focused on the
larger peer groups role in bullying situations (e.g. OConnell et al.,
1999) because it has become increasingly clear that one must consider
the social context in which the problems of aggressive behaviour and
Please address correspondence to: Paul S. Greenman, School of Psychology,
University of Ottawa, PO Box 450, Stn. A, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada.
Email: pgree051@uottawa.ca.
School Psychology International Copyright 2003 SAGE Publications (London,
Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 24(2): 131146. [01430343 (200305)
24:2; 131146; 033774]

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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

victimization occur in order to understand them (Salmivalli, 2001).
Without the support of at least some members of their peer groups,
bullies would probably be much less brazen than they are. Salmivalli
and colleagues have investigated these peer group dynamics and have
identified six different roles that peers usually play in bully-victim
problems: Bully, Victim, Reinforcer of the Bully, Assistant of the Bully,
Defender of the Victim and Outsider (Salmivalli, 1999; Salmivalli,
2001; Salmivalli et al., 1996; Salmivalli et al., 1998). Bullies consistently
harass victims and coerce others into joining them; Reinforcers
contribute to the maintenance of bullying by providing bullies with an
audience and engaging in behaviours such as laughing and encouraging others to watch while peers are victimized; Bullies Assistants
actively join the bullying once the incident has started by catching or
holding the victim; Defenders intervene on behalf of the victim and
make an effort to stop the bullying; and Outsiders distance themselves
completely from incidents of bullying (Salmivalli et al., 1996). These
participant roles tend to remain stable throughout primary school and
they relate to childrens future behaviour in bullying situations
(Salmivalli et al., 1998).
It is therefore possible to view bullying as a group activity (e.g.
OConnell et al., 1999), in which children might participate differently
according to intrinsic personal characteristics (Salmivalli et al., 1999).
For example, a recent study that featured cluster analysis techniques
for the identification of dimensions of peer- and self-evaluated selfesteem (e.g. genuinely high or low, defensive self-esteem, self-belittling)
among adolescents indicated that self-esteem differentiates children
who assume the various participant roles in bullying situations
(Salmivalli et al., 1999). In addition, Salmivalli and colleagues (1998)
speculated that personality factors might contribute to the stability of
participant roles over time, but they did not specify how or which ones.
The Big Five personality traits and bullying
Decades of research have uncovered five basic personality factors that
emerge repeatedly and consistently upon analyses of the traits most
commonly used in natural languages and in psychological questionnaires to describe people (John and Srivastava, 1999; McCrae and
Costa, 1999). The Big Five factors of personality are generally known
as Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O),
Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C) (Costa and McCrae, 1992),
although in the present study an Italian personality scale utilized
slightly different nomenclature, with the factors Friendliness, Emotional
Instability, Intellectual Openness, Energy, and Conscientiousness
(Barbaranelli et al., 1998). The Friendliness, Energy, and Emotional
Instability factors on the Italian scale are essentially identical to the
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

traditional Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticisim factors,
respectively.
These domains of personality encapsulate the degree to which an
individual is emotionally stable vs. maladjusted (N); assertive, active
and talkative vs. reserved and independent (E); attentive to inner
feelings, happy with variety, intellectually curious and independent in
judgement vs. conventional, conservative, and somewhat emotionally
silent (O); altruistic and sympathetic to others vs. inclined to protect
ones own interests (A); and purposeful, strong-willed and determined
vs. less driven to apply moral principles and more interested in pleasure
(C). Facet scales, or sub-factors, contribute to each of these personality
factors. For example, Anxiety, Angry hostility, Depression, Selfconsciousness, Impulsiveness, and Vulnerability comprise the
Neuroticism factor (Costa and McCrae, 1992).
More recently, personality factors in children and the Big Five model
have captured the attention of researchers, who have found that children
do indeed exhibit personality traits that remain stable into adulthood
(Caspi, 2000; Caspi et al., 1990) and that resemble the Big Five
dimensions usually used to classify adult personality (Asendorpf and
van Aken, 1999; Scholte et al., 1997).
Big Five personality traits have implications for childrens aggressive
behaviour. For example, the self-reported Big Five personality
dimensions Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to
Experience were highly related to teacher ratings of behaviour problems
such as intimidation of others and picking fights in one study of nineto 13-year olds (Ehrler et al., 1999). There was also a strong positive
correlation in the same study between social problems such as shyness
or rejection and the Neuroticism scale (Ehrler et al., 1999). It is
important to note, however, that there are some differences between
the use of the Big Five in children and adults. Children tend to identify
concrete preferences and behaviours instead of underlying personality
traits (Donahue, 1994), which might account for the presence of fewer
personality facets or sub-factors in some personality research with
children (e.g. Shiner, 2000).
Some researchers have examined the link between personality and
bully-victim problems directly, albeit with personality measures other
than ones that tap the Big Five. In one such study, primary school
childrens tendency to bully was associated with a personality factor
known as Psychoticism (Slee and Rigby, 1993), which involves solitary,
impulsive behaviour, hostility toward others and a lack of cooperation
and sensitivity in social situations (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975).
Children who assumed the role of victim in this sample scored low on a
scale of Extraversion and high on a scale of Neuroticism from the
Eysenck and Eysenck (1975) personality measure (Slee and Rigby,
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

1993). Mynard and Joseph (1997) replicated these results with children
slightly older than those in the Slee and Rigby (1993) study. Other
research has indicated that bullies tend to express more positive affect
than their peers when engaging in bullying behaviour (e.g. Craig and
Pepler, 1997).
More recently, Sutton and Keogh (2000), found that bullies scored
significantly higher than control children on a measure of
Machiavellianism, which the authors describe as a tendency to perceive
others as targets for manipulation in interpersonal relationships,
characterized by a powerful drive for social success. This study revealed
a negative relation between the desire for social success and provictim attitudes. The bullies in this study also had a significantly less
supportive attitude toward others in distress than did their peers who
were not involved in bullying. In sum, bullies calculating behaviour
appears to reflect an underlying personality trait that involves
manipulation for personal gain. Furthermore, the negative relation
between supportive attitudes toward victims and a greater desire for
social success suggests a Neurotic component to bullies personalities.
Findings very similar to those of Sutton and Keogh (2000) emerged in
a recent study of the personality traits of bullies among Greek schoolchildren by Andreou (2000).
Little is known about the personality dimensions linked to
participant roles other than those of bullies and victims. There is
scant empirical information on the personalities of Bullies Assistants,
Reinforcers of the Bully, Defenders of the Victim and Outsiders. The
Sutton and Keogh (2000) study constitutes an important first step;
the results suggest an important relation between childrens desire
for social success and lack of support for victims of bullying.
Personality and altruistic behaviour
Both situational and personality factors affect prosocial, helping
behaviour and may therefore relate to the roles of Bully, Victim,
Bullys Assistant, Reinforcer of the Bully, Defender of the Victim and
Outsider. Darley and Latans (1968) classic work in social psychology
made it clear that situational influences (such as the number of people
present at the scene of an emergency) affect the degree to which
bystanders intervene in emergency situations. Later work began to
tease apart the intrapersonal and personality profiles of individuals
who do and do not decide to help those in need across situations,
painting a picture of altruistic individuals as people who experience
high levels of empathic emotion (Batson et al., 1981; Bierhoff et al.,
1991), who have high self-esteem and little need for outside approval
(Wilson and Petruska, 1984), and who rely on their own personal
values rather than external input to guide their behaviour (White and
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

Gerstein, 1987). On the other hand, individuals who do not readily
come to the aid of others in need tend to recoil from potential
embarrassment and to fear losing their poise in public (Tice and
Baumeister, 1985). They also attend to external attributes (e.g. social
status) of other bystanders and imitate their behaviour (Wilson and
Petruska, 1984), and they maintain a vested interest in the social
appropriateness of their behaviour in order to maximize social benefits
(White and Gerstein, 1987).
Among children and adolescents, helping or refraining from helping
peers may relate to both dispositional factors and peer influences in
similar ways. In one study of children between the ages of six and nine,
Knight and colleagues found that children with higher levels of
emotional knowledge, sympathy for others and knowledge of money
were more likely to donate money to needy others than were children
who scored lower on these dispositional variables (Knight et al., 1994).
Personality and participant roles in bullying situations
Based on this evidence, a number of theoretical links between
personality and participant roles in bullying are conceivable. Perhaps
children who exhibit high levels of Extraversion and Agreeableness
would be more popular (as are adults who exhibit high levels of Extraversion; Anderson et al., 2001) and therefore more inclined to help
others than their less Extraverted or Agreeable peers, because they
are not afraid of losing status in social situations that involve bullying.
Children who come to the aid of their victimized peers might also be
high in Warmth and Tender-mindedness, which are features of the
Extraverted, Agreeable personality (Costa and McCrae, 1992). The
personality dimension of Conscientiousness, which involves a respect
for order, rules and dutifulness, may also typify Defenders of the
Victims of bullies.
On the other hand, children who assist or reinforce their aggressive
counterparts, or those who do nothing to stop them, may do so out of a
fear of losing peer esteem. This type of behaviour would be typical of
self-conscious individuals; Self-consciousness is a component of
Neuroticism (Costa and McCrae, 1992; John and Srivastava, 1999).
Finally, bullies low empathy and hostile behaviour might reflect
underlying personality characteristics typical of individuals who
score low in Altruism, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, just as
victims characteristic introversion and low social acceptance might
also reflect underlying personality traits (e.g. low Extraversion, high
Neuroticism).
Keeping in mind that the Italian personality scale used in the
present study contains Friendliness, Energy and Emotional Instability
factors that are essentially identical to the traditional Agreeableness,
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

Extraversion, and Neuroticism factors respectively, we formulated
the following hypotheses to test the aforementioned links:
(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

That Bullies, Bullies Assistants and Reinforcers will score lower on

the Friendliness, Conscientiousness and Openness scales than
children who take other participant roles.
That Defenders of the Victim will exhibit the least Emotional
Instability of all children in the sample and the highest levels of
Energy, Openness, Friendliness, and Conscientiousness.
That Outsiders will score higher on Emotional Instability than
Defenders of the Victim and lower in Energy, Openness, Friendliness
and Conscientiousness.
That Victims will show lower levels of Friendliness than other
children except for Bullies and their helpers, the lowest levels of
Energy and the highest levels of Emotional Instability in the
sample.

Method
Participants
The participants were 134 boys and 98 girls in the third and fourth
years (age eight to ten) in two public elementary schools in Central
Italy. One school was in Florence, the other in LaSpezia, a port and
industrial city on the Mediterranean Coast in the province of Liguria.
Although demographic data are not available, the schools appear to be
typical of the majority cultural group and the main parental occupations
of the two cities. Over 99 percent of the potential participants agreed
to participate.
Instruments
We used the 21-item Participant Role Scale (Sutton and Smith, 1999)
to identify the roles played by the participants during incidents of
bullying. The Italian version of the scale was developed and validated
by Menesini and Gini (2000). The participant role approach (originally
developed by Salmivalli et al., 1996) involves peer nominations of their
classmates whose behaviour matches each of the roles. In the original
version, there were separate scales for Bullies, Bullies Assistants,
Reinforcers of the Bully, Defenders of the Victim, Outsiders, and Victims.
However, subsequent factor analyses, conducted with a British sample
by Sutton and Smith (1999) and with the data from the present study
by Menesini and Gini (2000) in Italy, show consider overlap among the
Bully, Bullys Assistant, and Reinforcer of the Bully factors. The
perpetration of bullying by cliques within which these roles alternate
might account for this overlap. Consequently, a Pro-bullying scale,
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

which subsumes the three aforementioned original scales, is commonly
used.
Confirmatory factor analysis of the data from the present study
revealed a satisfactory fit for the four-factor structure reported by
Sutton and Smith (1999): CFI = 0.94; RMR = 0.05. The fit improved
considerably after deletion of the item Gets others to watch, which is
part of reinforcing the bully in Sutton and Smiths version: CFI = 0.97;
RMR = 0.03. Perhaps some of the participants thought that getting
others to watch might be a way of remaining uninvolved or even of
helping the victim if making the incident public were to result in adult
involvement.
The Cronbach alpha for the ten-item Pro-bullying scale (e.g. Starts
bullying; Always thinks of new ways of picking on the victim; Helps
the bully, maybe by catching or holding the Victim) was 0.85. The fiveitem Defender scale included such items as Tells some adult about the
bullying; Sticks up for the victim; its Cronbach alpha was 0.87. The
Outsider scale (alpha = 0.79) consisted of four items including Pretends
not to notice what is happening and Doesnt do anything or take
sides. There was also a one-item Victim scale: Gets bullied.
We followed the procedure described by Sutton and Smith (1999) for
classifying the participant roles. Accordingly, children were considered
as fitting the Pro-bully, Defender, or Outsider roles if their scores fell
at or above a z score of 1.00 on those scales. We identified as victims
children who were so nominated by at least one third of the nominating
group. Only three subjects scored above the cutting point for both
bullies and victims, which was not enough for separate analysis. 32
participants were in the Pro-bully group, 26 were Defenders of the
Victim, 20 were Outsiders, and 18 were victims. The rest of the children
were not classified into participant roles.
The Big Five Questionnaire for Children (Barbaranelli et al., 1998) is
a 65-item Italian measure based on the Big Five personality model.
Self-report, parent and teacher-rating forms are available, which are
identical except for pronouns. As detailed in the manual, there were
several steps in the development and refinement of the measure. The
researchers started with a pool of 300 adjectives derived from the
literature on personality and from previous scales. Italian parents,
teachers, and seven-to 14-year-olds rated these adjectives for their
usefulness in describing hypothetical seven- and 14-year-olds.
Subsequent steps included the confirmation of the factor structure,
confirmation of reasonable concordance across respondents, and
demonstration of convergent validity against other scales of personality
and social behaviour.
We used the teacher- and self-report scales in this study. Each of
the five scales demonstrated excellent internal consistency in our data
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

(and in the original validation study) for the teacher-report version,
and less stellar internal consistency for the self-reports. The five factors
are: Friendliness (including If someone does something wrong to me, I
forgive them; I treat others nicely; alpha for teacher version = 0.91;
alpha for self-report version = 0.67); Emotional Instability (e.g. I get
angry easily; I often argue with others; alphas = 0.81 and 0.64);
Intellectual Openness (e.g. I quickly understand things the teacher
explains; Im good at solving problems; alphas = 0.87 and 0.69);
Energy (e.g. I am very lively and happy; I often succeed in coming up
with new games and new ways of enjoying myself; alphas = 0.84 and
0.68); and Conscientiousness (e.g. I like keeping things orderly; I only
play after all my homework is complete; alphas = 0.84 and 0.66). It is
important to note once again that the Friendliness, Energy, and
Emotional Instability factors on the Italian scale are essentially identical
to the traditional Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism factors,
respectively.
We next examined correlations among the five scales. The
intercorrelations of the self-report scales ranged from 0.49 to 0.84, as
might be expected from the low alphas reported in the preceding
paragraph. Three of the self-report scales were so highly intercorrelated
that it would be irresponsible to interpret them as representing separate
constructs. In contrast, the intercorrelations of the teacher report
scales ranged from 0.20 to 0.44, with an average intercorrelation of
0.20. Given the very satisfactory psychometric properties of the teacherreport scales, we decided to base our hypothesis testing solely on that
source of information.

Results
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted in
order to assess personality differences among children who belonged to
each of the four participant role groups (Pro-bully, Defender of the
Victim, Outsider and Victim). We first ran the MANOVA on the entire
sample and then on a sample with equalized groups, which we created
by randomly excluding a portion of the large number of children who
were unclassified, i.e. who did not fall into one of the four participant
role categories. The results of the two analyses were nearly identical.
The data reported here are from the analysis of the sample with
equalized groups.
Means and standard deviations for the self- and teacher-reported
Big Five personality scales are represented graphically in Figure 1.
There was a significant multivariate effect of participant role status on
personality traits (Multivariate F [15,243] = 7.99, p < 0.001). Follow-up
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

Big Five personality traits
70
60

Mean score

50
Pro-bullies
Defenders
Outsiders
Victims

40
30
20
10

Figure 1.

O
pe
nn
es
s

C
on
sc
ie
nt
io
us
ne
ss
Em
ot
io
na
lI
ns
ta
bi
lit
y

Fr
ie
nd
lin
es
s

En
er
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Mean scores on Big Five personality scales by participant

roles

univariate ANOVAs revealed significant effects of Energy (F [3,355] =

5.09, p < 0.01), Friendliness (F [3, 845] = 28.69, p < 0.001),
Conscientiousness (F [3, 446] = 3.49, p < 0.05), and Emotional Instability
(F [3, 1049] = 5.69, p < 0.005).
Tukeys honestly significant difference (HSD) tests (with alpha set
at 0.05) were employed to make multiple comparisons among participant
role groups for each of the significant univariate effects. Results of
these post-hoc analyses indicated that Pro-bullies were lower than
Defenders of the Victim on Friendliness and higher than Defenders of
the Victim on Emotional Instability, which supports the prediction
that Pro-bullies would exhibit low levels of this trait. As predicted,
Defenders of the Victim had significantly higher scores on Friendliness
than all other children in the sample, and their Emotional Instability
scores were lower than those of Pro-bullies and Victims. However, the
data did not support the prediction that Defenders level of Emotional
Instability would be lower than that of all of the other children in the
sample. The data also supported the prediction that Outsiders would
exhibit lower levels of Energy and Friendliness than members of the
Defender of the Victim group. Outsiders also had significantly lower
scores on Energy than did members of the Pro-bullying group.
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

We expected that Victims would show lower levels of Friendliness
than other children except for Pro-bullies, in addition to the lowest
levels of Extraversion and the highest levels of Neuroticism in the
sample. The data supported the first portion of this hypothesis: Victims
scored significantly lower than Defenders and Outsiders on Friendliness
and higher than Defenders and Outsiders on Emotional Instability.
Unexpectedly, they also had lower scores than Defenders and Outsiders
on Conscientiousness.

Discussion
The results of this study provide some insight into the Big Five
personality characteristics of children who play the various participant
roles in bullying situations and into the measurement of personality in
childhood. First, the markedly higher internal consistency of teacherreport scales than self-report scales of personality (both in our data set
and in the standardization sample of the personality questionnaire
(Barbaranelli et al., 1998) that we employed in the present study)
leads to the suggestion that teacher reports provide a better measurement of childrens personality. This may apply particularly to the
assessment of the personalities of bullies and other aggressive children.
The literature is replete with reservations about childrens self reports
in general (Furman, 1996) and, in particular, about the tendency of
aggressive children to make themselves appear more socially competent
on self-report scales than they actually are (e.g. Patterson et al., 1990).
Friendliness and Emotional Instability emerged as the most
consistent predictors of childrens participant role status. Interestingly,
teachers perceived a lack of Friendliness and elevated Emotional
Instability in both bullies and victims. These findings suggest that the
many studies on the friendships and peer relations of bullies and
victims (e.g. Pellegrini et al., 1999) represent a good investment of
research time, and they corroborate the results of other research that
have highlighted the general psychological maladjustment of both
bullies and victims (e.g. Rigby and Slee, 1999).
Personality characteristics of pro-bullies
Pro-bullies were lower than Defenders in Friendliness (Agreeableness). Low Agreeableness is thought to involve a preoccupation with
ones own goals and interests and a lack of sympathy for other peoples
suffering (Costa and McCrae, 1992). This finding is consistent with
reports in the literature that bullies tend to resort to aggressive
strategies for solving interpersonal problems (Slee, 1993), to lack
empathy for others (Olweus, 1993) and to utilize their knowledge of
other childrens mental states or emotions to manipulate and take
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

advantage of them (Sutton and Keogh, 2000; Sutton et al., 1999).
Perhaps this personality trait might underlie these aggressive,
manipulative tendencies.
Another result was that children in the Pro-bullying group also
scored higher than Outsiders on a measure of Energy, a personality
construct also known as Extraversion. This suggests that children who
bully others or children who help them are quite likely to assert
themselves in social situations (Costa and McCrae, 1992), which helps
explain the observation in previous investigations that some children
in particular bullying situations actively initiate conflicts (Salmivalli,
2001; Salmivalli et al., 1996).
Only some of our findings about the personalities of Pro-bullies
mirror those of the self-report studies conducted by Slee and Rigby
(1993), among others. Slee and Rigby found that bullies were hostile
and solitary. Our findings regarding the combination of high Energy
(Extraversion) and low Friendliness (Agreeableness) in the personality structure of bullies might at first seem counterintuitive, and contrary
to the depiction of bullies as solitary, which is one of the characteristics
of the Psychoticism dimension on the Eysenck Questionnaires employed
in the Slee and Rigby study. However, these findings are not illogical if
the bullies are involved in such high-energy peer activities as sports, in
which they consider themselves proficient (Boulton and Smith, 1994)
and in the social activities of an anti-social crowd. Although this would
not mean that they are solitary, it would mean that they are involved
in social activities that demand little cooperation or sensitivity toward
others, and little in the way of true friendliness.
Personality characteristics of Defenders of the Victim
As predicted, Defenders of the Victim exhibited the highest levels of
Friendliness (Agreeableness). Persons scoring high on this dimension
of personality are described in the literature as altruistic and
sympathetic to other peoples needs (Costa and McCrae, 1992). The
presence of such an underlying tendency toward altruism may explain
Defenders selfless behaviour toward their peers in need. Perhaps the
combination of this desire to help others and the high level of selfesteem that other researchers have identified in Defenders (Salmivalli
et al., 1999) spurs them to act on behalf of their maltreated peers. In
addition, Defenders scored lower than Pro-bullies and Victims on
Emotional Instability, which indicates that they are probably less
likely than members of those two groups to be self-conscious or to have
difficulty regulating their emotions (Costa and McCrae, 1992).
Contrary to our predictions, the Conscientiousness dimension did
not distinguish Defenders of the Victim from others in a meaningful
way. The fact that the personality dimension of Conscientiousness
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

involves a number of features (such as self-control, a strong will and a
high level of determination; Costa and McCrae, 1992), not all of which
would logically distinguish those who assist persons in need, might
account for our finding that Conscientiousness did not set Defenders
apart from others. In addition, the single Conscientiousness scale in
the Big Five questionnaire used in this study probably fails to isolate
the aspects of Conscientiousness that are relevant to the Defender
role.
Personality characteristics of Outsiders
A mixed picture of Outsiders emerges from our findings. They scored
lower than Pro-bullies and Defenders on Energy (Extraversion), lower
than Defenders on Friendliness (Agreeableness), higher than Victims
on Conscientiousness, and lower than Victims on Emotional Instability (Neuroticism). Their lower score on Energy (Extraversion) than
Pro-bullies and Defenders is commensurate with and helps explain the
findings in other research that Outsiders tend to refrain from getting
involved in bullying situations (e.g. Salmivalli et al., 1996), because
low Extraversion has been linked to reticence from social interactions
(Costa and McCrae, 1992).
This significant difference from Defenders on Energy adds another
dimension to Sutton et al.s (1999) discovery of a significantly negative
relation between the Outsider role and cognitive social cognition, which
they defined as an understanding of the internal mental states of
others. Perhaps Outsiders do not get involved in bullying incidents
because: (1) they are less inclined than are other children to become
socially involved with their peers, as our finding suggests and (2) they
actually do not understand or cannot identify the plight of their peers,
as Sutton and colleagues (1999) finding suggests. Outsiders lack of
involvement on behalf of their victimized peers might therefore stem
from a combination of an intrinsic personality characteristic (low Energy) and little or no concrete grasp of the extent to which victimized
children suffer.
Personality characteristics of Victims
Our data indicate that a psychological vulnerability to aggression and
rejection from their peers might accompany the well-documented
physical disadvantages that victims endure (e.g. Hodges and Perry,
1999; Olweus, 1993). Teachers rated Victims lower than Defenders
and Outsiders on Friendliness (Agreeableness) and Conscientiousness,
and higher on Emotional Instability. These findings suggest that Victims
might be more inclined than other children are to protect their own
interests, (as is typical of persons who score low in Agreeableness),
that they may be less purposeful and strong-willed and more interested
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Tani et al.: Bullying and the Big Five

in their own pleasure (Conscientiousness; Costa and McCrae, 1992),
and that they are emotionally unstable (Neuroticism; Costa and McCrae,
1992). The finding of increased emotional instability complements
previous research findings, which have shown that victimized and
rejected children have difficulty regulating their emotions (e.g. Shields
and Cicchetti, 2001), and that this difficulty may put them at risk for
further victimization from their peers (Schwartz et al., 2001). None of
this bodes well for victimized children, the majority of whom are
usually rejected by their peers (Perry et al., 1988; Salmivalli et al.,
1996).
It has been documented that some children bully others because
they believe that their victims cant get along with other people (Cary
et al., 2001, p. 1). It is possible that repeated victimization makes these
children more inclined to look after and protect themselves at the
expense of sympathy for their peers (as reflected in their low
Friendliness scores), and that this low Friendliness invites victimization from others, who might not appreciate victimized childrens focus
on their own personal interests.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
We were able to demonstrate that personality does differentiate to
some extent the roles assumed by participants in bullying situations,
yet there are limitations to this study. First, teacher reports of childrens
personality traits and childrens reports of their peers typical behaviour
in bullying situations represent the principle sources of data in this
investigation. Although the information from these reports has
suggested that children who play the various participant roles in
bullying situations differ from one another along several dimensions of
personality (most notably Friendliness and Emotional Instability),
further research that incorporates a different type of methodology (e.g.
direct observation of the behaviour of children in the various participant
roles) is necessary in order to replicate these findings and to paint a
clearer picture of the influence of personality factors on childrens roles
in bullying.
Second, our findings do not demonstrate that personality makes a
unique contribution to childrens bullying behaviour. For example,
self-esteem and social status also appear to be related to participant
roles (Salmivalli et al., 1996; Salmivalli et al., 1999). In addition, the
behaviour of aggressors, victims and others close to the scene can
depend on both situational and dispositional factors, as Ostvik and
Rudmin (2000) argued in their study of bullying among adults in the
Norwegian army. We maintain that bullying has multiple antecedents;
the personality and situational approaches to its prediction are not
mutually exclusive. Considering these dimensions simultaneously has
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School Psychology International (2003), Vol. 24(2)

been useful in providing insight in the social psychology literature
about the bystander effect (see Introduction), and could provide as
much insight into the causes of bullying.
Note
Portions of this paper were presented as a poster at the Biennial
Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural
Development, August 2002, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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