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Connections between attitudes, group norms, andbehaviour in bullying situationsChristina Salmivalli a & Marinus Voeten ba University of Turku, Finlandb University of Nijmegen, The NetherlandsPublished online: 03 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Christina Salmivalli & Marinus Voeten (2004): Connections between attitudes, group norms, andbehaviour in bullying situations, International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28:3, 246-258

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International Journal of Behavioral Development # 2004 The International Society for the2004, 28 (3), 246–258 Study of Behavioural Development

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/01650254.html DOI: 10.1080/01650250344000488

Connections between attitudes, group norms, andbehaviour in bullying situations

Christina Salmivalli

University of Turku, Finland

Marinus Voeten

University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

We examined the connections between attitudes, group norms, and students’ behaviour in bullying

situations (bullying others, assisting the bully, reinforcing the bully, defending the victim, or staying

outside bullying situations). The participants were 1220 elementary school children (600 girls and

620 boys) from 48 school classes from Grades four, five, and six, i.e., 9–10, 10–11, and 11–12 years

of age. Whereas attitudes did predict behaviour at the student level in most cases (although the

effects were moderate after controlling for gender), the group norms could be used in explaining

variance at the classroom level, especially in the upper grades. The class context (even if not

classroom norms specifically) had more effect on girls’ than on boys’ bullying-related behaviours.

Introduction

Bullying is typically defined as repeated negative actions targeted

at an individual who has difficulty in defending him/herself (e.g.,

Olweus, 1973; Smith, 1991). Such systematic harassment of a

weaker peer is an unfortunately common type of aggression in

school settings. Bullying seems to be a universal phenomenon,

taking place in most, if not all, school classes (Smith & Brain,

2000), and it has received growing attention of researchers in

various countries in all continents (Smith, Morita, Junger-Tas,

Olweus, Catalano, & Slee, 1999). Bullying causes various

psychosocial adjustment problems to the victims (see meta-

analysis by Hawker & Boulton, 2000). The victims’ distress is

quite understandable, since the negative treatment by peers

tends to be highly persistent, sometimes going on for years

(Boulton & Smith, 1994; Olweus, 1978; Salmivalli, Lappalai-

nen, & Lagerspetz, 1998).

The persistence of bullying might partly be explained by the

group mechanisms involved. These group mechanisms, such

as social contagion, weakening of the control or inhibitions

against aggressive tendencies, diffusion of responsibility, and

gradual cognitive changes in the perceptions of the victim, have

already been described in the early work by Olweus (1973; see

also Olweus, 2001).

Serious empirical attempts to document the possibility that

groups maintain and reinforce bullying started to emerge

during the 1990s. When systematic victimisation goes on in a

school class, most students are not only aware of it, but also are

present when it occurs (O’Connell, Pepler, & Craig, 1999;

Pepler & Craig, 1995; Salmivalli, 1992). Furthermore, the

presence of peer bystanders has been shown to be related to

persistence of the bullying episodes (O’Connell et al., 1999).

The roles of victims, bullies, assistants (of bullies), reinforcers

(of bullies), defenders (of victims) and outsiders were first

assessed in a Finnish sample of sixth-graders (Salmivalli,

Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, Osterman, & Kaukiainen, 1996). Since

then, this approach has been utilised in several different age

groups in studies conducted in the Netherlands, Italy, the UK,

and Germany (Menesini & Gini, 2000; Monks, Smith, &

Swettenham, 1999; Olthof & Goossens, 2003; Schafer & Korn,

in press; Sutton & Smith, 1999). Results from these studies

show that when bullying occurs, most students do nothing to

intervene or support the victim. In preadolescence and

adolescence, at least, as many as 20–30% of students

encourage the bully, acting as assistants or reinforcers. The

outsiders, who silently witness what is happening, are as

frequent, constituting another 20–30% of preadolescent/

adolescent students. Fortunately, there are also defenders

(about 20%), who take sides with the victim.

So far, little is known about factors predicting engagement

in the different participant role behaviours. Gender seems to be

one such factor, however: Reinforcing and assisting the bully

are more typical for boys while defending the victim or staying

outside are more common among girls (e.g., Menesini & Gini,

2000; Olthof & Goossens, 2003; Salmivalli et al., 1996; Sutton

& Smith, 1999). Furthermore, there is some support for the

view that for boys, personality factors (e.g., self-esteem), and

for girls, group context, may be especially important predictors

of behaviour in bullying situations. It has been found that

among adolescent boys but not girls, participant role beha-

viours are associated with different self-esteem profiles

(Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, Kaistaniemi, & Lagerspetz, 1999).

In another study (Salmivalli et al., 1998), for boys, almost all

participant role behaviours (bullying others, assisting the bully,

reinforcing the bully, and withdrawing) in sixth grade strongly

predicted similar behaviours 2 years later. In contrast, how an

eighth-grade girl behaved in bullying situations was influenced

more by what her current peers in the close network (within the

classroom) tended to do in such situations, than by her own

behaviour in the sixth grade. Among girls, social context thus

had a stronger influence than the stability of an individual’s

behaviour per se.

Correspondence should be addressed to Christina Salmivalli, Depart-

ment of Psychology, University of Turku, FIN-20014, Turku, Finland;

e-mail: tiina.salmivalli@utu.fi.

Financial support for the study was provided by the Academy of

Finland (project 46267) and the Finnish Cultural Foundation, both of

which are gratefully acknowledged.

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Social cognition and behaviours related to bullying

Social cognitive theory stresses the importance of self-

regulatory beliefs in motivating and regulating behaviour

(Bandura, 1986). Huesmann and Guerra (1997) define

normative beliefs as individualistic cognitive standards about

the acceptability or unacceptability of a behaviour. These

beliefs not only filter out nonappropriate behaviours, but they

may also affect emotional reactions to others’ actions and

stimulate the use of appropriate scripts in certain social

situations. Normative beliefs may be global (‘‘It is okay to hit

others’’) or more situation-specific (‘‘It is okay to hit others if

they hit you first’’).

Normative beliefs have been studied in relation to aggressive

behaviour (e.g., Henry, Guerra, Huesmann, Tolan, Van

Acker, & Eron, 2000; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Pakaslahti

& Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1997; Slaby & Guerra, 1988), but not

to the bullying type of aggression specifically. In the literature

on school bullying, on the other hand, one can find several

studies about students’ attitudes towards bullying. Although

attitude as such is a more general construct (usually defined as

general and enduring evaluation of a person, group, or issue,

not only based on beliefs but also containing emotional and

behavioural components; see Petty & Cacioppo, 1986),

bullying-related attitudes are often operationalised in a way

that comes close to normative beliefs, i.e., as students’ moral

judgments regarding the acceptability or unacceptability of

bullying behaviour (Boulton, Bucci, & Hawker, 1999; Hymel,

Bonanno, Henderson, & McCreith, 2002). In the present

study, we use the concept ‘‘bullying-related attitudes’’ in this

way as well.

The majority of school-aged children and adolescents have

attitudes that are clearly opposed to bullying, i.e., they think it

is a wrong thing to do (Boulton et al., 1999; Menesini et al.,

1997; Randall, 1995; Rigby & Slee, 1991), and most students

have intentions to help or support the victim rather than to join

in with bullying (Whitney & Smith, 1993). With increasing

age, both intentions and attitudes seem to change in a ‘‘pro-

bullying’’ direction, however, at least up to the age of 15

(Smith, 2001). This is in line with findings showing that during

the elementary school years, both normative beliefs approving

of aggression and actual aggressive behaviour increase with age

(Huesmann & Guerra, 1997).

Despite such developmental changes, anti-bullying attitudes

clearly outweigh pro-bullying attitudes in all age groups

studied, i.e., students generally seem to consider bullying as

inappropproate rather than acceptable (Boulton et al., 1999;

Smith, 2001). An interesting paradox arises: Most students

believe that bullying is wrong, and they think that one should

try to help the victims. Nevertheless, most students do not

express their disapproval to peers who bully, and actually do

nothing to intervene or support the victim. Ortega and Mora-

Merchan (1999) found that a high number of students

(43.5%) did not take action against bullying but, at the same

time, felt that this would be the right thing to do. As research

on participant roles (Salmivalli, 2001) has shown, it is common

to join in bullying, or encourage the bully by laughing or

gathering around to ‘‘see the show’’.

From the point of view of intervention, better under-

standing of social cognitive factors associated with different

participant role behaviours related to bullying is important. So

far students’ attitudes or moral judgments regarding bullying,

and their participant roles, have not been assessed in the same

study, with the exception of actual bullying behaviour. Bullying

others has been found to be moderately, although significantly,

correlated with pro-bullying attitudes among schoolchildren

(e.g., Boulton et al., 1999; Hymel et al., 2002; Rigby, 1997), as

well as among adults in a prison context (Ireland, 1999).

Boulton et al. reported a negative correlation (r ¼ �.38)

between (peer-reported) bullying others and (self-reported)

anti-bullying attitudes. After controlling for gender, the

predictive power of attitudes was smaller but still significant.

In unpublished data of 13 to 15-year-old students (Salmivalli,

1999), the correlation between bullying others and anti-

bullying attitudes was �.17, but after partialling out the effect

of both gender and age, there was no statistically significant

correlation left between (self-reported) attitudes and (peer-

reported) tendency to bully others.

It is well known from attitude research that the match

between attitudes and behaviour is far from perfect, correla-

tions between the two rarely exceeding .30 even with adult

subjects (Augoustinos & Walker, 1995; Wicker, 1969).

Accordingly, Huessman and Guerra (1997) found rather

modest, although statistically significant, relations between

children’s normative beliefs about aggression and actual

aggressive behaviour. Although personal attitudes (or norma-

tive beliefs) predict behaviour to some extent, the need to

understand the influence of social contextual effects has

become increasingly salient in the field of aggression (Henry

et al., 2000) and especially in bullying (e.g., Espelage, Holt, &

Henkel, 2003).

Contextual effects: Group norms

If we think of bullying as a group process, in which several

group mechanisms are involved (Olweus, 1973), the less than

perfect attitude–behaviour link is not surprising. Even if a child

empathises with the victim, and thinks that bullying is wrong,

there may be classroom-level influences that encourage him/

her to join in bullying, or at least not to show sympathy for the

victim. Group norms may regulate bullying-related behaviours

through processes such as peer group pressure and conformity

to it (see Berndt, 1979; Brown, Clasen, & Eicher, 1986). As

Huessman and Guerra (1997) and Henry et al. (2000) argue,

individual children’s normative beliefs may or may not be

consistent with the prevailing social norms, and both norma-

tive beliefs and group-level norms may have unique effects on

behaviour.

In the social psychological studies connecting attitudes,

norms, and behaviour, researchers have typically (following the

theory of reasoned action by Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) looked at

the subjective norms, i.e., what people think that important

others think they should do in a particular situation (e.g.,

Trafimov & Finlay, 1996). There is another line of research

addressing normative and non-normative behaviours in chil-

dren’s and adolescents’ peer groups (Boivin, Dodge, & Coie,

1995; Stormshak, Bierman, Bruschi, Dodge, & Coie, 1999;

Wright, Gianmarino, & Parad, 1986). In these studies,

behaviours that are frequent in a particular group have been

considered as normative in the group, whereas infrequent

behaviours have been considered as non-normative.

Henry et al. (2000) distinguished descriptive classroom

norms (the average level of aggressive behaviour in a class-

room) from injunctive classroom normative beliefs (classmates’

beliefs of acceptability of aggression). They found that

injunctive norms not only influenced normative beliefs about

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248 SALMIVALLI AND VOETEN / ATTITUDES, GROUP NORMS, AND BULLYING

aggression, but they also had direct effects on aggressive

behaviour over time. As the authors themselves pointed out,

their norm measures were not designed for assessing group-

level phenomena, however, but were constructed from

individual measures.

To date, classroom-level measures of norms, designed for

system-level assessment (for instance, having students evaluate

characteristics of their classroom instead of reporting their own

normative beliefs or ‘‘subjective norms’’) are practically

nonexistent. Furthermore, when it comes to bullying, the

study of group norms has been neglected altogether, even if

bullying is often referred to as group aggression (Lagerspetz,

Bjorkqvist, Berts, & King, 1982) or violence in the group

context (Pikas, 1975). As pointed out by Bukowski and

Sippola (2001), ‘‘group’’ has actually been missing from much

of the peer group research.

The present study

The goal of the present study was to examine the contributions

of attitudes and group norms to students’ participant role

behaviours in bullying situations. Attitudes towards bullying

were operationalised as students’ moral beliefs regarding the

appropriateness or unappropriateness of bullying and related

behaviours. The assessment of group norms was based on the

definition of norms as expected standards of behaviour in a

certain group (e.g., Franzoi, 1996, p. 261), and they were

operationalised as students’ expectations about the social

consequences of pro- or anti-bullying behaviours (such as

joining in bullying or taking sides with the victim) in their

classroom.

We hypothesised that both attitudes and classroom norms have

a unique contribution to predicting the students’ behaviour

(Hypothesis 1). Pro-bullying attitudes, but also classroom

norms that allow/encourage bullying, would thus be associated

with engagement in bullying behaviours (bullying others, as

well as assisting or reinforcing the bully). Anti-bullying

attitudes, as well as anti-bullying norms, were expected to

prevent such behaviours and, in turn, enhance support for the

victims and active side-taking with them. However, based on

previous findings regarding the attitude–behaviour relationship

with respect to bullying and related behaviours, we expected

the effect of attitudes to be moderate after controlling for

gender and grade level.

We further hypothesised that the classroom context will be

more strongly associated with girls’ than boys’ participant role

behaviours. We looked at three different manifestations of the

influence of classroom context on bullying-related behaviours.

First, we predicted that the effect of classroom norms on

bullying-related behaviours would be stronger for girls than for

boys, after controlling for anti-bullying attitudes (Hypothesis

2a). As a counterpart of this hypothesis, we expected individual

factors to be more important for predicting bullying-related

behaviours among boys, and assumed this to become apparent

in a stronger attitude–behaviour link among boys than among

girls (Hypothesis 2b). Finally, in the most general sense, the

effects of classroom context will be reflected in the degree to

which behavioural variability is associated with differences

between classrooms. We predicted that between-classroom

variance in bullying-related behaviours would be relatively

larger for girls than for boys (Hypothesis 2c).

Our data concern Grades four through six. We did not have

specific hypotheses for differences in bullying-related beha-

viours within this age range. Nevertheless, since studies looking

at participant role behaviours in bullying have been conducted

in few age groups so far, we also explored whether age-related

differences emerge in these behaviours, while controlling for

attitudes and classroom norms.

Method

Participants

The participants were 1220 elementary school children (600

girls and 620 boys) from three grade levels: fourth, fifth, and

sixth grade (i.e., they were 9–10, 10–11, and 11–12 years old)

from 48 school classes in 16 Finnish schools. There were 395

fourth-graders, 408 fifth-graders, and 417 sixth-graders.

There was one fourth-, one fifth-, and one sixth-grade class

from each participating school included in the study. The class

sizes varied from 19 to 33; mean class size was 25 students. In

all classes, there were both boys and girls. The students were

taking part in an intervention study on school bullying, with

the present data from pre-tests of attitudes, group norms, and

behaviours (participant roles) connected with bullying. Eight

of the participating schools were from Helsinki, which is the

capital of Finland with approximately 550,000 inhabitants.

The other eight schools were in four small to middle-sized

towns (with 5,000, 12,000, 20,000, and 170,000 inhabitants,

respectively) on the west coast of Finland. There were no large

between-school socioeconomic differences.

Measures and procedures

The participants completed a 15-item version of the Partici-

pant Role Questionnaire, PRQ, measuring peer-evaluated

behaviour in bullying situations (Salmivalli et al., 1996; the

15-item version was developed for the present study), a

questionnaire about their attitudes towards bullying and

towards the victims, and a questionnaire concerning perceived

classroom norms associated with bullying.

The measurements were done in October, 2 months into

the school year. The students completed each measure

individually at their desks in their classrooms with two trained

research assistants present, answering questions and assisting

students who needed help.

The instructions were given orally as well as written in the

questionnaires. The order of administering the attitude and

norm questionnaires was counterbalanced over classrooms.

Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ). PRQ first specifies

bullying as when

. . . one child is repeatedly exposed to harassment and attacks

from one or several other children. Harassment and attacks may

be, for example, shoving or hitting the other one, calling him/her

names or making jokes about him/her, leaving him/her outside

the group, taking his/her things, or any other behavior meant to

hurt the other one. It is not bullying when two students with

equal strength or equal power have a fight, or when someone is

occasionally teased, but it is bullying, when the feelings of one and

the same student are intentionally and repeatedly hurt.

The students were then asked to think of situations in which

someone has been bullied. They were presented with 15 items

describing different ways to behave in such situations, and they

were asked to evaluate, on a 3-point scale (0 ¼ never, 1 ¼

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sometimes, 2 ¼ often) how often each of their classmates behaves

in the ways described. The names of all classmates (depending

on the class size, 19 to 33 names) were printed on the

questionnaire. The students thus evaluated the behaviour of

classmates of both sexes (i.e., all peers with whom they spent

all of their days at school).

In previous studies, the number of items on this ques-

tionnaire varied from 50 (Salmivalli et al., 1996) to 22

(Salmivalli, 1998). The present version had 15 items. The

items form five scales reflecting different participant roles

associated with bullying, with three items for each scale:

1. The bully scale: starts bullying; makes the others join in

the bullying; always finds new ways of harassing the

victim.

2. The assistant scale: joins in the bullying, when someone

else has started it; assists the bully; helps the bully,

maybe by catching the victim.

3. The reinforcer scale: comes around to see the situation;

laughs; incites the bully by shouting or saying: ‘‘Show

him/her!’’.

4. The defender scale: comforts the victim or encourages

him/her to tell the teacher about the bullying; tells the

others to stop bullying; tries to make the others stop

bullying.

5. The outsider scale: is not usually present in bullying

situations; stays outside the situation; doesn’t take sides

with anyone.

Each student’s peer-evaluated sum score on each scale was

divided by the number of evaluators (i.e., the number of

classmates present), producing a continuous score from 0.00

to 2.00 for each student on each scale.

The internal consistencies of the scales were good in

previous studies (Salmivalli et al., 1996, 1998). Despite the

reduced number of items, the internal consistencies of the

scores were satisfactory in the present sample as well:

Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .93 for the bully scale,

.95 for the assistant scale, .90 for the reinforcer scale, .89 for

the defender scale, and .88 for the outsider scale.

PRQ yields valid data. Salmivalli et al. (1996) found, with a

sample of 573 children, that scores on the five subscales

correlated significantly with self-ratings of the same scales (rs

ranging from .32 to .51, average r ¼ .45). In another study,

children identified as bullies on the basis of their PRQ bully

scores also scored high on teacher-reported aggression

(Salmivalli & Nieminen, 2002). Although scores on the bully,

assistant, and reinforcer scales tend to be highly correlated,

they seem to represent three distinct factors (Schafer & Korn,

in press) rather than one underlying construct.

Attitudes towards bullying. Students’ attitudes towards bully-

ing were measured by asking them to evaluate on a 5-point

scale, (0 ¼ strongly disagree, 4 ¼ strongly agree) the extent to

which they agreed or disagreed with the following 10

statements about bullying (items marked with (*) were

reverse coded): One should try to help the bullied victims;

Bullying may be fun sometimes (*); It is the victims’ own

fault that they are bullied (*); Bullying is stupid; Joining in

bullying is a wrong thing to do; It is not that bad if you laugh

with others when someone is being bullied (*); One should

report bullying to the teacher; Making friends with the bullied

victim is the right thing to do; It is funny, when someone

ridicules a classmate over and over again (*); Bullying makes

the victim feel bad.

An attitude scale was formed by averaging the students’

scores on the items. In maximum likelihood factor analysis, a

single attitude factor accounted for 25% of the total variance.

The item loadings on this factor varied between .38 and .64,

and the reliability, as measured by the coefficient alpha, was

.75. The higher a student scored on the scale, the more his/her

attitudes were against bullying.

Classroom norms. The development of the questionnaire

designed to assess bullying-related classroom norms was

guided by the standard definition of norms as expected standards

of behaviour in a certain group (e.g., Franzoi, 1996, p. 261). It is

implied in the concept of norm that behaving in accordance

with group norms leads to positive consequences and approval

by other group members, whereas breaking the norms leads to

negative consequences and disapproval. Accordingly, the norm

questionnaire included questions about behaviours that would

be prescribed (expected) or proscribed (not appropriate) in the

class.

Students were instructed to complete the norm question-

naire as follows: Imagine that an ordinary student in your class

behaved in ways described below. What would be the

consequences, i.e., what would other students in your class

think of that, and how would they respond? It was emphasised

to students that they should not respond according to how they

think others should respond, but according to what they

thought would actually happen in their class. Furthermore,

they were asked not only to think what would happen to

themselves, if they behaved according to the descriptions, but

really to ‘‘anyone’’, to an ordinary student in their class.

Five situations were presented to students: A classmate (1)

making friends with the bullied victim, (2) laughing with others

when someone is being bullied, (3) telling the teacher about

the bullying, (4) joining in the bullying, and (5) amusing others

by ridiculing a classmate over and over again. The students

were asked to evaluate the consequences of each act by

choosing from eight optional answers. One of the options was

‘‘nothing special would happen,’’ scored as 0. Three of the

options (the others would think he/she is a nice fellow; the others

would show approval to him/her; the others would admire him/her)

were scored as positive consequence (score 1), whereas the

other three (the others would start avoiding him/her; the others

would think he/she is stupid; the others would show disapproval to

him/her) were scored as negative consequence (score 2).

Students choosing the last option, ‘‘something else would

happen,’’ gave an open answer, which was scored as either a

positive or a negative consequence.

Results

The results are reported in four parts. First, we describe the

construction of the norms variables used in the subsequent

analyses. Second, the descriptive statistics are presented for

behaviour, attitude, and norms variables by grade level and

gender. Grade-level differences in group norms were tested at

the classroom level. Third, multilevel models are presented

with the main focus on the effects of attitudes and norms on

behaviour in bullying situations, controlling for gender and

grade level. Fourth, grade-level effects on bullying behaviour

and attitudes are explored, again using multilevel modelling.

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250 SALMIVALLI AND VOETEN / ATTITUDES, GROUP NORMS, AND BULLYING

Construction of norms variables

Because the scores assigned to student answers to the norm

questionnaire were qualitatively different categories rather

than points on a scale, the optimal scaling procedure

HOMALS (Gifi, 1990) in SPSS was applied. By using

HOMALS, the common variation among items can be

explored in a way similar to principal component analysis

but without making strong assumptions about the scoring of

the items. ‘‘Optimal scaling’’ means that quantitative values

are assigned to the qualitative categories in a way that is

optimal for the present data set. This scaling procedure

constructs a low-dimensional space, in which both the 5

(situations) � 3 (codes) ¼ 15 categories and the participants

are represented as points. This is done in such a way that the

points of participants with similar response patterns are

located close to each other. The optimal solution is the one

that explains as much variance as possible, indicated by the

eigenvalues of the dimensions, which are in HOMALS

numbers between 0 and 1. We chose a two-dimensional

solution with eigenvalues equal to .49 and .40 (the third

eigenvalue of .20 was much lower). The first eigenvalue of

.49 is equivalent to a Cronbach’s alpha of .74 (with five

items).

The first dimension was interpreted as anti-bullying versus

pro-bullying norms. At the positive pole of this dimension were

students who perceived negative consequences of bullying-

prone behaviours (ridiculing a classmate, joining the bullying,

laughing with others), but positive consequences of anti-

bullying behaviours (making friends with the bullied victim,

telling the teacher about the bullying). The second dimension

was interpreted as normative indifference versus normative

influence: It was mainly determined by the tendency to give a

‘‘no consequence’’ answer regardless of the situation pre-

sented.

Scores of the students on the two dimensions were

calculated as z-scores (the so-called object scores provided by

HOMALS, comparable to factor scores). A positive score of a

student on the first dimension indicates that the student

perceives more than average anti-bullying norms in his or her

classroom. A positive score on the second dimension indicates

a more than average degree of normative indifference. There-

fore, the two dimensions will be hereafter referred to as ‘‘anti-

bullying norms’’ and ‘‘normative indifference’’. The two

dimensions were constructed as uncorrelated variables. How-

ever, the student points formed a triangle in the two-

dimensional space, such that neither very high nor very low

scores on normative indifference co-occurred with high anti-

bullying norms. For students perceiving pro-bullying norms,

however, there was a large variation in scores on normative

indifference.

The two norms dimensions were derived from individual

student perceptions of positive or negative consequences of

bullying behaviour in their own classroom. But we con-

ceptualised group norms as a characteristic of the classroom

context. Therefore, the object scores were aggregated to the

classroom level by computing class averages. The percentages

of variance of the student scores associated with the

classroom context seem modest: 13% for the first dimension

and 6% for the second dimension. However, these percen-

tages are substantial enough to treat the norms variables as

reliable characteristics of classroom context. The classroom

means show a reliability coefficient (Raudenbush & Bryk,

2002, p. 46) for anti-bullying norms equal to .78 for a typical

classroom of 25 students, and for normative indifference this

reliability equals .61.

Behaviour, attitudes, and group norms by grade level

Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of boys and

girls from the three grade levels on the variables reflecting their

behaviour in bullying situations, and on the anti-bullying

attitude scale, along with the means and standard deviations of

the classroom averages on anti-bullying norms and normative

indifference.

With respect to behaviour in bullying situations, at least

three variables seem to show age-related differences. Defend-

ing the victim decreased by age: The opposite is true for

withdrawing from bullying situations, but only for girls.

Furthermore, an increase in reinforcing the bully took place

among boys.

When it comes to attitudes and norms, there seems to be a

decrease in anti-bullying attitudes (especially for boys between

fourth and fifth grade). Norms were scored as z-scores relative

to the grand mean of the whole sample. The classroom

averages varied between �0.85 and 0.92 on anti-bullying

Table 1

The score means (and SDs) of boys and girls from the different grade

levels on the five behaviour variables and on the anti-bullying

attitude scale, along with the score means (and SDs) of the 48

classes on the group norm variables

Grade level

4 5 6

Behavioursa

Bullying

Boys .26 (.26) .26 (.28) .26 (.29)

Girls .06 (.09) .09 (.11) .04 (.09)

Assisting the bully

Boys .24 (.20) .28 (.07) .29 (.08)

Girls .06 (.07) .07 (.07) .05 (.08)

Reinforcing the bully

Boys .33 (.21) .40 (.27) .44 (.29)

Girls .12 (.09) .13 (.10) .12 (.12)

Defending the victim

Boys .29 (.17) .21 (.13) .16 (.14)

Girls .40 (.18) .35 (.20) .27 (.17)

Withdrawing

Boys .48 (.20) .43 (.20) .48 (.23)

Girls .66 (.23) .70 (.24) .84 (.22)

Attitudesb

Boys 3.20 (0.64) 2.95 (0.78) 2.96 (0.69)

Girls 3.45 (0.54) 3.41 (0.51) 3.37 (0.49)

Group normsc

Anti-bullying norms .35 (.33) �.09 (.38) �.28 (.31)

Normative indifference �.20 (.21) .03 (.40) .19 (.28)

a Possible scale range 0.00–2.00; scores based on peer-report.b Possible scale range 0.00–4.00, scores based on self-report.c Object scores computed by HOMALS, with a mean of 0 and a

SD of 1 in the whole sample, and aggregated to the classroom level

(N ¼ 48).

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norms, and between �0.51 and 1.20 on normative indifference

(due to one outlier, see Figure 1). Anti-bullying norms seem to

decrease even more strongly than anti-bullying attitudes. The

difference between the Grade 4 and Grade 6 averages equals

0.63, which means that the average difference between the two

grades equals 63% of the standard deviation of differences

between students in the whole sample. This trend away from

anti-bullying norms thus seems of rather large magnitude, and

even more so when considered relative to the differences in

classroom means: The standardised effect size for the Grade 4

to Grade 6 difference is d ¼ 1.85. The grade differences were

statistically significant at the classroom level, F(2, 45) ¼ 14.69,

p ¼ .00, MSE ¼ 0.12, R2 ¼ .37. Statistically significant grade

differences were also found for the second norms dimension,

F(2, 45) ¼ 6.40, p ¼ .00, MSE ¼ 0.09, R2 ¼ .19. Higher scores

on normative indifference were more typical of sixth-grade

classrooms than of lower grades. The mean difference between

Grades 4 and 6 on normative indifference amounts to 0.39

of the standard deviation in the whole sample; at the

classroom level, the standardised effect size for the Grade 4

to Grade 6 difference equals d ¼ 1.28. Grade differences in

group norms are further illustrated in Figure 1, which

displays all class means, labelled by grade level. Fourth-grade

classrooms are mostly located towards the lower right of the

plot, indicating more than average anti-bullying norms,

whereas sixth-grade classrooms tend more to the upper left,

indicating less than average anti-bullying norms. We take

these data as evidence that even for the relatively young

children in our sample, important grade-level differences in

classroom norms existed.

Attitudes and group norms as predictors of participantrole behaviours

Our first hypothesis was that both individual attitudes and

classroom norms have an effect on students’ participant role

behaviours in bullying situations. For the estimation of these

effects, we applied multilevel modelling, using the program

MLwiN (Rasbash et al., 2000). This variant of multiple

regression, also called hierarchical linear modelling, was used

because of its appropriateness for data sets with a hierarchical

structure. In our case, the students participating in the study

were nested within classrooms, and we had both individual-

level (attitudes) and classroom-level (norms) independent

variables under study. In the multilevel model not only the

variability of bullying behaviour between students is taken into

account, but also the variability between classes. This solves

the statistical problems associated with the analysis of nested

data, and at the same time it gives the opportunity to introduce

predictors in the regression that characterise the classroom

context (see, for instance, Lee, 2000; Raudenbush & Bryk,

2002; and Snijders & Bosker, 1999 for an introduction to

multilevel modelling).

The two norms dimensions were used as variables to

characterise the classroom context of bullying behaviour. As

variables aggregated to the classroom level they can only

explain variance between classrooms, not between students

within classrooms. The anti-bullying attitude variable, how-

ever, was introduced as a predictor at the individual level and

thus might explain within-classroom variance, but also

variance between classrooms, just because each classroom is

a different compound of students. We did not introduce the

school as a level in our analyses for practical reasons (only 16

schools, only one classroom per grade level in a school), but

also because a major focus of this study was the effect of the

classroom context (norms) on bullying behaviour.

The second hypothesis was about differential effects of

classroom context on bullying-related behaviours for boys and

girls. Therefore, gender was included in the multilevel models

at the student level. In addition, grade level was included,

represented in the regression equations by three dummy

variables, omitting a general intercept term. Product variables

of these three dummies were formed with all other variables in

the model to account for all possible interactions with grade

level. By specifying the model in this way, all grade-related

effects and variance components were tied to the separate

grade levels rather than to differences between grade levels.

Thus grade-specific regression models were estimated simul-

taneously for all three grade levels.

To reduce the influence of outliers and to normalise the

distributions of the behavioural variables, some of which

strongly departed from normality, a transformation of the data

was applied: We used normal scores computed by the rankit

procedure (Norusis, 1993). The students’ transformed scores

on the five participant role scales (bullying, assisting the bully,

reinforcing the bully, defending the victim, and withdrawing)

were treated as dependent variables in the multilevel regression

models. All students with missing data on any variable (8% of

the students) were removed from the analysis, resulting in

1123 usable student records from 48 classrooms.

For each participant role scale, several multilevel regression

models of increasing complexity were constructed. First of all,

an empty model (M1) was specified including a general

average and two variance components: behaviour differences

between students within classrooms and differences between

classroom means. This model partitions the variance of

bullying behaviour into two parts; the variance that lies

between students within the same classroom and the variance

that lies between classrooms. The proportion of the total

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2004, 28 (3), 246–258 251

Figure 1. The means of classrooms on the two norm dimensions

labelled by grade level (4, 5, 6).

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252 SALMIVALLI AND VOETEN / ATTITUDES, GROUP NORMS, AND BULLYING

variance of the dependent variable associated with different

classrooms is called the intraclass correlation. The empty

model served only as a reference point for the next model, in

which grade level was included as an independent variable,

specifying a mean and two variances (between students and

between classrooms) for each grade (model M2). Second, the

gender effects were examined (M3), along with their possible

interactions with grade level. In addition, heterogeneous

variances associated with gender were introduced at level 1

(students), thus allowing different variances for boys and girls.

Furthermore, from our second hypothesis it was supposed that

the effects of the classroom context on behaviour in bullying

situations could be different for boys and girls. Therefore, the

gender effect was specified to be randomly varying at level 2

(classrooms). This implies that classroom contexts may differ

not only in their average effects on student behaviour, but also

in the size of gender differences in bullying behaviour. In the

next model (M4), behaviour was predicted from the attitudes,

allowing predictions to differ by grade level. Also attitude-by-

gender interactions were tested, for each grade level. When no

statistically significant (p 5 .05) interactions were observed,

the interaction terms were excluded from the model. Finally,

the classroom norms were added to the model (M5). We

supposed that the effects of norms on behaviour could be

different for each grade level. In addition, we wished to test

whether the effects of norms were different for boys and girls;

therefore we included in the model the cross-level interaction

of norms with the gender of students.

The final model (M5) always included all effects of grade,

gender, attitudes, and anti-bullying norms. In order to keep the

final models as simple as possible, normative indifference, as

well as the interaction effects (attitude � gender, anti-bullying

norms � gender, normative indifference � gender) were

included only when their effects were statistically significant.

We depict in Table 2 the improvement in the model fit

when sources of variation are added to the empty model (M1).

Models were estimated by the maximum likelihood method,

which provides a measure of lack of fit between model and data

called deviance. Differences in deviance values for the different

models provide a chi-square test of improvement in fit. In

Table 2, each model is compared with the immediately

preceding one.

As summarised in the table, gender was clearly the most

powerful single predictor of behaviour, as adding the gender

effects to the model resulted in the largest decrease of the

deviance (relative to the degrees of freedom) for each

participant role scale. Adding the attitude-effects to the model

led also to a substantial improvement of fit for each behaviour

variable. These attitude effects include separate regression

coefficients for each grade plus attitude by gender interaction

in the case of bullying, assisting the bully, and reinforcing the

bully. Finally, including the classroom norms again improved

the fit in a statistically significant way, except for assisting the

bully. Thus in addition to grade, gender, and anti-bullying

attitude, there was a unique contribution of classroom norms

for four of the five bullying behaviours, consistent with our first

hypothesis. The norms at the classroom level seemed to have

an effect over and above individual attitudes. We now turn to a

description of the form of all these effects on bullying-related

behaviour, by looking at the estimated regression coefficients

for the final model (M5).

The effects of gender, attitude, and group norms on student

behaviour are summarised in Table 3. The table displays the

regression coefficients of all predictors in the final model, with

accompanying standard errors. The regression coefficients are

not standardised; thus they are directly comparable between

grade levels. For comparison across predictors the coefficients

should be taken relative to their standard errors.

Table 2

Improvement in fit of the multilevel model when subsequently adding sources of variation: deviances (with number of free parameters) and chi-

squares (with number of degrees of freedom) for comparing a model with the previous model (N = 1123 students and 48 classes)

Model source added Bullying

Assisting

the bully

Reinforcing

the bully

Defending

the victim Withdrawing

Empty model (M1) 2973.2 (3) 3021.6 (3) 3044.9 (3) 2802.7 (3) 2897.5 (3)

Grade (M2)

deviance 2940.7 (9) 2994.2 (9) 3000.0 (9) 2777.6 (9) 2834.4 (9)

change (w2) 32.5 (6) 27.4 (6) 44.9 (6) 25.1 (6) 63.1 (6)

Gender (M3)

deviance 2468.0 (21) 2314.4 (21) 2239.6 (21) 2434.6 (21) 2135.2 (21)

change (w2) 470.7 (12) 679.7 (12) 760.4 (12) 343.1 (12) 699.2 (12)

Attitude (M4)

deviance 2417.3 (25) 2263.5 (25) 2180.4 (25) 2398.3 (24) 2091.7 (24)

change (w2) 52.7 (4) 50.9 (4) 59.3 (4) 36.3 (3) 43.5 (3)

Norms (M5)

deviance 2408.4 (28) 2259.9 (28) 2165.9 (29) 2380.5 (31) 2073.8 (28)

change (w2) 8.8 (3) 3.6 (3) 14.5 (4) 17.8 (7) 17.9 (4)

The empty model includes a general average and the distinction of within- and between-classroom variance. ‘‘Grade’’ includes average

differences between grades and two variance components for each grade, within and between classrooms. ‘‘Gender’’ includes average differences,

within-classroom differences in variances of boys and girls, and between-classroom differences in the gender gap (all for each grade separately).

‘‘Attitude’’ includes the effects of anti-bullying attitude on behaviour in each grade, and in some cases also attitude by gender interaction. ‘‘Norms’’

includes the effects of group norms on behaviour (see text). The term ‘‘change (w2)‘‘ refers to the difference between the deviance for the present

model and the deviance for the previous model, thereby testing the improvement of fit. The df are equal to the difference in numbers of parameters

for the two models compared. Statistical significance of the change in deviance may be evaluated by means of the chi-square distribution with the

appropriate df. All changes were significant at the .05 level, except the effect of norms (M5) for assisting the bully.

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Gender. The first block of coefficients in Table 3 concerns the

grade-specific intercepts for girls. The second block contains

the average differences between boys and girls per grade level,

adjusted for attitudes and norms. As expected, boys were more

involved in pro-bullying behaviours than girls, whereas girls

had a higher prevalence of defending the victim and with-

drawing from the bullying situation than boys. Consider, for

instance, the gender effect on bullying in grade four. In Table

3, the intercept for girls equals �0.42, whereas the average

difference between boys and girls equals 0.90, which implies

that the intercept for boys is positive, namely �0.42 þ 0.90 ¼0.48. These gender effects were very large for all bullying-

related behaviours at all three grade levels. Mostly the average

difference was close to or above 1, which implies an effect size

of about 1 SD of the original behaviour scale.

Attitudes. In accordance with our first hypothesis, the anti-

bullying attitude was in most cases a statistically significant

predictor of the scores on the participant role scales. The

direction of these effects was as expected (i.e., bullying,

assisting the bully, and reinforcing the bully were associated

with low scores on the anti-bullying attitude scale, whereas

high scores on that scale were associated with defending the

victim and withdrawing from bullying situations).

In fourth grade, the attitude–behaviour relation appeared to

depend upon gender for the three negatively oriented

behaviours in bullying situations. Among fourth-grade girls,

no statistically significant effect of anti-bullying attitude was

found on bullying, assisting the bully, or reinforcing the bully,

whereas among boys, the anti-bullying attitude was negatively

associated with these behaviours (see the attitude by gender

effect in Table 3, which summarises the difference in attitude-

effect between boys and girls). Among fifth- and sixth-graders,

the effects of attitudes on these pro-bullying behaviours were

the same and statistically significant for both sexes. When it

comes to defending the victim and withdrawing from bullying

situations, these behaviours were positively associated with

anti-bullying attitude in all age groups and statistically

significant (with one exception, in case of fifth-graders),

with no interaction effects with gender observed. Attitude–

behaviour relationships were less gender-specific than we

expected in connection with our Hypothesis 2a, and they

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2004, 28 (3), 246–258 253

Table 3

Effects of gender, attitude, and group norms on behaviour in bullying situations estimated for the final model (M5): regression coefficients

(with standard errors)

Bullying

Assisting

the bully

Reinforcing

the bully

Defending

the victim Withdrawing

Constant (girls)

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

�0.42 (0.13)*

�0.39 (0.13)*

�0.74 (0.08)*

�0.51 (0.14)*

�0.49 (0.13)*

�0.79 (0.13)*

�0.49 (0.17)*

�0.48 (0.12)*

�0.92 (0.16)*

0.70 (0.19)*

0.39 (0.16)*

0.49 (0.21)*

0.85 (0.23)*

0.37 (0.20)*

0.93 (0.15)*

Boys–Girls

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

0.90 (0.09)*

0.76 (0.10)*

1.03 (0.12)*

1.05 (0.12)*

0.96 (0.12)*

1.21 (0.13)*

0.98 (0.13)*

1.00 (0.11)*

1.33 (0.16)*

�0.53 (0.13)*

�0.72 (0.16)*

�1.14 (0.22)*

�1.18 (0.11)*

�0.99 (0.12)*

�1.23 (0.12)*

Attitude

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

0.01 (0.04)

�0.09 (0.03)*

�0.12 (0.03)*

0.05 (0.04)

�0.09 (0.03)*

�0.11 (0.03)*

�0.00 (0.03)

�0.09 (0.03)*

�0.15 (0.03)*

0.14 (0.03)*

0.02 (0.02)

0.12 (0.03)*

0.10 (0.02)*

0.07 (0.03)*

0.11 (0.03)*

Attitude � Gender

Grade 4 �0.24 (0.06)* �0.24 (0.05)* �0.18 (0.05)*

Anti-bullying norms

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

0.03 (0.23)

�0.84 (0.34)*

�0.35 (0.17)*

�0.07 (0.24)

�0.50 (0.34)

�0.33 (0.25)

�0.25 (0.30)

�0.28 (0.32)

�0.69 (0.30)*

�0.15 (0.38)

�0.10 (0.32)

1.16 (0.43)*

1.50 (0.49)*

�0.01 (0.38)

0.20 (0.26)

Anti-bullying norms � Gender

Grade 4 1.16 (0.22)*

Grade 5 �0.72 (0.28)*

Grade 6 �0.99 (0.45)*

Normative indifference

Grade 5 �0.55 (0.26)* �0.95 (0.31)*

Grade 6 �1.16 (0.48)*

Normative indifference � Gender

Grade 6 1.27 (0.50)*

MLwiN analyses were performed separately for each bullying-related behaviour. The regression coefficients reported were not standardised, so

that they are directly comparable between grade levels. Some nonsignificant effects were removed from the models, as explained in the text. From

the information in the table, one may construct an approximate 95% confidence interval for a regression coefficient by taking the value of the

coefficient plus and minus twice the standard error. The terms ‘‘Grade 4’’, ‘‘Grade 5’’, and ‘‘Grade 6’’ refer to dummy variables for grade level;

there was no general intercept in the models (see explanation in text). The attitude variable was centred by subtracting the grand mean of the whole

sample. The coefficients for attitudes and group norms refer to all students at a particular grade level, unless an interaction with gender is also in the

model. In the latter case the attitude and norms effects apply only to girls.

* p 5 .05.

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254 SALMIVALLI AND VOETEN / ATTITUDES, GROUP NORMS, AND BULLYING

varied considerably in strength. The strongest effects existed in

Grade four for boys. A strong anti-bullying attitude (score 4)

compared with a strong pro-bullying attitude (score 0) would

make a difference in pro-bullying behaviour of 0.72 or 0.96,

which represents a rather large (maximal) effect size. This

maximum attitude effect for boys thus is close to the adjusted

average gender effect. For the other cases, however, the

maximum attitude effect on behaviour varied from 0 to 0.60

(multiply the regression coefficients by the score range for

attitude, which was 4).

Norms. It was usually the first dimension, anti-bullying

norms, that significantly predicted the behaviours in bullying

situations. Statistically significant negative relationships were

found with bullying and reinforcing the bully, though only in

Grades five and six. Low scores on this first dimension,

reflecting a low degree of anti-bullying norms in the classroom,

predicted bullying others, as well as reinforcing the bully. With

respect to hypothesis 2a, one interaction effect with gender was

found among fifth-graders. For reinforcing the bully the

regression coefficient of anti-bullying norms was �0.28 for

girls, whereas for boys the effect of the norms was unexpectedly

stronger, namely �0.28 þ (�0.72) ¼ �1.00. In Grade six,

anti-bullying norms were associated with defending the victim,

but only for girls: There is a regression coefficient of 1.16 in

Table 3, but there was practically no effect for boys (1.16 �0.99 ¼ 0.17, see the norms by gender interaction). Only one

statistically significant relationship with norms was found

among fourth-graders, and only for girls. In classrooms with

relatively low anti-bullying norms, girls were more inclined to

withdraw from bullying situations. For boys the effect of anti-

bullying norms on withdrawing from bullying situations was

also negative, but small (�1.50 þ 1.16 ¼ �0.24).

The results summarised in Table 3 are consistent with our

first hypothesis but modifications are needed inasmuch as

effects differed by grade level and by gender. Our Hypothesis

2a, that the effects of classroom norms are stronger for girls

than for boys, was generally not supported, except for

defending the victim (but only in Grade six), and for

withdrawing from the bullying situation (only in Grade four).

Variance components. So far, we have discussed only the fixed

part of the model. In connection with our Hypothesis 2c we

now turn to the random part; the variance components of the

participant role scales for students and classrooms. The

multilevel model decomposes the total variation in bullying-

related behaviours into a component at the student level

(differences between students within classrooms) and a

component at the classroom level (differences between class-

room contexts). These two components were in the models

separately for each grade level. In addition, we supposed

gender differences in bullying-related behaviour to exist not

only in the means but also in the variances. Therefore, we let

the student-level and classroom-level variances be different for

boys and girls. So, the models had variance components for a 3

(grades) by 2 (gender) classification of the students. The

variance components for these subgroups are the variance

components from model M3. The variance components for

model M5 are the residual variances after taking into account

bullying attitudes and group norms. Note that variance

components for model M5 are not necessarily smaller than

those for model M3 (Snijders & Bosker, 1994, 1999). The

estimated variance components for the two models are in

Table 4.

There were clear differences in variances of behaviour in

bullying situations for boys and girls (see Table 4). All these

differences were statistically significant (p 5 .05). At the

student level (within classrooms), the variances for boys were

Table 4

Variance components of behaviour in bullying situations at the student level and at the classroom level, estimated from two multilevel models:

Model M3 including effects of grade and gender, and Model M5 additionally including effects of anti-bullying attitude, and group norms

Bullying

Assisting

the bully

Reinforcing

the bully

Defending

the victim Withdrawing

M3 M5 M3 M5 M3 M5 M3 M5 M3 M5

Students

Grade 4

Girls .323 .322 .215 .212 .178 .178 .390 .376 .179 .173

Boys .619 .530 .462 .398 .383 .330 .452 .410 .291 .267

Grade 5

Girls .262 .260 .265 .266 .274 .274 .472 .470 .248 .247

Boys .579 .554 .550 .516 .406 .380 .285 .284 .444 .426

Grade 6

Girls .400 .388 .304 .296 .361 .347 .376 .376 .276 .263

Boys .844 .822 .809 .782 .726 .687 .688 .650 .720 .696

Classrooms

Grade 4

Girls .117 .116 .179 .185 .220 .229 .237 .238 .605 .368

Boys .055 .054 .079 .082 .170 .158 .284 .280 .363 .343

Grade 5

Girls .351 .238 .274 .235 .208 .187 .431 .333 .565 .573

Boys .351 .244 .377 .314 .322 .169 .380 .234 .283 .285

Grade 6

Girls .060 .038 .154 .149 .336 .239 .395 .210 .257 .255

Boys .070 .057 .095 .076 .183 .124 .181 .163 .033 .038

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generally higher than the variances for girls. The differences

between classrooms, however, were in general higher for girls

than for boys. This confirms our Hypothesis 2c, that between-

classroom variance in bullying-related behaviours is relatively

larger for girls than for boys, indicating stronger contextual

influences for girls.

The variance components differed also by grade. The

variance components at the student level were especially for

boys, always higher in sixth grade than in the lower grades.

Differences between classrooms, however, were higher in the

lower grades (among girls, defending the victim was an

exception in both these observations). Grade as well as gender

differences in variances were largely the same for all behaviour

variables, with few exceptions.

Explained variance. The extent to which attitudes and class-

room norms contributed to explaining variability in bullying

behaviour may be evaluated by comparing the variance

components listed in Table 4 of the final model M5 with

those of model M3. The explanatory effects of anti-bullying

attitude and norms on bullying-related behaviours were of low

(around .10) to medium size (maximum of .31), when

controlling for gender effects and grade level. Also, when

directly comparing the variance components of M3 and M5 at

the student level, it appears that reductions in variance

components were relatively small. This may be interpreted to

mean that the effect of anti-bullying attitude on behavioural

differences between either girls or boys within a given class-

room was rather modest.

At the classroom level, in Grade four, anti-bullying attitude

and norms could to a large extent (39%) explain variance of

withdrawing behaviour among girls, and to a small extent (2%

to 8%) among boys, the latter for all participant role scales

(except assisting the bully). In Grades five and six for all

variables, except withdrawing from the bullying situation, the

variance associated with the classroom context could clearly be

explained from anti-bullying attitude and norms, for both boys

and girls (R2 from .09 to .46).

Grade effects on behaviour in bullying situations andon anti-bullying attitude

Finally, pairwise chi-square tests for grade effects on behaviour

in bullying situations were conducted, within the context of the

final multilevel model, M5. This implies that the grade means

were adjusted by keeping constant the other variables in the

model. These adjusted means, for boys and girls separately, are

presented in Table 5 together with the results of the

significance tests.

Several age-related trends in behaviour were observed.

Sixth-grade girls were more inclined to withdraw from bullying

situations than girls from fifth grade. At the same time, there

was a decrease in both bullying others and reinforcing the bully

among girls for these same grade levels. When it comes to boys,

the only statistically significant age-related trend may be noted

for defending the victim, which occurred to a lower degree in

Grades five and six than among fourth-graders.

With respect to anti-bullying attitude, we fitted a multilevel

model to test whether there were grade changes in attitude,

while controlling for gender. The same large gender effects

were found in attitude as was the case for the behaviour

variables. Girls on average tended to have stronger anti-

bullying attitudes than boys, and there was a higher within-

classroom variance for boys (1.85) than for girls (0.99). The

means of the attitude variable decreased between Grades four

and five, but this grade difference was only statistically

significant for boys (mean scores being .50, .37, .34 for Grades

four through six among girls, and �.04, �.40, and �.36 among

boys).

Discussion

In this study, both individual and group-level factors (attitudes

and classroom norms), were used to predict students’

behaviour in bullying situations (i.e., whether they bully

others, assist or reinforce the bully, defend the victim, or

withdraw from such situations; see Salmivalli et al., 1996;

Sutton & Smith, 1999).

Bullying-related attitudes were associated with all partici-

pant role behaviours in expected ways. Defending the bullied

victims and staying outside bullying situations were both

related to anti-bullying attitudes, or moral disapproval of

bullying, while the opposite was true of bullying others, as well

as assisting or reinforcing the bully. The attitude–behaviour

links, although quite consistent for all grade levels and for both

boys and girls, were rather modest. This was not surprising,

since attitudes usually only explain up to 10% of variance in

behaviour (Augoustinos & Walker, 1995). Accordingly, studies

in children have shown that associations between normative

beliefs and aggression (Huessman & Guerra, 1997) or

bullying-related attitudes and bullying others (e.g., Boulton

et al., 1999) are modest at best, at least when controlling for

age and gender. Furthermore, there was much variance in

participant role behaviours between different classrooms at the

same grade level, which suggests that in addition to individual

factors, such as attitudes, there are factors in the group context

that account for variance in behaviours related to bullying.

So far only a few studies (Henry, 2001; Henry et al., 2000)

have looked at classroom-level normative influences on

aggressive behaviour. As far as we know, the present study

was the first to empirically examine classroom norms asso-

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2004, 28 (3), 246–258 255

Table 5

The means of boys and girls on the transformed behaviour variables

(z-scores), adjusted for the other variables in the final model

(attitudes, classroom norms), along with the significant differences

between grade levels.

Grade level Pairwisesignificance

4 5 6 test

Bullying

Boys .48 .37 .28 n.s.

Girls �.42 �.39 �.74 4, 5 4 6

Assisting bully

Boys .53 .47 .42 n.s.

Girls �.51 �.49 �.79 n.s.

Reinforcing bully

Boys .49 .51 .41 n.s.

Girls �.49 �.48 �.92 4, 5 4 6

Defending victim

Boys .17 �.33 �.65 4 4 5, 6

Girls .70 .39 .49 n.s.

Withdrawing

Boys �.33 �.62 �.30 n.s.

Girls .85 .37 .93 5 5 6

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256 SALMIVALLI AND VOETEN / ATTITUDES, GROUP NORMS, AND BULLYING

ciated with bullying, and certainly it was the first one linking

both attitudes and norms to participant role behaviours related

to bullying.

Group norms, especially the first dimension reflecting the

degree of anti-bullying norms in the classroom, explained

variance in most behaviours at the classroom level in expected

ways. The second dimension of norms, indicating the degree of

normative indifference in a classroom, rarely contributed to

predicting students’ behaviour. After taking into account the

effect of both attitudes and classroom norms, there was

unexplained variance at the classroom level, as shown by the

relatively large variance components in the case of all

participant roles. The classroom context in general had substantial

effect on these behaviours. There are thus important group-level

factors other than classroom norms (as we measured them)

that are related to students’ behaviour in bullying situations.

The findings concerning attitudes and classroom norms

only partially supported our hypothesis about girls’ behaviour

being more affected by classroom norms, and boys’ behaviour

being more strongly associated with attitudes. We found

evidence, however, of classroom context in general having

more influence on girls’ than on boys’ behaviour (see also

Salmivalli et al., 1998). The between-classroom variances in

the participant role behaviours were relatively larger among

girls, whereas boys had more individual variance. Furthermore,

the unexplained variance in behaviour, after taking into

account the effect of both attitudes and classroom norms,

was much larger for girls than for boys. As expected, girls’

behaviour in bullying situations is more influenced by contextual

factors, even if not specifically by the classroom norms.

There seemed to be considerable age-related differences in

the classroom norms related to bullying. This was especially

clear with respect to anti-bullying norms. This finding provides

an extension to prior studies showing that not only individual

children’s beliefs (Huessman & Guerra, 1997) or attitudes

(e.g., Rigby & Slee, 1991; Smith, 2001) become more

approving of aggression over time, but also group norms seem

to show a similar developmental change. Students in the upper

grades tended to feel that pro-bullying behaviours are not so

much proscribed but perhaps even expected in their class, and

that it is better not to engage in anti-bullying behaviours such

as telling the teacher about bullying or taking sides with the

victim.

Not only the content of norms, but also their associations

with behaviour, were in part grade-specific. Norms did not

have much of an effect among the youngest ones (i.e., in Grade

four). Entering preadolescence and adolescence, peer group is

known to have an increasingly powerful influence on beha-

viour. As described by Dworetzky (1995, p. 344), adolescents

may resolve differences between themselves and their peer

group by changing their behaviour to match the group’s norms.

This might explain why norms had more effect in higher

grades. Costanzo and Shaw (1966) observed a peak in

conformity to peer pressure at around the ages 11 to 13.

Berndt (1979), however, found that conformity for prosocial

pressures was highest at around the age of 11–12, whereas

conformity for antisocial suggestions peaked a few years later.

The age range of the participants in the present study was very

limited, and does not allow testing any developmental

hypotheses. It remains an open question whether the effects

of classroom norms on bullying-related behaviour would be of

a larger magnitude in an adolescent, rather than preadolescent

(as in the present study) sample.

On the other hand, the variance components indicated that

there were more differences between classrooms in the lower

than in the upper grades, whereas there was relatively more

individual variance (within classrooms) in the upper grades.

There are factors in the classroom context that already have an

effect on students’ behaviour in Grade four, but these factors

are not covered by our measure of group norms. It is

conceivable, for instance, that ‘‘teacher effects’’ (and not yet

group norms) predict students’ bullying-related behaviours in

lower grades. If this is the case, then factors such as teachers’

tolerance or intolerance towards bullying behaviour, as well as

his or her actual efforts to prevent bullying or to intervene

when bullying occurs, might be more powerful regulators of

young children’s behaviour than peer group norms.

The correlational design of the study ultimately prevents us

from making conclusions about any causal links between

attitudes, group norms, and behaviour. Even if attitudes and

classroom norms are referred to as ‘‘predictors’’ of children’s

behaviour throughout the paper, one should bear in mind that

this implies their status as independent variables in the

analyses, rather than any causal direction. Bullying-related

attitudes may influence children’s subsequent behaviours in

bullying situations but it is also possible that over time, a child

adopts beliefs consistent with his/her behaviour. For instance,

believing that ‘‘it is not that bad if you laugh with others when

someone is being bullied’’ or ‘‘bullying does not make the

victim feel bad’’ may serve as justifications for one’s prior

participation in harassment. Although there is some evidence

that, for children of the age of our subjects, individual

normative beliefs influence aggressive behaviour rather than

vice versa (Huessman & Guerra, 1997), the causal directions

between bullying-related attitudes, group norms, and partici-

pant role behaviours await further research.

We did not look at attitudes and group norms related to

specific types of bullying known to be typical of boys vs. girls.

Attitudes and norms may differ with regard to direct and

indirect/relational forms of aggression (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz,

& Kaukiainen, 1992; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). Crick, Bigbee,

and Howes (1996) found that children held similar beliefs

about directly and indirectly aggressive acts, considering both

as angry and harmful. Whether either type of aggression is

more approved of, or more in accordance with the prevailing

social norms, and whether the relations between attitudes,

norms, and behaviours are maintained for direct as well as

indirect bullying, are all questions to be resolved in future

studies.

Despite the limitations, the present study contributes to

existing literature on school bullying in important ways.

Previous studies have identified contextual effects, such as

the degree of aggressive behaviour in the peer group, or

normative beliefs held by classmates, influencing the aggres-

siveness of individual children (Espelage et al., 2003; Henry et

al., 2000). Our results further elaborate the importance of

contextual effects not only for bullying behaviour as such, but

for the whole range of different participant role behaviours

students may take on when witnessing bullying. There are large

differences between classrooms in the extent to which students

reinforce the bully or defend the victim, for instance. These

differences can be partly explained by classroom norms, i.e.,

shared standards about behaviours that are rewarded or

sanctioned by the peers in the classroom. Furthermore, our

findings show that in addition to classroom norms, there are

other factors in the classroom context that have a substantial

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effect on students’ participant role behaviours, as indicated by

the unexplained variance at the classroom level after taking into

account the effect of both attitudes and norms. Finally, our

findings revealed a gender difference in these influences,

showing that social context matters more with girls’ than boys’

bullying-related behaviours.

Some practical implications of the results may be pointed

out. Changing attitudes might be a good start, but not enough

to succesfully intervene in school bullying. The attitudes

students possess are typically already more anti- than pro-

bullying (Menesini et al., 1997; Rigby & Slee, 1991). An

important question is how to additionally affect the factors

related to group context, such as group norms, and the ways in

which the bystanders witnessing the bullying episodes actually

behave in these situations. As indicated in the present study,

these tendencies do not naturally develop in a hoped-for

direction with increasing age. We also need to gain more

understanding about other group effects on students’ beha-

viour. Validating and improving the measurement of classroom

norms and revealing other group-level factors that contribute

to bystander behaviours in bullying situations are challenges

for future studies. Also school-related factors associated with

lower or higher levels of bullying behaviours need to be

illuminated.

Manuscript received September 2002

Revised manuscript received October 2003

PrEview publication February 2004

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