Copyright Malvin Porter, Jr. 2010 - acumen - The University of ...

thoughts, which may have suggested retaliation. The same words might also be interpreted to
suggest equality or justice. Hence, the measure needs to be modified.
In summary, there are many individual and contextual factors that influence children’s
ability to generate solutions, both prosocial and aggressive, for imagining themselves being
victimized or bullied; some of which include children’s history of aggression and victimization,
the reality of the bully/victim episode (i.e., actual versus perceived), the level of aggressiveness,
heightened emotional distress, the nature of the victim’s relationship with the bully, the form of
bully victimization and their moral and social values and beliefs (M. S. Tisak et al., 2006). These
and other characteristics serve as reminders that the nature of children’s social reasoning is a
complex course of cognitive and emotional processing, which is further confounded by their
social development. Findings from this study have raised many more questions than answers
about the implications for understanding how children might imagine themselves thinking and
behaving in the context of peer victimization.
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