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

ignore him or her, or that it is better not to get into trouble as a result. Then the child may act
upon his or her assessment. Crick and Dodge (1994) suggest that social interaction and mental
processing continue as subsequent social events unfold.
Researchers have found that bullies and their victims often have different intentions and
subjective perceptions of experiences with bullying and being victimized by bullies (Kowalski,
2000; Shapiro, Baumeister, & Kessler, 1991). Bullies and their victims form dyadic relationships
based on an asymmetrical distribution of power whereby bullies exert greater coercive power
over their victims (Lindenberg et al., 2007; Olweus, 1993; Salmivalli, 2001). Lindenberg and
colleagues (2006) used a goal-framing approach — which is defined as a person’s sensitivity to
opportunities for realizing the conceptual goal — to assess activated goal motivations. The
stronger the goal motivation, the more sensitive the bully is to opportunities for goal attainment.
For example, children who bully weaker children do so to establish domination over the victims
and thereby gain higher status or popularity with peers through social approval from bystanders.
Both domination and social status are key aspects of bullying (Vaillancourt, Hymel, &
McDougall, 2003).
From the view of the victim, children who feel vulnerable (e.g., easily hurt by others,
cannot make others listen to them, isolated) are more likely to have the goal of avoiding harm
than children who feel less vulnerable (Juvonen & Graham, 2001; Olweus, 1978). Children who
are victimized are aware that more aggressive and less vulnerable children may be a potential
threat; therefore, avoid threatening children who may evoke fear, stress, anxiety, or wariness of
potential threat of harm (Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, & Booth-Laforce,
2006). This, in turn, may signal their vulnerability to those who are interested in domination and
trigger dominant behavior in peers who would otherwise not show it (Salmivalli & Isaacs, 2005).
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