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

Two theoretical approaches supported by empirical models share a common concern with
harm and victimization. The social information processing model of social adjustment focuses on
the way in which children’s processing of social information is related to their level of
aggression with peers (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1986). The moral domain model focuses
on children’s ability to make moral judgments about the appropriateness of social behavior
(Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 1995; Turiel, 1983). The ways that children interpret and understand (or
misinterpret and misunderstand) social behaviors and peer motives influences children’s
behaviors (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004). Thus, the social information processing model provides a
systematic way of clarifying the extent to which basic moral concepts are applied to behavior
(Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004).
In summary, similar language within social-learning theory, social information
processing and moral domain theory is used to describe the concept that mental representations
integrate memories of past events with other memories into a general mental structure (e.g.,
social knowledge, latent mental structures, and moral schemas) that guides the processing of
social cues. Thus, social and moral knowledge influences the way social information is
organized and processed in the context of bullying and victimization. During a bully
victimization episode, children must decide how to respond to aggressive peers among multiple
options, their underlying moral and social mental structures provide selective influence in favor
of some choices over others (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004; Dodge & Rabiner, 2004). Dodge and
Rabiner (2004) argue that it is easy to imagine how a child’s own beliefs about what constitutes
appropriate versus inappropriate behavior can influence the selecting or discarding of certain
responses, even when the child is otherwise motivated to act on those responses.
44