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In contrast to the popular stereotype and research tradition of the 'oafish' bully lacking
in social skills and understanding, the bully may be a cold, manipulative expert in social situations, organizing gangs and using subtle, indirect methods. Performance on a set of stories designed to assess understanding of cognitions and emotions was investigated in 193 7-10-year-olds in relation to role in bullying. Ringleader bullies scored higher than 'follower' bullies (those who helped or supported the bully), victims and defenders of the victim. Results are discussed in terms of the need for further research into cognitive skills and emotion understanding in children who bully, the possible developmental pathway of social cognition in bullying and important implications for intervention strategies.
Over the last decade, bullying among young children has expanded considerably as a research issue. It is now recognised as a worldwide problem, with investigation originating in Norway (Olweus, 1978) and spreading to Australia (e.g. Rigby & Slee, 1991), Canada (Pepler, Craig, Zeigler & Charach, 1993) and the USA (Ross, 1996). As many as one in four primary school children in the UK report being bullied at least 'sometimes' during the last school term (Whitney & Smith, 1993). Although intervention projects have had some success (Olweus, 1993; Smith & Sharp, 1994), none of these school-based programmes have reduced bullying by more than about 50%. Evidence from individual schools and reports from teachers in such projects (e.g. Eslea & Smith,1998) suggest that there may be a 'hard core' of children who bully. Academics and practitioners may need to consider in more detail the cognitive style and skills associated with such persistent bullying or victimization. This study considers the issue of the social cognition or 'theory of mind' abilities of children involved in bullying: how well do they understand the mental states, beliefs and emotions of others?
It has been argued (Sutton, Smith & Swettenham, 1999) that despite the popular stereotype of a bully as physically powerful yet intellectually simple or backward (`the "oaf"' of literature who torments the school swot': Besag, 1989, p. 15), there is little empirical evidence to support this view. Randall (1997) claims that `bullies do not process social information accurately' (p. 23), describing them as `socially blind'. Hazler (1996) suggests that bullies...