Abstract
Social dominance goals represent desires to be powerful and prominent among peers. Previous studies have documented that endorsing social dominance goals is positively associated with bullying behavior. However, little is known about how classroom context moderates the social dominance goals–bullying association. The present study examined the role of classroom status hierarchy in the longitudinal association between social dominance goals and bullying in a sample of 1,603 children attending 17 grade 3 classrooms (n = 558, 46.2% girls, Mage = 9.33 years, SD = 0.44), 15 grade 4 classrooms (n = 491, 45.0% girls, Mage = 10.31 years, SD = 0.38) and 16 grade 7 classrooms (n = 554, 49.3% girls, Mage = 13.2 years, SD = 0.46) in China, followed for 1 year. Classroom peer status hierarchy was assessed by the within-classroom standard deviation in perceived popularity. Social dominance goals were obtained through self-reports. Bullying was measured via peer nomination. The multilevel models revealed that social dominance goals at Wave 1 predicted increases in bullying at Wave 2 only in classrooms with higher status hierarchies, after controlling for gender, grade, classroom size, and classroom gender distribution. These findings indicate that children who strive for social dominance goals are more likely to bully others when power is less equally distributed in the classroom.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to sincerely thank all participating students for their contributions, as well as research assistants who have helped in designing the study and collecting the data.
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This study was supported by the Major Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of Education (17JZD058), Science and Technology Plan for Young Scholars supported by Education Department of Shandong (2019RWF012), and the Academy of Finland Flagship Programme (320162).
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B.P. conceived of the study and participated in the interpretation of the data, performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript; L.Z. helped in performing the statistical analysis and the interpretation of the data, and drafted the manuscript; L.J. participated in the research design; C.F.G. and C.S. helped in drafting the manuscript and participated in the interpretation of the data; W.Z. conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Pan, B., Zhang, L., Ji, L. et al. Classroom Status Hierarchy Moderates the Association between Social Dominance Goals and Bullying Behavior in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence. J Youth Adolescence 49, 2285–2297 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01285-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01285-z