Self‐esteem and its relationship to bullying behaviour

From the rapidly growing literature on bullying, it is increasingly recognised that peer relationship problems as manifested in being bullied are associated with low self‐esteem. However, the literature on self‐esteem in relation to children who bully others is controversial. The objective of this paper is to elucidate further our understanding of the relationship between self‐concept and bullying behaviour. Data from a nationwide study of bullying behaviour carried out in Ireland during 1993‐1994 have been reviewed. The relevant results from 8,249 school children aged 8 to 18 years are presented. The paper examines the global and dimensional nature of self‐esteem and how it relates to children and adolescents who either have been victimised or bullied others. A distinction is made between “pure victims,” “pure bullies,” and children and adolescents who were both bullied and who bullied others. In other words, pure victims were those who had not bullied others, and pure bullies had not themselves been bullied. Those who were both bullied and bullied others were subdivided further into victims who bully occasionally, sometimes, and frequently and bullies who are victimised, occasionally, sometimes, and frequently. The results show that children of both primary and post‐primary age who were involved in bullying as victims, bullies, or both had significantly lower global self‐esteem than did children who had neither bullied nor been bullied. However, the pure bullies, in contrast to the pure victims, placed the same value on their physical attractiveness and attributes and on their popularity as did their peers who had not bullied others or been bullied. The bully‐victims of all ages had the lowest self‐esteem of the subgroups in the study. Also, the more frequently children were victimised or bullied others, the lower was their global self‐esteem. The typology and frequency of bullying and the age of the children when they were involved in bullying influenced the status of the specific domains of self‐esteem. There were, e.g., significant differences in anxiety between the pure bullies of post‐primary age and their peers who had not bullied others or been bullied. The post‐primary children who bullied most frequently were the least anxious. The results indicate that high self‐esteem protects children and adolescents from involvement in bullying. Thus, in view of the strong relationship between self‐esteem and bullying that has been found in the present paper, it is recommended that top priority be given by parents and teachers to preventing and reducing feelings of poor self‐worth among children and adolescents. Aggr. Behav. 27:269–283, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Effects of reinforcement history on response rate and response pattern in periodic reinforcement

Several researchers have suggested that conditioning history may have long-term effects on fixed-interval performances of rats. To test this idea and to identify possible factors involved in temporal control development, groups of rats initially were exposed to different reinforcement schedules: continuous, fixed-time, and random-interval. Afterwards, half of the rats in each group were studied on a fixed-interval 30-s schedule of reinforcement and the other half on a fixed-interval 90-s schedule of reinforcement. No evidence of long-term effects attributable to conditioning history on either response output or response patterning was found; history effects were transitory. Different tendencies in trajectory across sessions were observed for measures of early and late responding within the interreinforcer interval, suggesting that temporal control is the result of two separate processes: one involved in response output and the other in time allocation of responding and not responding.     

The role of self‐esteem and anxiety in decision making for self versus others in relationships

Previous research has documented a tendency for people to make more risk‐seeking decisions for others than for themselves in relationship scenarios. Two experiments investigated whether this self–other difference is moderated by participants' self‐esteem and anxiety levels. In Experiment 1, lower self‐esteem and higher anxiety levels were associated with more risk‐averse choices for personal decisions but not for decisions for others. Therefore, participants with lower self‐esteem/higher anxiety showed greater self–other differences in comparison to participants with higher self‐esteem/lower anxiety levels. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was largely mediated by participants' expectations of success and feelings about potential negative outcomes. These results are discussed in the context of “threats to the self,” with a central role played by anxiety and self‐esteem threats in personal decision making but not in decision making for others. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dementia care‐giving in black and Asian populations: reviewing and refining the research agenda

Despite the increased prevalence of dementia little work has been done to explore the extent and nature of care‐giving in black or Asian‐UK populations. Evidence that does exist suggests that the consequences of care‐giving are significant but different from those experienced by white carers and are mediated by a number of culture‐related factors. These include: ethnically specific conceptualisations of dementia; expectations of family duty; religiosity; the adoption of positive re‐appraisal strategies, and beneficial outcomes. Present approaches to research are narrow, do not take account of cultural dimensions and employ terminology and care‐giving frameworks which are of limited relevance. That the evidence base is characterised by small‐scale studies, and weak methodology further undermines its validity. Research deficits are systemic and fundamental and are both conceptual and methodological. A key contribution would be the development of a multi‐dimensional theoretical model that takes account of the role played by culture, ethnicity and structural inequality in shaping care‐giving experiences and profiles. Incorporating the perspectives of black and Asian carers, and the influence of the life course of individuals and communities and employing qualitative methods would also influence the direction of research, improve its quality and generate knowledge in this underdeveloped field. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's utilization of emotion expectancies in moral decision‐making

This study investigated the relevance of emotion expectancies for children's moral decision‐making. The sample included 131 participants from three different grade levels (M = 8.39 years, SD = 2.45, range 4.58–12.42). Participants were presented a set of scenarios that described various emotional outcomes of (im)moral actions and asked to decide what they would do if they were in the protagonists' shoes. Overall, it was found that the anticipation of moral emotions predicted an increased likelihood of moral choices in antisocial and prosocial contexts. In younger children, anticipated moral emotions predicted moral choice for prosocial actions, but not for antisocial actions. Older children showed evidence for the utilization of anticipated emotions in both prosocial and antisocial behaviours. Moreover, for older children, the decision to act prosocially was less likely in the presence of non‐moral emotions. Findings suggest that the impact of emotion expectancies on children's moral decision‐making increases with age. Contrary to happy victimizer research, the study does not support the notion that young children use moral emotion expectancies for moral decision‐making in the context of antisocial actions.     

Reason and Emotion in the Ethics of Self‐Restraint

In this essay I argue that Reinhold Niebuhr's ethics of self‐restraint, though promising, is based on an incomplete and imprecise moral psychology. Although Niebuhr claims that reason cannot provide a sufficient grounding to motivate self‐restraint, he does not disclose which human capacity might serve this purpose. I suggest that we can address this oversight by strengthening Niebuhr's tentative embrace of David Hume, and by developing a concept of the emotions in order to explain how human beings can cultivate a stable inclination to self‐restraint. This project is informed by and in the service of feminist critiques of Niebuhr and social concerns.     

Should Inherent Human Dignity Be Considered Intrinsically Heuristic?

What are “human rights” supposed to protect? According to most human rights doctrines, including most notably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights aim to protect “human dignity.” But what this concept amounts to and what its source is remain unclear. According to Glenn Hughes (2011), human rights theorists ought to consider human dignity as an “intrinsically heuristic concept,” whose content is partially understood but is not fully determined. In this comment, I criticize Hughes's account. On my view, understanding inherent human dignity as an intrinsically heuristic concept tethers it to an “indeterminateness of sense,” which leaves it open to exploitation from theorists unsympathetic to the moral salience of rights and what rights are supposed to protect.     

A Review and Meta‐Analysis Examining Conceptual and Operational Definitions of Problematic Internet Use

This study examined different conceptual and operational definitions of problematic Internet use (PIU). 3 perspectives of PIU are described along with a meta‐analytic review (K = 112) conducted to explore the implications stemming from how PIU is measured. The results offer evidence to support the construct validity of measures developed from the impulse control disorder and relationship resource deficits traditions but raise questions about substance dependence measures of PIU. Additionally, there were small but noteworthy differences in the associations between PIU and key antecedents and outcomes that could be attributed to PIU measurement tradition. Suggestions for developing a more robust body of scholarship on PIU are offered.     

Better Never to Have Been Born

The pro‐life paradox, as I call it, begins with a single claim endorsed by many American Christians: infants and young children are innocent in the sight of God because they cannot yet take responsibility for their spiritual well‐being. With this in mind, I argue that pro‐life believers have unwittingly fallen victim to a theological paradox in which their attempts to save the earthly lives of unborn children make it theoretically possible for said children to die an eternal death. On the one hand, many Christians trust in an eventual spiritual reckoning where God will separate the “sheep” from the “goats” (see Matthew 25:31–46), ushering the former into heaven while damning the latter to hell. However, those who cannot yet repent and seek salvation are not blamed for their spiritual failings. If they die, they go to heaven because they are too young and intellectually immature to know any better. But if dead children are spiritually blameless, then abortion practitioners have perversely and paradoxically saved millions of unborn souls by removing human volition (and thus damnation itself) from the equation and by making it possible for the unborn to experience the joys of heaven without the temptations of earth.     

Loving and angry? Happy and sad? Understanding and reporting of mixed emotions in mother–child relationships by 6‐ to 12‐year‐olds

The Evaluative Space Model of emotions allows for the coactivation of positive‐appetitive and negative‐avoidant systems, but few studies have examined mixed emotions in child development. Existing research suggests children's understanding of opposite valence emotion combinations emerges by approximately 11 years of age. However, it is not yet clear whether various opposite valence combinations are understood at different ages, nor whether children can understand them in others before they have experienced such mixed emotions themselves. Semi‐structured interviews with 97 children investigated whether they regarded six combinations of opposite valence mixed emotions as possible, could provide reasons for them, and report their own experience of each in the context of mother–child relationships. Both understanding that such combinations are possible and ability to provide reasons for them increased after age 6 and up to age 11, but were still incomplete in 12‐year‐olds. Understanding of different opposite valence combinations developed at different rates. At each age, fewer children who showed understanding of these combinations in others reported having had a similar experience themselves. The findings suggest a need to systematically examine a range of mixed emotions in order to develop a comprehensive theory of the development of mixed emotion understanding. They also suggest extending research into adolescence.