Overview
The Bullying and Aggressive Behaviour group undertakes research that broadly reflects how bullying and aggressive behaviour is defined, experienced, and the psychological impact of involvement in such behaviours. As a group, we focus on a range of aggressive behaviours including peer victimisation, face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying, street harassment, and aggression in interpersonal relationships.
Group members are currently undertaking research that examines:
- The bullying / banter distinction
- Peer victimisation and coping
- The individual impact of aggressive behaviour
- Bystander perceptions of aggressive behaviour
- Characteristics of perpetrators and targets in aggressive contexts
- Individual differences in aggressive behaviours
- The lived experience of online risks and fear of missing out
- The impact of involvement in cyberbullying and perceptions of risk
- Cyber dating abuse
Related staff
Related staff
- Dr Lucy Betts (group lead)
- Dr Loren Abell
- Sarah Buglass
- Dr Gayle Dillon
- Sarah Gardner
- Dr Nadja Heym
- Dr Olatz Lopez-Fernandez
- Dr Alexander Sumich
PhD Students
- Meshal Al-Sager
- Peter Macaulay
- Oonagh Steer
Staff profiles
Publications
Abell, L., Brewer, G., Qualter, P., & Austin, E. (2016). Machiavellianism, emotional manipulation, and friendship functions in women’s friendships. Personality and Individual Differences, 88, 108-113.
Abell, L., & Brewer, G. (2014). Machiavellianism, Self-Monitoring, Self-Promotion and Relational Aggression on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 258-262.
Brewer, G., & Abell, L. (2015). Machiavellianism in Long-Term Relationships: Competition, Mate Retention and Sexual Coercion. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 357-62.
Betts, L. R., Harding, R., Peart, S., Sjölin, C., Wright, D., & Newbold, K. R. (in press). Adolescents’ experiences of street harassment: Creating a typology and assessing the emotional impact. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research.
Betts, L. R., Gkimitzoudis, T., Spenser, K. A., & Baguley, T. (2017). Examining the roles young people fulfil in five types of cyber bullying. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 34, 1080 – 1098.
Betts, L. R., Spenser, K. A., & Gardner, S. E. (2017). Adolescents' involvement in cyber bullying and perceptions of school: The importance of perceived peer acceptance for female adolescents. Sex Roles, 77, 471-481.
Betts, L. R., Houston, J. E., & Steer, O. L. (2015). Development of the Multidimensional Peer Victimisation Scale - Revised (MPVS-R) and the Multidimensional Peer Bullying Scale (MPVS-RB). Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development,176, 93-109.
Boulton, M. J., Boulton, L., Camerone, E., Hughes, J., Kirkbride, C., Macaulay, P. J. R., & Sanders, J. (2016). Enhancing primary school children's knowledge of online safety and risks with the CATZ Cooperative Cross-Age Teaching Intervention: results from a pilot study. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19, 609-614.
Buglass, S., Binder, J. F., Betts, L. R., & Underwood, J. D. M. (2017). Looking for trouble: A multilevel analysis of disagreeable contacts in online social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 234-243.
Buglass, S. L., Binder, J. F., Betts, L. R., & Underwood, J. D. (2017). Motivators of Online Vulnerability: The Impact of Social Network Site Use and FOMO. Computers in Human Behaviour, 66, 248-255.
Buglass, S., Binder, J. F., Betts, L. R., & Underwood, J. D. M. (2016). When ‘friends’ collide: Social heterogeneity and user vulnerability on social network sites. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 62-72.
Fido, D., Santo, M., Bloxsom, C., Gregson, M. & Sumich, A. (2017). Electrophysiological study of the violence inhibition mechanism in relation to callous-unemotional and aggressive traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 118, 44-49.
Dillon G. V., Underwood, J. D. M. & Freemantle, L. J. (2016) Autism and the U.K. secondary school experience. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 31, 221-230.
Gardner, S. E., Betts, L. R., Stiller, J., & Coates, J. (2017). The role of emotion regulation for coping with school-based peer-victimisation in late childhood. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 108-113.
Heym, N., Ferguson, E., & Lawrence, C. (2013). The P-psychopathy continuum: facets of psychoticism and their associations with psychopathic tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 773-778.
Mount, N., & Dillon, G. (2014). Parents' experiences of living with an adolescent diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Educational & Child Psychology, 31, 72-81.