Bullying is abusive social interaction between peers and can include aggression, harassment, and

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

. Bullying is typically repetitive and enacted by those who are in a position of

power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may a ...

over the victim. A growing body of research illustrates a significant relationship between bullying and

emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can emotion recognition, recognize their own emotions and those of others, use em ...

. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a set of abilities related to the understanding, use and management of

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

as it relates to one's self and others. Mayer et al., (2008) defines the dimensions of overall EI as: "accurately perceiving emotion, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotion, and managing emotion". The concept combines emotional and intellectual processes.Tolegenova, A.A., Jakupov, S.M., Man Cheung Chung, Saduova, S. & Jakupov, M.S (2012
A theoretical formation of emotional intelligence and childhood trauma among adolescents.
“Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences”, 69, 1891-1894. International Conference on Education and Educational Psychology (ICEEPSY 2012). DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.142 Lower emotional intelligence appears to be related to involvement in bullying, as the bully and/or the victim of bullying. EI seems to play an important role in both bullying behavior and

victimization Victimisation ( or victimization) is the process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology. Peer victimisation Peer victimisat ...

in bullying; given that EI is illustrated to be malleable, EI education could greatly improve bullying prevention and intervention initiatives.

Childhood

Bullying is the most prevalent form of violence in schools and has lasting consequences into adulthood.Domino, M. (2013
Measuring the impact of an alternative approach to school bullying.
''Journal of School Health'', ''83''(6), 430-437. DOI: 10.1111/josh.12047 Increased concern regarding

school bullying School bullying, like bullying outside the school context, refers to one or more perpetrators who have greater physical strength or more social power than their victim repeatedly by acting aggressively toward their victim. Bullying can be verb ...

has been raised in part due to publicized suicides of childhood victims.Turner, M. G., Exum, M. L., Brame, R. & Holt, T. J. (2013
Bullying victimization and adolescent mental health: General and typological effects across sex.
''Journal of Criminal Justice'', ''41''(1), 53-59. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2012.12.005 Around 40% of middle school children are directly involved in bullying at least once a week according to the National Center of Education Statistics. Pre-adolescent research confirms such a negative relationship between trait EI and bullying behavior; bullying behavior is negatively associated with total

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

and more specifically, the EI dimension of cognitive empathy, which is the ability to understand or take on the emotional experiences and perspectives of others.Kokkinos, C. M. & Kipritsi, E. (2012
The relationship between bullying, victimization, trait emotional intelligence, self-efficacy and empathy among preadolescents.
''Social Psychology of Education'', ''15''(1), 41-58. DOI:10.1007/s11218-011-9168-9 It was found that adolescent bullying peer relations are also significantly negatively correlated with the dimension of EI that was conceptualized by Lomas et al. (2012) as Understanding the Emotions of Others.Lomas, J., Stough, C., Hansen, K. & Downey, L. A. (2012
Brief report: Emotional intelligence, victimization and bullying in adolescents.
''Journal of Adolescence'', ''35''(1), 207-211. DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.03.002 While the term naming the dimension varies within the research, the dimension of EI that appears to have the strongest inverse relationship with enacting bullying behavior throughout the literature is one's ability to understand the emotional experience of other people. Because bullying behavior in school-aged children is related to lower levels of understanding of other's emotions, one theory is that children who exhibit bullying behaviors are not able to fully understand the impact that they have on their victims. Indeed, when differentiating between the different components of empathy, it is the cognitive component that bullies seem to have the most deficit in. In addition to the inability to relate to the emotions of others, research also suggests that those who engage in bullying behavior may also lack proper skills in dealing with their own emotions, another aspect of EI often referred to as emotional facilitation or self-efficacy. The poor use of emotions is found to be significant in predicting problem behavior among adolescents, such as aggression, which can be characteristic in bullying behavior. In this way, the ability to understand and manage one's own emotions may play an important role in preventing children from engaging in bullying behavior. For example, in a study among adolescent girls, it was found that better management of stress could prevent the perpetuation of aggression and violence.Polan, J., Sieving, R., Pettingell, S., Bearinger, L. & McMorris, B. (2012
Relationships between adolescent girls' social-emotional intelligence and their involvement in relational aggression and physical fighting.
''Journal of Adolescent Health'', ''50''(2), S81-S82. DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2011.10.216

Workplace

Workplace bullying is reported to be far more prevalent than perhaps commonly thought.Hutchinson, M. & Hurley, J. (2013
Exploring leadership capability and emotional intelligence as moderators of workplace bullying.
''Journal of Nursing Management'', ''21'', 553-562. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2834.2012.01372.x Workplace bullying seems to be particularly widespread in healthcare organizations; 80% of nurses report experiencing workplace bullying. Similar to the school environment for children, the work environment typically places groups of adult peers together in a shared space on a regular basis. In such a situation, social interactions and relationships are of great importance to the function of the

organizational structure An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims. Organizational structure affects organizational action and provides the foundat ...

and in pursuing

goal A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to a purpose or ...

s. The emotional consequences of bullying put an organization at risk of losing victimized employees. Bullying also contributes to a negative work environment, is not conducive to necessary cooperation and can lessen productivity at various levels. Bullying in the workplace is associated with negative responses to stress. The ability to manage emotions, especially emotional

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

, seems to be a consistently important factor in different types of bullying. The workplace in general can be a stressful environment, so a negative way of

coping Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social. Theories of coping Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...

with stress or an inability to do so can be particularly damning. Workplace bullies may have high

social intelligence Social intelligence is the capacity to know oneself and to know others. Social intelligence is learned and develops from experience with people and learning from success and failures in social settings. Social intelligence is the ability to underst ...

and low

.Hutchinson, M. (2013
Bullying as workgroup manipulation: a model for understanding patterns of victimization and contagion within the workgroup.
''Journal of Nursing Management'', ''21'', 563-571. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2834.2012.01390.x In this context, bullies tend to rank high on the social ladder and are adept at influencing others. The combination of high social intelligence and low empathy is conducive to manipulative behavior, such that Hutchinson (2013) describes workplace bullying to be. In working groups where employees have low EI, workers can be persuaded to engage in unethical behavior. With the bullies' persuasion, the work group is socialized in a way that rationalizes the behavior, and makes the group tolerant or supportive of the bullying. Hutchinson & Hurley (2013) make the case that EI and

leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets vi ...

skills are both necessary to bullying intervention in the workplace, and illustrates the relationship between EI, leadership and reductions in bullying. EI and ethical behavior among other members of the work team have been shown to have a significant impact on ethical behavior of nursing teams. Higher EI is linked to improvements in the work environment and is an important moderator between conflict and reactions to conflict in the workplace. The self-awareness and self-management dimensions of EI have both been illustrated to have strong positive correlations with effective leadership and the specific leadership ability to build healthy work environments and work culture. A bad environment in the workplace (with bullying cases, for instance) can negatively affect the organization's efficiency and costs.

Theoretical contributions to the relationship

Malevolent creativity

Given lower emotional intelligence, it is also possible that many bullies are more malevolently creative. When original, the acts of aggression and abuse found in both childhood and adult bullying are considered examples of malevolent creativity (MC).Harris, D. J., Reiter-Palmon, R. & Kaufman, J. C. (2013) The effect of emotional intelligence and task type on malevolent creativity. ''Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts'', ''7''(3), 237-244. DOI: 10.1037/a0032139 Findings suggest that individuals lower in EI conceive more malevolently creative solutions, which theoretically leads to more malevolently creative behaviors. It is conjectured that people with lower emotional intelligence may not see the impropriety in malevolently creative ideas or disregard how others would perceive them, and thus they have less issue with disclosing such ideas. Given the hypothesis that more malevolently creative solutions should lead to more malevolently creative behaviors, this theory makes sense in light of the deficit in cognitive empathy found in bullying behavior.

Callous and unemotional traits

There may also be a subtype of bully that is high in callous and unemotional traits (CU). CU traits include some of the discussed deficits in EI such as lack of empathy, as well as other traits such as a lack of guilt, shallow capacity for emotion and poor behavioral modulation when faced with punishment.Viding, E., Simmonds, E., Petrides, K.V., & Frederickson, N. (2009) The contribution of callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems to bullying in early adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50(4), 471-481. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02012.x Given that children who bully often have conduct problems, and CU traits are often co-occurring with conduct problems, Viding et al., (2009) investigated the relationship between CU and bullying behavior. Given that previous research suggests children with conduct problems fall into subtypes of those with high CU traits and those without, it was possible that this creates a distinction among bullies. Higher CU was independently correlated to direct bullying, which is associated with lack of

, while indirect bullying is not. When combined with conduct problems, CU increased the risk of direct and indirect bullying behaviors. Bullies high in CU traits will probably be resistant to many of the interventions successful with bullies who are not. Although a defining characteristic of CU is a lack of empathy, which overlaps with bullies deficits in empathy as highlighted above, the other characteristics of the concept would make bullies high in CU less malleable than those who simply have lower EI.

Victimization and emotional intelligence

Being bullied can have a negative impact on the victim's life: Bullied children may go on to be maladjusted socially and emotionally, and worsen in behavior.Sapouna, M. & Wolke, D. (2013
Resilience to bullying victimization: The role of individual, family and peer characteristics.
''Child Abuse & Neglect'', ''37''(11), 997-1006. DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.05.009 Adults who are bullied in the workplace may have deteriorated self-esteem, suffer from isolation and become fearful and avoidant after being victimized. They may disengage and withdraw from their work community. Both child and adult victims are at greater risk of developing mental pathology. EI is found to be a significant predictor of variance in adolescent peer victimization in bullying and also has a negative correlation with adolescent bullying. Victim peer relations showed strong negative correlations with the emotional management and facilitation dimensions of EI conceptualized as Emotional Management and Control and Emotions Direct Cognitions respectively, both of which made significant semi-partial contributions to the overall model of Emotional Intelligence. These results indicate that victims may have less ability to handle their emotions or to use them to make decisions in response. The inability to manage one's own emotions can lead to rejection, or further rejection, from peers which can help perpetuate victimization and further damage a victim's social skills; peer relationships and support are influential on emotional adjustment. In workplace bullying the workgroup's rejection isolates the victim and causes

guilt Guilt may refer to: *Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard *Culpability, a legal term *Guilt (law), a legal term Music * ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims * "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...

and

fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...

, causing withdrawal from the group and reducing opportunities for social support. In addition to self-efficacy, victimization is also found to be negatively correlated to cognitive and affective empathy.

Bully-victims

There is a strong positive relationship between engaging in bullying behaviors and having been victimized by bullying behaviors. This is both a common finding in review of the research and is in tune with what is commonly observed during human adolescence; often victims of bullying go on to become bullies themselves. A history of victimization often leads to a perpetuation of similar behavior. Having low emotional intelligence increases the likelihood of being both a victim and a bully, which are apparently not mutually exclusive roles. This dual status is sometimes referred to as being a bully-victim. Bully-victims seem to be the most troubled. They tend to exhibit more emotional issues like low impulse control and self-esteem as well as social issues, such as the inability to interpret social cues or make friends.Wolke, D., Copeland, W. E., Angold, A. & Costello, E. J. (2013
Impact of bullying in childhood on adult health, wealth, crime, and social outcomes.
''Psychological Science'', ''24''(10), 1958-1970. DOI: 10.1177/0956797613481608 They may begin with pre-existing issues with behavior and emotion, and more often come from

dysfunctional families A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse and sometimes even all of the above on the part of individual parents occur continuously and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such ...

. Childhood bully-victims also fare worse in adulthood than 'pure' bullies or victims. Across multiple areas, bully-victims had the greatest impairment in adult functioning and worse health outcomes including the diagnosis of a serious illness or psychiatric disorder. Bully-victims had similarly poor outcomes in educational achievement as bullies and also shared similar likelihood to some of the measured risk behaviors, all status groups showed impairment in some categories like wealth attainment and social relationships. When controlling for other factors pure bullies are no longer at an elevated risk across all these categories, which bullying is predictive of regardless of victim status, though bully-victims and victims remain at higher risk. While some dimensions of EI seem more predictive of one status or the other (that of the bully or the victim), there are dimensions of EI, such as empathy and self-efficacy, that have significant negative relationships with both. Additionally, EI as a whole is significant in predicting for victim status. Thus, victims may also be deficient in the dimensions of EI that correlate to becoming a bully, a risk that could be expected to be exacerbated by the damage to one's psycho-social health due to being a victim. Students who experience bullying often have a harder time adapting healthy relationships when they get older. It has been found that there is a negative correlation between bullying and emotional intelligence. People with more emotional intelligence are able moderate the effects of the bullying they suffer in the workplace and still work efficiently.

Interventions

The most effective bullying interventions will likely be those that are dynamic and theory-driven in approach. Conventional intervention efforts have had small impact and mixed results in reducing bullying among children. These earlier models were based on descriptive data and focused on correcting the behavior of children who were already bullies or victims. Domino (2013) notes a theoretical shift from focus on deficit-based intervention to strength-based intervention. Take The Lead (TTL) is a curriculum for middle school students combining social emotional learning (SEL) and

positive youth development Positive youth development (PYD) programs are designed to optimize youth developmental progress. ''Youth.gov'' states that "PYD is an intentional, prosocial approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, ...

(PYD). SEL is a process of building social competence and emotional intelligence through a set of pertinent skills. PYD is a SEL program that uses social end emotional learning to promote healthy outcomes for the children by developing, then applying, the learned individual and group skills. Meta-analysis of 213 studies linked SEL to significant improvement in interpersonal relationships, social skills, behavior issues, substance abuse and aggression. Positive contributions to the impact of SEL were found to be made by the development and application of social skills, social support and positive behavior

reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher fr ...

. Meta-analysis of 25 programs illustrated significant positive changes in

interpersonal skills A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called soc ...

self-control Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one' ...

, problem-solving and both peer and adult relationships as a result of PYD as well as significant decrease in negative risk behaviors such as substance abuse, acts of aggression,

truancy Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorised, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will (though sometimes adults or parents will allow and/or ignore it) and usually does not refe ...

and risky sexual behavior. The most important elements of PYD for positive outcomes in the analysis were incorporation of emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, and the development of pro-social norms. Domino (2013) noted that prior research supported SEL and PYD being applied to youth risk behaviors and that their effectiveness was found to be positive and sustainable, however not much research had been done on a link between the constructs and reduction of bullying specifically. The study then investigates a model, TTL, that combines the SEL and PYD frameworks, strengthened by a social support system. TTL consists of 16 lessons, taught once a week for 16 weeks, during regular 45 minute class periods by teachers that are trained for a minimum of 6 hours. The lessons are accompanied by a goal; for instance, the

accompanying lesson 10 on Assertiveness is "Differentiate between assertive, passive, and aggressive communication styles, and practice

assertive Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive to defend a right point of view or a relevant statement. In the field of psychology and psychotherapy, it is a skill that can be learned and a mode of communi ...

and empathic interrelating.". Every lesson includes knowledge, skill and application components so that students are able to practice the learned skills in their life outside of the classroom. A TTL training workshop is offered to the parents of participants and a letter is sent to the parents at the beginning of each segment with information about the lesson, goals and accompanying activities. Domino (2013) applied the TTL intervention to 7th grade students and measured changes in bullying and victim behavior using a quantitative pretest-posttest control group cohort design. Sum scores for bullying and victimization were obtained before and at the completion of the intervention using the PRQ, a self-report survey, completed anonymously.

Resilience

Beyond preventing bullying, it is also important to consider how interventions based on EI are important in the case that bullying will occur. Increasing EI may be an important step in trying to foster resilience among victims. When a person faces stress and adversity, especially of a repetitive nature, their ability to adapt is an important factor in whether they have a more positive or negative outcome.Monroy Cortés, B. G. & Palacios Cruz, L. (2011
Resiliencia: ¿Es posible medirla e influir en ella?
''Salud Mental'', ''34''(3) 237-246. México: Instituto Nacional de Psiquiátrica Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz. panish/ref> Resilient individuals are those who are considered to have positive developmental outcomes in light of their negative experiences, such as bullying. Sapouna & Wolke (2013) examined adolescents who illustrated resilience to bullying and found some interesting gendered differences, with higher behavioral resilience found among girls and higher emotional resilience found among boys. Despite these differences, they still implicated internal resources and negative emotionality in either encouraging or being negatively associated with resilience to bullying respectively and urged for the targeting of psychosocial skills as a form of intervention. Emotional Intelligence has been illustrated to promote resilience to stressSchneider, T. R., Lyons, J. B. & Khazon, S. (2013
Emotional intelligence and resilience.
''Personality and Individual Differences'', ''55''(8), 909-914. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.460 and as mentioned previously the ability to manage stress and other negative emotions can be preventative of a victim going on to perpetuate aggression. One factor that is important in resilience is the regulation of one's own emotions. Schneider et al. (2013) found that emotional perception was significant in facilitating lower negative emotionality during stress and Emotional Understanding facilitated resilience and has a positive correlation with positive affect.

Notes

References

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