The Effect of Bullying and Victimization on Cognitive Empathy Development during the Transition to Middle School

Introduction: Interventions aimed at reducing bullying behavior commonly target the development of empathy.  Yet, few longitudinal studies have investigated how empathy levels vary with bullying and victimization over time, especially during the transition to middle school.  Moreover, while some studies have examined changes in empathy over the course of early childhood and adulthood no study to our knowledge has explicitly modeled the naturally-occurring developmental changes in cognitive empathy during the transition to middle school.

To that end, the purpose of the present study was to: (1) examine the naturally-occurring changes in cognitive empathy during the transition from elementary to middle school, and (2) explore the effect of bullying and victimization involvement on changes in cognitive empathy over time, and specifically during this school transition.

Methods: Latent growth curve modeling was used to examine growth trajectories in empathy over time and the effects of bullying involvement on this growth among a sample of 431 students (52% female, 53% Latino) using data collected during the spring semester of the 4th grade (M age =10.2 years at baseline), the fall and spring semesters of 5th grade, and the spring semester of 6th grade (M age =13.0 years).

Results: Cognitive empathy decreased over time, and a linear trajectory was the best fitting shape for these data.  Despite some evidence noting increases in cognitive empathy during adolescence, our results suggest that cognitive empathy may decline during this school transition.  Additionally, bullying and victimization were both associated with lower levels of cognitive empathy throughout the study.  However, the effect of victimization was small and it became non-significant when both were added to the model.  Thus, it appears that bullying involvement may be a primary correlate of lower cognitive empathy scores over time for this sample.  During this school transition, children are faced with new social challenges and, as a result, some evidence suggests that these social pressures may contribute to increases in bullying involvement.  It is possible that these social challenges, combined with the emotional and physical changes occurring during this developmental time period, may also contribute to declines in cognitive empathy. Several notable participant-related differences were also found by gender and race/ethnicity.

Conclusions: These findings point to the potential to improve cognitive empathy skills and reduce bullying involvement via preventive interventions prior to the transition from elementary to middle school to assist youth in making a more successful transition. Further implications for ethnic minority youth will be noted.