Abstract

In a group of 696 middle school students in Seoul and Kyung-gi areas. the present study examined the relationships between adolescents' emotional characteristics (anger, withdrawal, empathy), cognitive characteristics (hostile attribution bias, internal attribution), and parenting behaviors (mothers' and fathers' warmth-acceptance, rejection-restriction, permissiveness-neglect) as predictors of bullying behaviors and victimization by peers in each gender. Results indicated different sets of cognitive, emotional, and parenting variables explained bullying behaviors and experiences of being bullied in each gender. Some of the variables contributed to both bullying behaviors and experiences of being bullied. Next, this study identified variables that distinguished bullies or victims from bully/victims in each gender. The role of empathy that distinguished bullies from bully/victims in a group of females needs to be replicated with follow-up studies. The findings of this study would contribute to more gender-specific, integrated approaches for bullying prevention or intervention.