Article

School Psychology International

33(5) 550–561
Affective and cognitive ! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0143034312446882

gender differences in spi.sagepub.com

cyber and traditional

bullying
Çiğdem Topcu and Özgür Erdur-Baker
Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Abstract
Gender differences in bullying behavior among adolescents have been observed, but the
reasons for the discrepancy in males’ and females’ bullying experiences has been the
focus of few studies. This study examined the role of the cognitive and affective empathy
in explaining gender differences in bullying through multiple mediation analysis. The
participants of the study were 795 Turkish adolescents (455 females, 340 males) ranging
in age from 13- to 18-years-old. The Revised Cyber Bullying Inventory, Traditional
Bullying Questionnaire and Basic Empathy Scale were utilized to gather data from par-
ticipants. Findings revealed that the total effect of cognitive and affective empathy
mediated the gender differences in traditional bullying in addition to the unique effect
of affective empathy. However, only the combined effect of affective and cognitive
empathy mediated the gender differences in cyberbullying. The findings are discussed
in the light of the related literature and implications for practice.

Keywords
affective empathy, cognitive empathy, cyberbullying, gender, multiple mediators, trad-
itional bullying

School bullying has been one of the most common problems among school age
children across countries as international research has reported; studies from
Australia (Rigby, 2005), Canada (Chan, 2006), Finland (Sairanen & Pfeffer,
2011), Italy (Gini, 2007), Norway (Olweus, 1993), Taiwan (Wei & Jonson-Reid,

Corresponding author:
Çiğdem Topcu, Psychological Counseling & Guidance Program, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty
of Education, Middle East Technical University, Üniversiteler Mahallesi Dumlupınar Bulvarı, No:1, 06800,
Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey
Email: [email protected]
Topcu and Erdur-Baker 551

2011), the United Kingdom (Boulton, Smith, & Cowie, 2010), the USA (Hoover,
Oliver, & Hazler, 1992), and Turkey (Y|lmaz, 2011) have reported substantial
number of students experiencing bullying either as a perpetrator, a victim, or a
bystander. Peer bullying as a longstanding issue appears to be changing its forms
parallel to the developments of information and communication technologies
(ICT). ICT provides bullies with a new medium where they can bully others
while hiding their identities (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006). This new type of bullying,
called cyberbullying, is defined as ‘an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a
group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time
against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself’ (Smith et al., 2008, p.
376). Bullying, therefore, can now takes place not only in and around schools but
also can occur anywhere that the Internet communication technologies are avail-
able, starting from very early ages (Monks, Robinson, & Worlidge, 2012) and
continuing through young adulthood (Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham, & Rich, 2012).
Regardless of whether it is traditional or cyberbullying, one challenging issue
remains the role of gender differences in both cyberbullying and traditional bully-
ing. Despite some inconsistent findings, the majority of studies have reported that
males bully others more than do females in both physical (Camodeca, Goossens,
Terwogt, & Schuengel, 2002; Olweus, 1993; Scheithauer, Hayer, Petermann, &
Jugert, 2006) and cyber environment (Erdur-Baker, 2010; Gradinger, Strohmeier,
& Spiel, 2010; Li, 2006). Sakellariou, Carroll, and Houghton (2012) recruited only
males; examined their cyberbullying experiences in detail and concluded that males
frequently experience all types of cyberbullying and cyber victimization. As for the
reasons for males’ tendency to be bullies, it is possible that males are more likely
than females to be bullies because of differences in gender role socialization (Wade
& Beran, 2011). One such factor may be the discrepancy between males’ and
females’ level of empathy. Empathy is defined as ‘an emotional response that
stems from another’s emotional state or condition’ which ‘is congruent with the
other’s emotional state or situation’, and it thought to have two dimensions, cog-
nitive and affective empathy (Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987, p. 5). The cognitive com-
ponent of empathy reflects the ability to adopt another’s perspective and identify
one’s emotions, while the affective component is taken as ‘sharing the other’s
feelings’ (Caravita, Di Blasio, & Salmivalli, 2009). Affective empathy is described
as more immediate and unintentional, whereas cognitive empathy develops with
age as a more intentional and controlled component (Hodges & Wegner, 1997).
Whatever the utilized methodology, females are always found to be more empath-
etic than males (Rueckert & Naybar, 2008). Such research findings suggest that
empathy level may explain the gender differences in bullying. In other words,
females are less likely to be a traditional bully or cyberbully due to their relatively
higher level of empathy. Thus, the main goal of this study is to examine whether
empathy can be helpful in explaining the gender differences in peer bullying.
The relationship between empathy and bullying has been examined in a limited
number of studies. The results of these studies reported somewhat inconsistent
results in terms of the facilitative or preventive role of empathy in traditional
552 School Psychology International 33(5)

bullying (Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoe, 2007; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2011; Warden
& MacKinnon, 2003) and cyberbullying (Ang & Goh, 2010; Dautenhahn &
Woods, 2003). Some of these studies reported that bullies have lower levels of
empathy than non-bullies in physical settings (Joliffe & Farrington, 2006a).
However, other researchers have argued that bullies whose cognitive empathy
level is high will be good at ‘mind reading’ which enables them to more easily
manipulate others and understand the consequences of their actions
(Dautenhahn & Woods, 2003).
Furthermore, different components of empathy seem to be playing different
roles in the relationship between gender and bullying. On the one hand, findings
for all of the related studies indicate that males with lower levels of affective
empathy engage in traditional bullying more than those who have high levels of
affective empathy (Caravita et al., 2009; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006a, 2011). For
females, while Jolliffe and Farrington (2006a, 2011) reported the same pattern as
males, Caravita et al. (2009) found a lack of relationship between affective empathy
and traditional bullying.
Alternatively, Sutton, Smith, and Swettenham (1999) contended that systematic
bullying requires understanding and manipulating the minds of others. That is,
bullies are capable of mind reading, understanding emotions, and predicting the
consequences of their actions. In fact, these characteristics make them better at
bullying because they know what hurts their victims (Sutton et al., 1999). The
victims’ distress may only further reinforce the bullies’ behavior (Davis, 1994).
Likewise, in their theoretical paper, Dautenhahn and Woods (2003) claim that
bullies’ cognitive empathy level needs to be higher than non-bullies because they
need a certain level of cognitive empathy to manipulate others and engage in
bullying behavior. The findings of Caravita et al. (2009) support this argument
in that both males and females with higher levels of cognitive empathy are found to
engage in traditional bullying more than those who do not have high levels of
cognitive empathy.
Previously, the relationship between empathy and bullying has been evaluated in
physical environments; of late, the interests of researchers have turned to cyber
space. In one of the rare studies which investigated the empathy, gender and
cyberbullying relationship, Ang and Goh (2010) reported that the critical variable
which predicts the difference in cyberbullying experience between males’ and
females’ is affective empathy. Ang and Goh (2010) stated that affective empathy
has a preventive role in balancing the negative effects of lack of cognitive empathy
only for females, and suggested that a replication of their study is necessary to
make a more confident conclusion. In a more recent study, Steffgen, König,
Pfetsch, and Melzer (2011) validated that lack of empathy facilitates cyberbullying
behavior.
Given the different nature of affective and cognitive empathy levels for males
and females, the question is whether these differences play a significant role in
explaining gender difference in traditional and cyberbullying. Answering this ques-
tion will help researchers and practitioners to integrate and make use of empathy
Topcu and Erdur-Baker 553

within bullying prevention and intervention strategies. Fuelled by empirical find-

ings, this study aims to examine the preventive role of affective empathy and facili-
tative role of cognitive empathy in bullying research with regard to gender. It is
hypothesized that females would be more empathetic and therefore less likely to
engage in bullying, while males would be less empathetic leading them to engage in
bullying.

Method
Participants
Participants consisted of 795 (455 females, 340 males) Turkish adolescents aged
between 13- and 18-years-old (M ¼ 16.67; SD ¼ 1.28). The majority of the partici-
pants’ (61.5%) family income was in the middle income group; others were equally
distributed in the low income group (17%) or in the high income groups (17.4%).
Participants were recruited using a sampling of convenience procedure.

Instruments
Revised Cyber Bullying Inventory (RCBI). The Cyber Bullying Inventory (Erdur-Baker &
Kavşut, 2007) was revised by Topcu and Erdur-Baker (2010). The scale has two
parts with 14 identical statements providing scores for being a bully and a victim
for the past six months. For cyberbullying, participants responded to the items as ‘I
did it’; in the case of cyber victimization, the participants responded to the items as
‘It happened to me’. Participants were asked to report their experiences on a four-
point rating scale (1 ¼ never, 2 ¼ once, 3 ¼ two to three times, and 4 ¼ more than
three times). One sample item from RCBI read as ‘sending threatening or hurtful
comments through e-mail’. The lowest possible score was 14 and the highest pos-
sible score was 56 where higher scores indicated more frequent cyberbullying
experience. RCBI was reported to have a one-factor structure with an internal
consistency coefficient of .82 for the cyberbully part and .75 for the cybervictim
part (Topcu & Erdur-Baker, 2010).
In the present study, only the cyberbully part was used and confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) via AMOS 18.0 (Arbuckle, 2009) verified the one-factor structure
(GFI ¼ .94, AGFI ¼ .91, RMSEA ¼ .07) with an internal consistency coefficient
of .83.

Traditional Bullying Questionnaire (TBQ). The Traditional Bullying Questionnaire was

constructed by Topcu (2008). The TBQ was developed and used instead of the
measurement tools for traditional bullying which already existed in the literature
because existing measurement tools aimed to measure the physical type of trad-
itional bullying. However, cyberbullying was found to be closely related to rela-
tional bullying rather than physical bullying (Keith & Martin, 2005) and the TBQ
aimed to measure the relational type of traditional bullying.
554 School Psychology International 33(5)

In order to provide information about face and content validity, a focus group
of six students (two females and four males aged between 16- and 18-years-old)
and three experts (counseling psychologists) evaluated the items in terms of their
age appropriateness and understandability. The scale had seven items aiming
to measure covert bullying on a four-point rating scale (1 ¼ never, 2 ¼ once,
3 ¼ two or three times, 4 ¼ more than three times). The lowest possible
score was 7 and the highest possible score was 28 where higher scores indicated
more frequent traditional bullying experience. One sample item from TBQ
read as ‘I have spread rumours about someone’. The one-factor structure of
the TBQ was confirmed by CFA via AMOS 18.0 (Arbuckle, 2009)
(GFI ¼ .98, AGFI ¼ .97, RMSEA ¼ .05) in the present study and the Cronbach
alpha coefficient was .75.

Basic Empathy Scale (BES). The Basic Empathy Scale was originally developed by
Jolliffe and Farrington (2006b) and adapted into Turkish by Topcu, Erdur-Baker,
and Çapa-Ayd|n (2010). The BES has 20 items, nine of which measure cognitive
empathy, and 11 of which measure affective empathy on a five-point Likert type
scale (1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, 3 ¼ Neither Agree nor Disagree,
4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree). Before the analyses, seven of the items were reverse
coded. Therefore, higher scores indicated a higher level of empathy. Jolliffe and
Farrington (2006b) found a two-factor solution (affective and cognitive empathy),
and Cronbach alpha coefficients were .85 for the affective component and .79 for
the cognitive component. ‘My friend’s emotions don’t affect me much’ was a
sample item for the affective empathy component of BES and ‘I can understand
my friend’s happiness when she/he does well at something’ was a sample item for
the cognitive empathy component of BES.
In the present study, a two-factor solution was confirmed by CFA via AMOS
18.0 (Arbuckle, 2009) (GFI ¼ .90, AGFI ¼ .88, RMSEA ¼ .07) and the Cronbach
alpha coefficient was .75 for affective component and .81 for cognitive component.
Although GFI and AGFI values did not seem to be high enough to continue to the
analysis, the RMSEA value indicated a moderate fit and was considered to be
acceptable to continue with the analyses (Byrne, 2001).

Demographic information form. The age and gender of the participants and income
level of their parents were solicted using a demographic questions form.

Procedure
After obtaining permission for this research from the Ethical Board of the univer-
sity, the students were contacted on the day of data collection (all procedures
adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki ethical code). The purpose of the study
was explained to the students and only those who freely volunteered participated in
the study.
Topcu and Erdur-Baker 555

Results
The aim of the present study was to examine the roots of gender differences in two
types of bullying. In order to achieve this aim, the empathy level of the participants
was investigated as an explanatory mediating factor of gender difference in cyber
and traditional bullying.

Preliminary analyses
In order to work as a mediator of gender difference in bullying, a variable had to be
relevant to both gender and bullying significantly. Zero-order correlations among
independent and criterion variables, and mean and standard deviations of these
variables with regard to gender are presented in Table 1. The gender difference in
empathy and bullying was examined through four separate one-way ANOVAs.
Females’ affective, F(1, 793) ¼ 149.05, p < .001, 2 ¼ 0.16, and cognitive empathy,
F(1, 793) ¼ 46.64, p < .001, 2 ¼ 0.05, levels were found to be significantly
higher than for males. Males bullied others more than females in both phys-
ical environment F(1, 793) ¼ 13.05, p < .001, 2 ¼ 0.02, and cyber environment
F(1, 793) ¼ 5.13, p < .05, 2 ¼ 0.01.

Multiple mediation analyses

Since both affective and cognitive empathy were found to be significantly related to
gender and bullying (in both traditional and cyber forms), multiple simultaneous
mediation analysis was used in order to test the total and specific indirect effects of
mediators (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).
The results of the first mediation analysis indicated that the total indirect effect
of gender on traditional bullying through two mediators (affective and cognitive
empathy) was significant (z ¼ 2.85, p < .01). In the models consisting of more than
one mediator, the specific indirect effects were also tested. Only affective empathy
was found as a significant mediator of gender and traditional bullying relationship

Table 1. Mean, Standard Deviations and Correlation Coefficients of Variables

Female Male
Affective Cognitive
Cyberbullying empathy empathy M SD M SD

Traditional bullying .15*** .14*** .11** 10.14 3.81 11.18 4.28

Cyberbullying .10** .07* 17.37 5.28 18.30 6.27
Affective empathy .42*** 39.77 6.75 33.46 5.45
Cognitive empathy 36.10 5.35 33.46 5.45
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
556 School Psychology International 33(5)

(z ¼ 2.02, p < .01). Considering that the sample was not normal, bootstrapping was
used. The estimates and 95% bias corrected and accelerated confidence intervals
(BCas) which were based on 5000 bootstrap samples were illustrated in Table 2.
When the 95% BCa interval did not contain a zero, it directed a significant result
(Preacher & Hayes, 2008). The BCa 95% CI was between .0132 and .0984 for the
total indirect effect and BCa 95% CI was between .0006 and .0824. Therefore, since
these intervals did not contain a zero, both the combined effects of affective and
cognitive empathy and unique effect of affective empathy mediated the gender and
traditional bullying relationship.
The second mediation analysis also demonstrated that the total indirect effect of
gender on cyberbullying through two mediators (affective and cognitive empathy)
was significant (z ¼ 2.21, p < .05). The BCa 95% CI was between .0030 and .0336
(Table 3) and it did not contain a zero which pointed out that the combined effect
of affective and cognitive empathy mediated the gender and cyberbullying relation-
ship. However, none of the specific indirect effects was found as significant in
mediating the gender and cyberbullying relationship.

Discussion
This study endeavored to uncover the reasons for gender differences in bullying
behavior. The present study examined the mediator role of empathy level with its
two components—affective and cognitive—in explaining the differences between
males’ and females’ bullying experiences in both physical and cyber environments.
As expected, males tended to bully others more than females did because males
were seen to be less empathetic than females. The results suggested that the com-
bined effect of affective and cognitive empathy mediated the gender and traditional
bullying relationship as well as the specific effect of affective empathy. Affective
empathy mediated the gender and traditional bullying relationship even after the
effect of cognitive empathy was controlled; however, only the total indirect effect of

Table 2. Mediation of the Effect of Gender on Traditional Bullying through Affective and
Cognitive Empathy

Bootstrapping

Product of coefficients BCa 95% CI

Mediators Point estimate SE Z Lower Upper

Total .0532 .0186 2.8551** .0132 .0984

Affective empathy .0390 .0193 2.0253* .0006 .0824
Cognitive empathy .0142 .0108 1.3108 .0067 .0419
Note. BCa, bias corrected and accelerated; 5000 bootstrap samples;
R2 ¼ .02.
*p < .05; **p < .01.
Topcu and Erdur-Baker 557

Table 3. Mediation of the Effect of Gender on Cyber Bullying through Affective and
Cognitive Empathy

Bootstrapping

Product of coefficients BCa 95% CI

Mediators Point estimate SE Z Lower Upper

Total .0170 .0077 2.2151* .0030 .0336

Affective empathy .0137 .0080 1.7079 .0010 .0302
Cognitive empathy .0033 .0045 .7489 .0049 .0129
Notes. BCa, bias corrected and accelerated; 5000 bootstrap samples;
R2 ¼ .01.
*p < .05.

affective and cognitive empathy was found as mediating the cyberbullying and
gender relationship.
As a contribution to the literature, the present study replicated the findings of
studies which found that bullies differ in their empathy levels with regard to gender,
and empathy functions as a preventive factor (Ang & Goh, 2010; Jolliffe &
Farrington, 2006a, 2011). These findings implied that the risk factor for engaging
in bullying was not due to being a male or a female; but, being less empathetic than
others put a child in a risky situation for engaging in bullying. As a practical
implication, empathy training which aims to increase affective and cognitive empa-
thy should be integrated into bullying prevention and intervention programs for
physical settings at schools by psychological service providers. When males’ lower
levels of empathy in both of the components are considered, offering empathy
training to males would be especially helpful. Kowalski, Morgan, and Limber
(2012) have suggested using different prevention and intervention strategies for
males and females tuned to the special needs of each gender. To fight against
cyberbullying, intervention programs should place greater emphasis on increasing
both affective and cognitive empathy as findings suggest that their combined effect
mediates the relationship between gender and cyberbullying. One critical recom-
mendation to psychology practitioners in schools is to emphasize the increase in
affective empathy while working to prevent traditional bullying—because a defi-
ciency in affective empathy has a unique role in leading to traditional bullying.
Since the literature lacks effective prevention and intervention programs for
handling cyberbullying (Von Marees & Petermann, 2012), researchers have pro-
posed innovative approaches (such as Quality Circles; Paul, Smith, & Blumberg,
2012) to understand cyberbullying and deal with it. Based on these proposals, it is
clear that the roles of school administrators, teachers, and psychological service
providers are crucial in implementing prevention and intervention strategies
(Cassidy, Brown, & Jackson, 2012).
This study also revealed an interesting finding substantiating evidence for the
nature of traditional and cyberbullying. The pattern of the mediator role of
558 School Psychology International 33(5)

affective and cognitive empathy was not the same for traditional and cyberbullying.
Although both of the components of empathy worked as a mediator when they
were taken as a set for both traditional and cyberbullying, affective empathy was
found as a specific mediator for the relationship between gender and traditional
bullying. The specific indirect effect of cognitive empathy was found not to be a
mediator of the relationship between gender and both types of bullying. As it is
widely acknowledged, there is an established relationship between traditional and
cyberbullying (Dempsey, Sulkowski, Nichols, & Storch, 2009; Sontag, Clemans,
Graber, & Lyndon, 2011); however, there are still studies arguing that traditional
and cyberbullying should be considered independently because of the unique char-
acteristics of cyberspace (Smith et al., 2008). The nonparallel results of the present
study for cyberbullying and traditional bullying support the latter contention and
suggests that future research should investigate the causes for this difference. While
the present study does not have empirical evidence to shed light on this finding, it
can be speculated that empathy and its presentation are highly related to experien-
cing the other person’s reactions— and in the case of bullying, it means receiving
feedback from the victim. At this point, cyberspace does not consistently provide
this opportunity to the bully.
The present study has some limitations, and while interpreting the results these
limitations should be taken into account. Although the mediation analyses are
statistically significant, the effect sizes are small, which results in problems in
terms of practical significance. One of the most important limitations is the
usage of self-report measurement tools which always incorporate the problem of
social desirability. In order to overcome this weakness, multiple sources (e.g.,
parent, teacher, peer reports) should be used to obtain more reliable information
about the empathy levels and bullying behaviors of adolescents. Another limitation
of the study comes from the sample selection strategy which was based on con-
venience sampling, meaning that the results of this study cannot be generalized.
Beside the aforementioned limitations, to the best of our knowledge, the present
study has been the first empirical research study which has attempted to analyse the
role of empathy in clarifying the gender difference in both cyberbullying and trad-
itional bullying of adolescents in one study.

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Çiğdem Topcu is a Research Assistant at the Psychological Counseling Guidance

Program at the Department of Educational Sciences, Middle East Technical
University, Ankara, Turkey, where she is a doctoral candidate. Her research inter-
ests are peer bullying, school violence, emotion regulation, empathy, and close
relationships. Address: Psychological Counseling and Guidance Program,
Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Middle East
Technical University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey. Email: [email protected]

Özgür Erdur-Baker is an Associate Professor of Psychological Counseling and

Guidance at Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She earned her doctoral
degree in counseling psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her
research interests include the counseling process and outcome studies, gender
and culture sensitive counseling, trauma psychology, emotion regulation, and
peer bullying. Address: Psychological Counseling and Guidance Program,
Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Middle East
Technical University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey. Email: [email protected]