Bullying and social goal‐setting in youth: A meta‐analysis

Abstract Bullying is a serious concern worldwide and may compromise development for all involved. Growing evidence suggests that bullying may be viewed as a goal‐oriented strategy to achieve prestige and power or as a form of proactive aggression serving personal goals. The current paper reports a meta‐analysis of studies examining social goals‐bullying associations in youth. In addition to reporting an overall weighted‐average effect size, we compared the relative strength of associations of specific goals (status/dominance vs. antisocial/prosocial) with bullying, and examined goal type (situation‐specific vs. global), gender, and age as potential moderators. A thorough literature search identified 45 eligible effect sizes from 16 independent samples (14 sources). On average, bullying behavior was related significantly to social goal setting. Specifically, youth who displayed more bullying behavior were more likely to endorse status/power goals ( r = .16, 95% CI [.11, .21]) and antisocial goals ( r = .27, 95% CI [.04, .48]) and to disregard prosocial goals ( r = −.10, 95% CI [−.19, −.02]) than their peers who displayed less bullying behavior. None of the included moderators related to differences in the weighted average effect size. The findings support conceptualization of bullying as instrumental behavior aimed at achieving personal goals. They also advance the understanding of motivations for bullying by indicating that, for example, goals for status/power among peers and goals of antisocial nature (e.g., revenge goals) are both related to the risk of bullying. Implications for basic research and bullying interventions are discussed.