By Frederick L. Coolidge and Jenna Nethercutt

Can Personality and Neuropsychological Assessment Help Address Bullying?

Recent media portrayals of the harsh realities of bullying, like the controversial television series Adolescence, have driven conversations surrounding bullying behavior and its consequences to the mainstream once again. Beginning in the late 1990s, anti-bullying campaigns aimed to create greater awareness regarding the harms of bullying. However, despite these efforts, bullying behavior remains highly prevalent. In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics estimated that approximately one out of every five students (19 percent) reported being bullied, and 41 percent of them believed that the bullying would occur again. In the past, bullies and their interactions with victims were limited to school and other public settings. Now, with the help of smartphones and social media, bullying is not confined to in-person interactions, and students may be subject to bullying at all times. Finding viable solutions to address bullying behavior continues to be a focal point of psychology research.

Psychological Theories of Bullying

Understanding how and why bullying behavior occurs seems to, at least in part, require an examination of adolescent brain development. The brain’s frontal lobes are responsible for critical executive functions like decision-making, impulse control, and attention. The frontal lobes are also thought to regulate social understanding by promoting appropriate social behavior and inhibiting inappropriate and irrelevant behavior. If bullies have insufficiently functioning frontal lobes, this may help explain why bullies experience difficulty following directions, obeying authority figures, and inhibiting aggressive and inappropriate behaviors. This idea has been further articulated in research concerning juvenile delinquents, a group with similar problems as bullies, who were found to have significantly more executive function deficits than non-delinquents. Additionally, lower IQ and poor Theory of Mind in early childhood have been associated with persistent bullying behaviors and conduct problems.

Another theoretical perspective of bullying behavior offered is the presence of psychological disturbances and neuropsychological dysfunction. Research has demonstrated a greater incidence of psychiatric symptoms and psychopathology in children who bully compared to other children, including conduct disorder traits (sometimes heralding adult antisocial traits and hyperactivity), while victims experience increased levels of depression and anxiety.

Personality and Neuropsychological Correlates of Bullying

In our empirical study of 41 middle school children who had been identified as bullies by school counselors on more than one occasion, we sought to examine associations between bullying behavior and some DSM clinical syndromes and traits, personality disorders, and neurocognitive dysfunction (Coolidge and colleagues, 2004).

We assessed them and a control group with the 200-item, parent-as-respondent Coolidge Personality and Neuropsychological Inventory (CPNI; Coolidge and colleagues, 2002). The bullying group was found to have significantly greater levels of conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and ADHD compared to the controls. Additionally, the bullying group had significantly more depressive symptoms. Concerning the personality disorders, only the Passive-Aggressive Scale was significantly elevated, which may not be surprising as its items measure resistance to authority figures, sullenness, argumentativeness, and irritability. As expected, there were significantly more executive function deficits, which included decision-making difficulties, poor planning and organization, and learning, reading, memory, and concentration problems. Lastly, the Dangerousness, Aggression, Emotional Lability, and Disinhibition scales were also elevated in the bullying group.

Final Thoughts

The implications of our study and other studies’ results suggest that the short-term psychotherapeutic interventions traditionally used for bullying behavior may not be an appropriate approach given the highly complex nature of treating personality traits and neurocognitive functions in children. Further, Wen and colleagues (2023) reported a significant positive association between relational bullying (harming and demeaning behavior to the victims’ peers) and better executive functions, while they did find poorer executive functions with bullies who physically harmed, intimidated, or threatened their victims directly. These differences in results further indicate diversity and subtypes amongst bullies and the necessity for treatment approaches that address the specific psychopathological and neuropsychological needs on an individual basis. Additional research into bullying behavior and its personality and neuropsychological functions is warranted and may help generate the kind of change needed to reduce, or at least ameliorate, bullying.