Bullying as a group behaviour

We know from evidence and research that bullying tends to be a group behaviour, with several different roles that can be involved. This page will explore those roles and how they can change.

Research undertaken in Finland by Christina Salmivalli (1996) gave us a greater understanding of the roles involved in bullying. It showed that the traditional view of bullying where there is a ‘victim’ and a ‘bully’ was much more complicated, and in fact bullying rarely takes place between a 'victim' and a 'bully' alone: it tends to be a group behaviour. Others can have a significant influence on the outcomes of behaviours among children and young people intentionally or otherwise.

In Christina Salmivalli’s groundbreaking work, she identifies a number of roles that children play in a bullying scenario:

Ringleader - Initiating and leading the bullying but not always the person ‘doing’ the bullying.
Target - The person at whom the bullying is aimed.
Assistant - Actively involved in ‘doing’ the bullying but not leading it
Reinforcer - Supports the bullying, might laugh or encourage other people to ‘collude’
Defender - Stands up for someone being bullied. Knows that bullying is wrong and feels confident enough to do something about it. This might involve talking to an adult.
Outsider/Bystander - Ignores any bullying and doesn’t want to get involved.

These roles are constantly shifting depending on who is present and the dynamics in the group.

Watch the video below to find out more about these roles, and how understanding them can help to better prevent and respond to bullying:

This video can be shared with children and young people, or adult staff, to help them understand these roles and the impact they can have. We have also created resources to explore these roles with young people: scroll to the bottom of this page to view and download them. Resources include:

Assembly plans for both primary and secondary school ages
Lesson plans for both primary and secondary school ages
'The incident at the school date' activity and discussion starter - which could be used with young people or adults
Resources and research around bystanders

Find out more about bystanders here.

Take part in our free online CPD training about the definition of bullying to find out more here.