(PS4-B40) Intentional Kindness: Exploring a Pathway to Wellbeing for Students Involved in Bullying

Improving children’s emotional well-being in school is significantly important given the well-established association between higher emotional well-being with lower aggression and violence in school (Gómez-Leal et al., 2022; Malti, 2020). While well-being includes multiple facets related to resilience, optimism, benevolent experiences, and more subjective areas, most research agrees that the lack of depressive and anxious symptoms is one important factor of overall well-being (Doll, 2008). Additionally, recent research has begun to explore restorative kindness-focused interventions to improve positive student experiences and reduce school violence instead of punitive, school wide anti-bullying programs (Binfet & Gaertner, 2015). Further, increased emotional well-being in children and adolescents promotes optimal development as it is associated with a variety of positive outcomes including increased positive relationships, academic success, and happiness in adulthood (Hoyt et al., 2012). We aim to explore whether increases in self-perceived kindness in school-age youth can increase student well-being and subsequently lead to less aggression and violence in schools. 

This study tested two research questions: 1) Is there a significant difference in self-perceived kindness across bullying roles? and 2) Does self-perceived kindness predict emotional well-being among students in each bullying role? Participants included 98 students referred to a Tier-III, cognitive-behavioral intervention for bullying involvement (Mage = 11.36; 65% male; 46% White). Self-perceived kindness was measured with the Kindness and Bravery Scale (Swearer & Germanotta, 2017). Bullying roles were determined with the Bully Survey (Swearer, 2001) where students were asked about their experiences witnessing bullying, being bullied, and bullying others. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1978) and anxious symptoms were measured with the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC; March & Parker, 2004). 

Although differences in average self-perceived kindness across bullying roles were observed, a one-way ANOVA revealed these differences were not statistically significant. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to test whether self-perceived kindness significantly predicted depressive and anxious symptoms by bullying role, with multiple significant results found. For bully-victims, self-perceived kindness predicted their total CDI score (R2 = .585, β = -0.696, p = .006), negative mood (R2 = .509, β = -0.661, p = .013), interpersonal problems (R2 = .531, β = -0.764, p = .005), and negative self-esteem (R2 = .545, β = -0.519, p = .034). For bully-victim-bystanders, kindness predicted interpersonal problems (R2 = .214, β = -0.513, p = .048) and harm avoidance (R2 = .399, β = 0.672, p = .007). Several other bullying roles were approaching significance for kindness predicting harm avoidance; therefore, increased power might affect the results following additional data collection. Implications for the integration of kindness-based cognitive-behavioral approaches for intervention and prevention efforts with youth involved in the bullying dynamic will be discussed.