Predicting bullying at schools based on basic psychological needs, moral identity, and personality traits: The mediating role of social perspective-taking

This research aimed to predict bullying in schools based on basic psychological needs, moral identity, and personality traits concerning the mediating role of social perspective-taking. 

The statistical population of this descriptive and correlative study included all secondary high school students of Bahar city- Iran, in the 2020-2021 academic year. The sample size was 390 people selected by the convenient sampling method. The instruments included the scales of Bullying (Illinois, 2001), Basic Psychological Needs (Guardia et al., 2000), Moral Identity (Aquino and Reed, 2002), and the short form of the NEO Personality questionnaire (McCrae and Costa, 1998), and Social Perspective-taking (Mohagheghi et al., 2015). Data were analyzed by path analysis using SPSS-25 and LISREL software. 

We revealed that the proposed model fits well with the experimental data (GFI= 0.96, IFI= 0.97, CFI= 0.98). Also, social perspective-taking in the relationship between bullying and competency (Z= -2.01, P< 0.05), relationship (Z= -4.61, P< 0.01), moral identity (Z= -5.39, P< 0.01), neuroticism (Z= 2.53, P< 0.05), agreeableness (Z= -5.81, P< 0.01), and conscientiousness (Z= -4.09, P< 0.01) has a significant mediating role. 

Based on the findings, the lack of satisfaction of basic needs such as competency and communication, weak moral identity, low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, high levels of neuroticism, and low social perspective-taking predicts and increases the possibility of bullying in schools by students.