In contrast to the popular stereotype and research tradition of the ‘oafish’ bully lacking in social skills and understanding, the bully may be a cold, manipulative expert in social situations, organizing gangs and using subtle, indirect methods. Performance on a set of stories designed to assess understanding of cognitions and emotions was investigated in 193 7‐10‐year‐olds in relation to role in bullying. Ringleader bullies scored higher than ‘follower’ bullies (those who helped or supported the bully), victims and defenders of the victim. Results are discussed in terms of the need for further research into cognitive skills and emotion understanding in children who bully, the possible developmental pathway of social cognition in bullying and important implications for intervention strategies.

Bullying in schools has been found to be widespread. The popular stereotype of a bully, supported by theories based on the social skills deficit model, is of a powerful but 'oafish' person with little understanding of others. In this article, we trace the origin of this view, and present an alternative view: that some bullies, at least, will need good social cognition and theory of mind skills in order to manipulate and organise others, inflicting suffering in subtle and damaging ways while avoiding detection themselves. Such skills, although likely to be utilised in all bullying, may be particularly useful for ringleader bullies and in the indirect forms of bullying which are more common between girls. Suggestions for further research in this area are made, and implications for antibullying work briefly discussed.

Recent years have seen a shift in bullying research from a dyadic focus on the characteristics of the Bully and the Victim to the recognition of bullying as a whole group process, with the majority of children playing some kind of role. This study uses a shortened adaptation of the Participant Role Scale approach [Salmivalli et al. 1996. Aggr Behav 22:1–15] to identify these roles in 193 children aged 7 to 10 years. Four main factors were identified, indicating that the adapted scale remains a reliable way of distinguishing the Victim, Defender of the victim, and Outsider roles both from each other and from roles involved in bullying others. Progress in the measurement of bullying as a group process and the success of intervention strategies may depend on finding clearer distinctions between ringleader Bullies and the children that help them or reinforce their behavior, using the Participant Role Scale approach to mobilize peer pressure and isolate ringleaders from their social support. Aggr. Behav. 25:97–111, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

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Given the potential of modern warning technology to save lives, discovering whether it is possible to craft mobile alerts for imminent events in a way that reduces people's tendency to seek and confirm information before initiating protective action is essential. The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of designing messages for mobile devices, such as Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) messages, to minimize action delay. The impact of messages with varied amounts of information on respondents' understanding, believing, personalizing, deciding, and intended milling was used to test Emergent Norm Theory, using quantitative and qualitative methods. Relative to shorter messages, longer public warning messages reduced people's inclination to search for and confirm information, thereby shortening warning response delay. The Emergent Norm Theory used herein is broader in application than the context-specific models provided by leading warning scholars to date and yields deeper understanding about how people respond to warnings.

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide risk communicators with the opportunity to quickly reach their constituents at the time of an emerging infectious disease. On these platforms, messages gain exposure through message passing (called "sharing" on Facebook and "retweeting" on Twitter). This raises the question of how to optimize risk messages for diffusion across networks and, as a result, increase message exposure. In this study we add to this growing body of research by identifying message-level strategies to increase message passing during high-ambiguity events. In addition, we draw on the extended parallel process model to examine how threat and efficacy information influence the passing of Zika risk messages. In August 2016, we collected 1,409 Twitter messages about Zika sent by U.S. public health agencies' accounts. Using content analysis methods, we identified intrinsic message features and then analyzed the influence of those features, the account sending the message, the network surrounding the account, and the saliency of Zika as a topic, using negative binomial regression. The results suggest that severity and efficacy information increase how frequently messages get passed on to others. Drawing on the results of this study, previous research on message passing, and diffusion theories, we identify a framework for risk communication on social media. This framework includes four key variables that influence message passing and identifies a core set of message strategies, including message timing, to increase exposure to risk messages on social media during high-ambiguity events.

This study investigates how people interpret Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) andTwitter-length messages ('tweets') delivered over mobile devices for an unfamiliar hazard. Specifically, through four (N = 31) focus groups and 31 think-out-loud interviews, participants' understanding of, belief in and personalisation of WEAs and tweets were assessed for a mock improvised nuclear device detonation in a major U.S. metropolitan area. While participants offered a wide variety of interpretations, WEAs and tweets were often deemed confusing, difficult to believe and impersonal. Participants also consistently found WEAs and tweets to be fear inducing and uninformative. The findings compel improvements in the way that WEAs and tweets are currently written, as well as indicate future directions for applied risk and crisis communication theory development.