Through structural equation modeling, this study tested a path of relations in which different levels of empathic responsiveness were posited to be differently associated to bullying and defending behavior. Three hundred and eighteen Italian adolescents (142 girls and 176 boys; mean age = 13.2 years) completed the Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index [Davis, 1983] for empathy and the Participant role scales [Salmivalli et al., 1996] for bullying and defending behavior. The results revealed that the model fitted the data adequately, but only in the case of boys. As hypothesized, low levels of empathic responsiveness were associated to students' involvement in bullying others. In contrast, empathy was positively associated with actively helping victimized schoolmates. However, the estimates algorithm did not reach convergence with girls' data. The current findings confirm and extend the literature on the relation between empathy, prosociality and aggressive behavior. Educational implications are also discussed.

The literature on participant roles in bullying lacks empirical studies that seek to explain what differentiates defenders from outsiders (or passive bystanders). The present study tested a conceptual model in which two personal characteristics of early adolescent students (empathy and perceived social self‐efficacy) were considered as possible determinants of their participant behavior in bullying episodes. A total of 294 Italian early adolescents (mean age=13.3 years, range: 12–14) participated in the study. The structural equation modeling showed that high levels of empathic responsiveness were positively associated with both active defending and passive bystanding behavior, as assessed through peer nominations. In contrast, high levels of social self‐efficacy were associated with helping behavior, whereas low levels of social self‐efficacy were associated with passive bystanding behavior. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for researchers and educational practitioners.

A survey in the United States revealed that an alarmingly large percentage of university psychologists admitted having used questionable research practices that can contaminate the research literature with false positive and biased findings. We conducted a replication of this study among Italian research psychologists to investigate whether these findings generalize to other countries. All the original materials were translated into Italian, and members of the Italian Association of Psychology were invited to participate via an online survey. The percentages of Italian psychologists who admitted to having used ten questionable research practices were similar to the results obtained in the United States although there were small but significant differences in self-admission rates for some QRPs. Nearly all researchers (88%) admitted using at least one of the practices, and researchers generally considered a practice possibly defensible if they admitted using it, but Italian researchers were much less likely than US researchers to consider a practice defensible. Participants’ estimates of the percentage of researchers who have used these practices were greater than the self-admission rates, and participants estimated that researchers would be unlikely to admit it. In written responses, participants argued that some of these practices are not questionable and they have used some practices because reviewers and journals demand it. The similarity of results obtained in the United States, this study, and a related study conducted in Germany suggest that adoption of these practices is an international phenomenon and is likely due to systemic features of the international research and publication processes.

The present study examined the validity of the Basic Empathy Scale (BES) [Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006a). Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 589–611; Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006b). Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying. Aggressive Behavior, 32(6), 540–550.] and found further evidence for the scale's good psychometric properties. The BES was administered to a sample of 655 Italian adolescents to examine the generalizability and reliability of its factor structure. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed a reasonable data fit with the two hypothesized BES domains of Cognitive Empathy and Affective Empathy. Scale reliability was also satisfactory, showing good internal consistency. Lastly, BES scores were significantly associated with other empathy questionnaire scores (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and with a scale measuring prosocial behavior. Research and practice implications are discussed.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is a standardized self-report measure of disposition to empathic responsiveness for the general adult population (the domain for which it was developed), and for the general adolescent population. The IRI has a number of problems, however, including some uncertainty about its factor structure, low reliabilities, and poor readability of some items for people with limited literacy skills. To address these issues, we constructed an abbreviated form of the index, the Brief IRI (B-IRI). Three studies demonstrated that this 16-item B-IRI has a clear and coherent factor structure, adequate internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender and age, and theoretically meaningful associations with a range of external criteria that support its construct validity. The B-IRI substantially preserves the psychometric properties of the long form, and we recommend its use in all research settings.