The aim of this study was to investigate whether, and how, extreme environmental influence, such as a war situation, can affect the development of children's aggressive and prosocial behaviour. A combined longitudinal–cross‐sectional design was used in the study. Subjects were preschool children whose behaviour was rated on the Children's Aggressive and Prosocial Behaviour Rating Scale (Žužul, Keresteš and Vlahović‐štetić, 1990) by their teachers. At the beginning of 1991 (before the war in Croatia started) the behaviour of two groups of children (one five years old and one six years old) was assessed. One year later, the younger group was assessed again. Another group of five‐year‐old children was also included and rated at the same time. Data were analysed according to age, sex and the time of measurements. The analyses of longitudinal data and cross‐sectional comparisons support the conclusion that the war had a strong impact on the development of prosocial behaviour. In this period, children's prosocial behaviour had increased, while aggressive behaviour had not changed. Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes and the effects of war on children's behaviour.
Objective -The aims of this study were to explore bystander roles based on the Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ) and to determine the contribution of affective empathy and moral disengagement in explaining bystander roles in bullying. Methods -The sample included 325 elementary school students aged 11-16 years old. Students' involvement in different bystander roles was assessed by subscales adapted from the PRQ, and their individual characteristics were measured by the Emotional Empathy Scale and the adapted version of the Moral Disengagement Scale. Results -The factor analysis revealed a five-factor structure of bystander role scales (assistant, reinforcer, defender, aggressive defender and outsider). The Outsider scale did not show satisfactory reliability. Boys had significantly higher scores on assisting the bully, whereas girls had significantly higher scores on defending the victim. Reinforcing the bully increased with students' age, while defending the victim decreased with age. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for the effects of bystanders' gender and age, emotional empathy had significant positive effects on defender and aggressive defender roles, and a significant negative effect on the reinforcer role. Moral disengagement was a significant positive predictor of assistant, reinforcer and aggressive defender roles, and a negative predictor of the defender role. Conclusion -Bystanders' affective empathy and moral disengagement are important determinants of their behaviour in bullying situations. The validity of differentiating between the roles of assertive and aggressive defenders is confirmed.
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