The role of emotional processes in (cyber)bullying

In the chapter, we review some studies investigating the role of emotions in (cyber)bullying. First, we focus on the role of emotion perception abilities, which represent the first step of the SIP model, and then we will consider the effect of emotionality and the emotion regulation processes that can affect what emotion cues are noticed and how they are interpreted. This section will conclude with some studies on the happy victimizer paradigm, which investigate how bullies and victims attribute emotions to hypothetical moral transgressors, and, indirectly, to hypothetical victims. Second, we consider studies on empathy and callous-unemotional traits in order to explore (cyber)bullies’ subjective dispositions in relation to others’ emotions. Finally, we review some studies on emotional intelligence that try to explore whether (cyber)bullies perceive themselves as able to handle both their own and others’ emotions. We particularly focus on preadolescence and middle school (grades 6 to 8).