Sofia Guevara
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Valerie Umscheid
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program:
Authors: Sofia Guevara
Session: Session 4: 1:40 pm – 2:30 pm
Poster: 63
Abstract
Prior research has shown that children view villains to be more likely to have a propensity for inner goodness than heroes are to have inner badness (Umschied et al., 2023). However, little is known about how children conceptualize other children who engage in such aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, are aggressive children conceptualized as having the potential for inner goodness inwardly good, like the villains, and does this propensity depend on the reason a particular child has for engaging in aggressive behavior? To answer this question, we interviewed children, ages 7-13, on Zoom about their opinions on how inwardly good or bad a physically aggressive fictional peer is, with reasons for bullying varying across characters. For the purposes of this poster, I chose to focus on characters who were described as either having something bad going on at home or as not being a nice kid and wanting to be mean. The results aren’t finalized yet, but based on what we have collected, we have found that the physically aggressive child with something bad at home is perceived as being more inwardly good than the child who is described as not a nice kid who wants to be mean. By replacing villains with more human-like characters, this study adds more nuance to our current understanding of how children conceptualize antisocial agents. Such findings will aid in our understanding of how children process bullying, along with approaches teachers and other caregivers could take to have more effective and impactful conversations with children about peer-to-peer bullying.
