Cognitive and affective empathy predict young children's involvement in bullying one year later

Abstract Background Bullying is a prevalent phenomenon that can have an array of negative impacts on both victims' and perpetrators' long‐term health and wellbeing. Despite the widespread assumption that empathy should be a key target for anti‐bullying interventions, research examining this relationship is surprisingly scarce, and the evidence base informing the implementation of empathy‐focused interventions remains in its infancy. Using data from the Stand Together trial, we examined how affective and cognitive empathy predict the status of victim, bully, and bully‐victim. Methods We used a longitudinal trial with data collected in 2021 and 2022 from 4660 UK primary school children aged 6–11 years, including measures of empathy, victimisation, and involvement in bullying. We used propensity score matching and multinomial logistic regression to explore how children's self‐reported empathy towards victims of bullying at baseline predicted their role in bullying at 1‐year follow‐up. Results Consistent with existing literature, we found that low affective empathy was a significant predictor of bullying perpetration at follow‐up (Odds Ratios (OR) = 0.60, 95% CI [0.45, 0.81], p < 0.001), but so was low cognitive empathy (OR = 0.73, 95% CI [0.56, 0.95], p < 0.001). We also found that both high affective (OR = 1.34, 95% CI [1.23, 1.47], p < 0.001) and cognitive (OR = 1.33, 95% CI [1.23, 1.44], p < 0.001) empathy predicted later victimisation. Conclusion The findings identify high empathy as a new risk factor for peer victimisation and confirm the role of low empathy as a predictor of later bullying perpetration. We discuss how these findings can inform the strategic integration of empathy training to enhance the effectiveness of bullying prevention efforts.