Date of Award
Fall 12-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department/Program
Forensic Psychology
Language
English
First Advisor or Mentor
Diana M. Falkenbach
Second Reader
Maureen Allwood
Third Advisor
Sean Murphy
Abstract
Bullying is a concept mostly investigated in children, teenagers, and adults within the workplace. While there is research on bullying in college in general, gaps in the literature remain considering how personality characteristics in bullies relate directly to psychopathy and specific psychopathy traits. Although the literature suggests bullies have a tendency towards psychopathic traits such as violence, impulsivity, egocentricity, manipulativeness, rule-breaking, and intolerance, researchers have yet to assess the connection between college students who bully and psychopathy. The research on psychopathy suggests that those high on psychopathic traits may be more prone to use bullying as an apathetic means to acquire dominance and influence over others in accordance to self-interest and personal gain. The current study seeks to investigate the relationship between the factors and subscales of psychopathy using the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI-R) with respect to bullying behaviors (i.e., cyber, verbal, and emotional/relational bullying) and status (i.e., bully, victim, and bystander) in a sample of university students. Scores on bullying items are expected to have a positive correlation with PPI-R total scores and scores on the three factors, whereas victim and bystander responses are expected to have negative correlations. In addition, verbal, emotional/relational, and cyber bullying responses are expected to be positively associated with the psychopathic subscales and the three factors. Overall, the results provide continued support for the existence of psychopathy variants in college samples. All bullying behavior subtypes were associated with the three factors of psychopathy. Being a victim and bystander was associated with Self-Centered Impulsivity. This study aims to raise awareness of bullying and subclinical psychopathy within college settings, as it offers statistical evidence of the two.
Recommended Citation
Streng, Nascha, "The Bully and the Beast: Correlations between Psychopathic Traits and Bullying in a Sample of University Students" (2018). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/jj_etds/97