Objective: The professional literature is replete with discussion of teasing and bullying in children; however, conceptualization of the processes involved remains underdeveloped. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explicate the theoretical model that supports development of the Child-Adolescent Teasing Scale (CATS).
Content: The terms "teasing" and "bullying" frequently are interchanged or are used to represent two ends of a continuum --ranging from light-hearted interchanges to violent altercations. In our model, teasing refers to dynamic social interactions comprised of a set of verbal and/or non-verbal behaviors occurring among peers, that is humorous and playful on one level but that may be annoying to the target child on another level. Bullying refers to repetitive persistent patterns of verbal and/or non-verbal behaviors directed by one or more children toward another child that are intended to deliberately inflict physical, verbal, or emotional abuse. A recipient's response depends upon his or her pre-existing relationship with the instigator and subsequent interpretation of the instigator's behavior. The instigator's rejoinder is then formulated on the basis of that response, and so on. A four-quadrant model with the instigator's intent and the recipient's reception of the message as the axes depicts the relationship between teasing and bullying.
Summary and Implications: The interplay of these two parameters--the instigator's intent and the recipient's response-- determines the outcomes of teasing/bullying interactions. Ideally, children who are at risk for chronic teasing would be screened and identified pre-clinically, that is, during that period of time when the child is beginning to be victimized but before the associated psychological or physical sequelae become overt.
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