Exploring norms of prosocial and aggressive behavior at school

Abstract

Prosocial and aggressive behaviours at school fundamentally determine students’ well-being and school performance. Regarding the issue of school aggression and bullying, researches focus mainly on its frequency, but students' perceptions of it can also be important. Furthermore, this perception may be influenced by how they view their peers' attitudes toward different behaviors (Stormshak, et al., 1999). The purpose of this study is to explore the prevalence of prosocial and aggressive behaviours at school, and to examine the acceptance of these behaviours by students individually and how their peers perceive them, that is, the accepted norms in a given group. A total of 122 primary and secondary school students (mean age = 14,00, SD = 1.23) were examined in this study, and a standardized questionnaire was used for this purpose (Szabó & Labancz, 2015). According to our findings, prosocial behaviours occur more frequently in school than aggressive behaviors, the former being more strongly supported by students in their personal attitudes, while the latter are condemned. However, for both form of behaviors, the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance has emerged, meaning that students believe that their peers are more likely to support aggressive behaviors and support prosocial behaviours less, than themselves. Based on our results, it appears that the tools developed will be applicable to both prevention and intervention in the work of school psychologists.