انتقام اغوا کننده است، اگر شیرین نباشد: چرا دوستان برای تلاش های پیشگیری اهمیت دارد

A surprising omission of much research on bullying is the role of retaliation, a common response to bullying that predicts increased victimization. Retaliation appears to be a ubiquitous feature of human society and may be used to justify bullying. Yet bullying evaluations rarely measure whether programs have reduced retaliation. This paper examines the utility of multiple theoretical frames for understanding the implications of retaliation for bullying prevention. It summarizes evolutionary, cultural, and developmental affordances, and presents a recursive model of bystander—friend reciprocity. The authors argue that adolescents influence retaliation in their friends by contributing to emotion regulation, advising responses to bullying, and by serving as mediators or proxy retaliators. The help they give friends is posited to engender powerful feelings of pride and other identity-relevant feelings that encourage future assistance, and elicit reciprocal feelings of obligation and influence. Implications of the model for prevention efforts are detailed.

Advances in understanding bullying and aggression have been limited by the existence of parallel tracks in the research. Until Olweus (1991) helped focus attention on bullying, most developmental research and prevention efforts were based on social cognitive deficit models of aggression (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Bullying research has brought a much-needed focus on maladaptive relationships (Pepler, Craig, & O'Connell, 1999) and the social ecology (Swearer & Espelage, 2004). Yet research on retaliation has usually been confined to describing victims' actions, without considering contributing mechanisms. In order to understand the role of retaliation in bullying relationships and adolescent development, we start with models of aggression that include both bullying and retaliation.

Human evolutionary history affords retaliatory behaviors that may not be personally beneficial for the actor. Neural circuitry, expectations of emotional benefits, and cultural norms foster revenge-seeking, conflict escalation, and the lateral transmission of aggression throughout peer groups. According to our model, we cannot simply address retaliation as the result of poor socialization or emotion regulation deficits. Sometime retaliation is the product of highly regulated behavior, and sometimes it is undertaken as a duty—as one would expect of well-socialized community members. We have suggested neglected areas of research and theory that may strengthen prevention strategies in adolescence (Yeager et al., 2014). Bullying intervention efforts may be improved by research and practice that integrates three theoretical perspectives related to retaliation and positive reciprocity. First, new models of aggression (Howard, 2011) may enable greater precision in identifying goals underlying retaliation and the impact on subsequent victimization. Second, developmental models of cultural differences in reciprocity norms (McCullough et al., 2013) may suggest more effective alternatives to retaliation. Third, addressing the implications of identity formation for both victim and bystander responses may broadly support positive outcomes.