The association between empathy development and bullying behavior in children and early adolescents

The sample consists of 838 children recruited from 34 third- to fifth-grade classrooms of 11 elementary schools. In the first session all children in each classroom individually completed questionnaires simultaneously on netbook computers. Questionnaires included self- and peer reports about bullying and victimisation, empathy, dehumanisation, moral disengagement and other. For the second session 8 children from each session 1 classroom were selected based on their bullying and victimization scores. Using netbooks, the children completed the measures of Session 1, but this time the items were specified for the target. That is, all measures were adapted so that all participants answered each item seven times, specified for each of the seven other children in their group. The data of this dataset will become open access from 01-01-2037