Humour styles and bullying in schools, 2011-2013

Within the context of the government drive to address children's social and emotional well-being at school, particularly the problem of bullying in schools, the proposed research aims to address certain key questions about how children use humour. The main aim of the research is to assess the relationships between four humour styles and involvement in school bullying using a short-term longitudinal design. Two humour styles are adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two are maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating). Children aged 11-13 years (years 7 and 8) will complete the measures on a whole class basis at the beginning and end of a school year (N = 900). The measures will include a peer nomination/rating inventory and self-report questionnaires to assess: verbal, physical and indirect bullying and peer victimisation, peer acceptance, number of friends, humour styles, depression, loneliness, and self-esteem. We propose that humour acts as both a risk and resilience factor in relation to certain bullying roles. Furthermore, certain humour styles may act as mediators of the effects of peer victimisation on psychological wellbeing, while others may moderate such effects