Humour styles and bullying in schools

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.

本研究立足于政府推动改善校园内儿童社会情感福祉的政策背景，尤其是针对校园欺凌问题，旨在探究儿童运用幽默的相关核心议题。
本研究的核心目标为采用短期纵向研究设计，评估四种幽默风格（humour styles）与校园欺凌卷入行为之间的关联。其中两种幽默风格属于适应性类型，即亲和型（affiliative）与自我提升型（self-enhancing）；另外两种则属于非适应性类型，即攻击性（aggressive）与自我挫败型（self-defeating）。
本研究将选取11至13岁（即英国学制的7年级与8年级）的儿童作为被试，共计900名，要求他们以班级为单位，在学年初与学年末完成相关测评工具。测评工具包含同伴提名/评定量表与自陈问卷，用于评估言语欺凌、肢体欺凌、间接欺凌及同伴受害情况，同时测量同伴接纳度、好友数量、幽默风格、抑郁症状、孤独感与自尊水平。
本研究假设，针对特定欺凌角色而言，幽默既是欺凌相关行为的风险因素，同时也是心理抗逆因素。此外，部分幽默风格可作为同伴受害对心理福祉影响的中介变量，而其余幽默风格则可能对该影响起到调节作用。