**2. How prevalent is bullying?**

that of Sharp and Smith [3] that speaks of "peer abuse," that is, social relationships between friends based on power and control roles. This phenomenon is characterized by aggressive behavior repeated over time. Shelley and Swearer [4] underlined that the pioneering contribution of Olweus [5–7] has allowed to define this social problem as a subcategory of interpersonal aggression characterized by intentionality, repetition and an imbalance of power, distinguishing bullying from other forms of violence [8–17]. In detail, its characteristics are

• Intentionality: Aggressive behavior is guided by the need to overwrite the other to the

• Systematicity: Bullying becomes persecutory because it manifests itself systematically at

• Asymmetry of power: To be classified as a bullying phenomenon, the victim is unable to

Bullying has always existed, but was once considered to be a natural manifestation of aggression experienced by young people linked to a process of growth and maturity, but today, it is known as a real social emergency. Bullying comes from a series of factors, such as culture, stereotypes, family, school, social networking, individual characteristics and ways of manag-

Offensive action can be exercised in a variety of ways: through the use of the word (offenses, teasing, threats) by resorting to physical force and contact (in these cases, it is referred to as direct bullying), talking badly about him/her with other comrades (indirect bullying) or excluding the victim from the group using social pain caused by social exclusion [20–23]. The experience of social exclusion is distressing and can induce people to feel strong negative feelings. In fact, the emotion more associated with low perceived relational value, compromised interpersonal relationship or exclusion experience is called "hurt feelings" [19]. Neuroscientists discovered that during the experience of social exclusion, the brain areas involved in this interpersonal condition are similar to those of physical pain [20–27], these results may explain why people report negative feelings and that they are "hurt" when other

The experience of social exclusion, even more bullying, may cause various emotional, psychological and interpersonal consequences. For example, the victim usually appears as an anxious and insecure person who suffers from poor self-esteem and tends to have a negative self-esteem. These kids at school are usually isolated and have few friends inside the classroom. The passive or submissive victim, in particular, seems incapable and insecure to react in the face of insults, has a reactive model of anxious behavior, submissive and associ-

Bully is usually characterized by the use of aggression, which in some cases does not only address mates, but also parents and teachers. It has an impulsive behavior and deficit of empathy for its victims. According to Olweus, at the base of violent behavior, there is no

ated with physical weakness, ability to assert themselves [28–31].

given as follows:

100 Socialization - A Multidimensional Perspective

possibility of creating physical harm.

defend himself or to react or seek help.

ing emotions and conflicts [10, 12, 18].

people devalue or excluded them.

every encounter between a victim and a persecutor.

The bullying has been studied since 1973 by the Norwegian Dan Olweus and since 1991 in England by Peter K. Smith. In Italy in 1995, researchers [33–42] started researches about it and confirmed the presence of this social problem in different Italian contexts and cultural and social backgrounds. Ada Fonzi [33] reported that in Italy 41% of children attending elementary schools was victims of bullying and compared to those of other European countries, 27% in England, 20% in Canada, 15% in Spain, 6% in Finland, respectively.

The Italian National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT), the main supplier of official statistical information in Italy, published the latest bullying data [43], just over 50% of 11–17-yearolds has suffered some episode of offensive, disrespectful and/or violent by other boys or girls in the previous 12 months. A 19.8% is a victim of one of the "typical" acts of bullying, that is, it suffers them several times a month. In total, 9.1% acts of bullying are repeated on a weekly basis. They behave repeatedly offensive, not respectful and/or violent between 11-13 years (22.5%) and 14–17 years (17.9%); females (20.9%) and males (18.8%). Among school students, high-school students are in the lead (19.4%); followed by the students of the professional institutes (18.1%) and those of the technical institutes (16%). The most common consist of bullying offenses with ugly nicknames, swearing or insults (12.1%), derision for their physical appearance and/or how to talk (6.3%), defamation (5.1%), exclusion for their own opinions (4.7%), aggression with pusher, kick, kick and punch (3.8%). A 16.9% of 11–17-year-olds have been victims of direct bullying, characterized by some relationship between the victim and the bully and 10.8% of indirect actions without physical contact. Among the girls, the difference between "direct" and "indirect" (16.7 and 14%, respectively) is minimal. In contrast, direct male forms (17%) are more than double the indirect (7.7%). Olweus [44] found that males acted more physical and direct aggressive bullying, while females were more exposed to behaviors of indirect bullying. In this way, he has traced the precise profiles of the subjects involved in this phenomenon and their roles within this social problem.

person (i.e., pupil dilation); (2) empathy: the ability to understand/participate in the feelings of others; (3) theory of mind: the ability of a person to represent the mental states of others including the affective ones; (4) compassion: ability to experience feelings but not necessarily

I Teach You to Quarrel - Empathy and Mediation: Tools for Preventing Bullying

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76882

103

Summarizing the concept of empathy is considered a multidimensional construct that represents an emotional aspect composed of two main components: *affective empathy*, ability to experience and share the emotions of others, and a cognitive trait, *cognitive empathy*, ability to understand the emotions of others. Both of them can coexist in the empathic process. Haviland and Lelwica [52] have showed behavioral evidences during ontogenetic development that demonstrated how the affective component of empathy develop before that cognitive, because for adaptive questions can be very important to experience feelings and emotions

Researchers [58, 59] described as higher level of affective empathy (i.e., share an emotional state) can predict constructive conflict resolution when encountering problems with friends and cognitive empathy (i.e., understanding emotional states of others) can predict higher reciprocity and stability in social relationships with friends. A very interesting aspect is that if it is present only cognitive empathy without the affective component can predict higher levels of bullying [60]. The lack of empathy can cause the development of problematic interpersonal

In addition, several studies [5, 60] showed bullying intervention programs that have incorporated empathy concept as an essential element, reduce bullying behaviors in the classroom.

Dovigo [61] defines the school as a place where conflict can emerge very easily in which many social and dynamic relational actors are involved. At the same time, the issues involved in school context can be multiple and cover different aspects, such as organizing activities and schedules, teaching design, behavior rules, homework, and so on. In this complex social system, students undergo the pressures of the most skilled and experienced actors in social interaction, and this leads them to experience the feeling of inadequacy, especially for those who are less capable of communicating, who manifest this discomfort using inadequate behaviors (i.e., marked aggression or liability and self-closure). This aspect is combined with a widespread approach in many school contexts that considers the student exclusively as a subject that has only needs and not even ideas, emotions, proposals and therefore tends to evaluate him pliability to instructions and directions of scholar system rather than its ability to find autonomous solutions to problems. In fact, when a conflict arises, the disciplinary tool that is often applied is that of sanction in order to bring order back to class without giving students the ability to create shared and discussed rules and dynamics. Instead, the

the same as being tried by another person.

as information about what others feel [52–56].

Overall, empathy is important for preventing bullying.

behaviors.

**4. Mediation**
