Bullying escolar: compreensão evolucionista e intervenção cognitivo-comportamental

Abstract

Bullying has been widely investigated, but the results of anti-bullying programs are still unsatisfactory. Studies in the evolutionist perspective and different intervention programs have been developed with the purpose of amplifying these results. The present work has proposed to investigate possible contributions of Evolutionary Psychology to the understanding of school bullying as well as to develop a program of cognitive-behavioral intervention for its confrontation among adolescents. Five studies were carried out. The first was a systematic review of the literature on bullying in Evolutionary Psychology, in which where found nine empirical studies reviewed by peers in the databases: PsycINFO, PUBMED, Google Scholar, Index Psi, SciELO, LILACS and PePSIC. The second study performed procedures for adaptation and validation of the Bullying Participant Behaviors Questionnaire with a sample of 478 Brazilian adolescents. The third study compared indicators of mental health and perception of school climate among 240 adolescents, categorized in different roles in bullying. The fourth study evaluated the influence of third parties under different conditions on the cooperation frequency with a possible bullying victim using an adapted version of the prisoner's dilemma with 274 students. The fifth study presented the development, application and evaluation of a cognitive-behavioral intervention to reduce school bullying in 58 participants, using an evolutionary understanding of the phenomenon. The results showed that Evolutionary Psychology can broaden the understanding of school bullying by providing information articulable with the cognitive-behavioral intervention model, favoring the development of promising anti-bullying programs.