Bullying as strategic behavior: Relations with desired and acquired dominance in the peer group ☆ Tjeert Olthof a, ⁎, Frits A. Goossens b , Marjolijn M. Vermande c , Elisabeth A. Aleva d , Matty van der Meulen e a Department of Developmental Psychology, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands b Department of Special Education, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands c Department of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands d Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands article info abstract Article history: Received 24 August 2009 Received in revised form 24 February 2011 Accepted 19 March 2011 To examine whether bullying is strategic behavior aimed at obtaining or maintaining social dominance, 1129 9- to 12-year-old Dutch children were classified in terms of their role in bullying and in terms of their use of dominance oriented coercive and prosocial social strategies. Multi-informant measures of participants’ acquired and desired social dominance were also included. Unlike non-bullying children, children contributing to bullying often were bistrategics in that they used both coercive and prosocial strategies and they also were socially dominant. Ringleader bullies also expressed a higher desire to be dominant. Among non-bullying children, those who tended to help victims were relatively socially dominant but victims and outsiders were not. Generally, the data supported the claim that bullying is dominance-oriented strategic behavior, which suggests that intervention strategies are more likely to be successful when they take the functional aspects of bullying behavior into account. © 2011 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Bullying Group processes Social dominance Journal of School Psychology 49 (2011) 339–359 ☆ We are grateful to the children and schools who participated in this study, to the students who assisted in collecting the data, and to Agnes Willemen for her advice concerning the data analysis. Portions of this research were presented at the International School Psychology Association Conference, Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 8–13, 2008 and the Biennial Meeting of the ISSBD, July 13-17, 2008, Würzburg, Germany. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Developmental Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 205988950; fax: +31 205988745. E-mail address: T.Olthof@psy.vu.nl (T. Olthof). ACTION EDITOR: Shannon Suldo. 0022-4405/$ – see front matter © 2011 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2011.03.003 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of School Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ jschpsyc