Different forms of online and face-to-face victimization among schoolchildren with pure and co-occurring dimensions of reactive and proactive aggression Agnes Ka-yee Law a,⇑ , Annis Lai-chu Fung b,1 a Centre for the Advancement of Social Sciences Research, Baptist University of Hong Kong, Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong b Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong article info Article history: Available online 16 November 2012 Keywords: Online Peer Victimization Proactive Reactive Aggression abstract This pioneer study filled up research gaps on differentiation and associations between various forms of online (general victimization, sexual victimization, individual racial discrimination, and vicarious racial discrimination) and face-to-face peer victimization (physical victimization, verbal victimization, social manipulation, and attacks on property) among schoolchildren with pure and co-occurring dimensions of reactive and proactive aggression and ordinary ones. Significant differences consistently found across four-domain online victimization between three groups of schoolchildren with pure and co-occurring dimensions of reactive and proactive aggression and ordinary schoolchildren; and the lowest mean scores were constantly found in pure reactive aggression group comparing with pure proactive and co- occurring forms of aggression. Although similar significant differences were found in four-factor multi- dimensional peer-victimization between three groups of schoolchildren with pure and co-occurring dimensions of reactive and proactive aggression and ordinary schoolchildren, the scores in pure reactive group were very comparable with pure proactive and co-occurring forms of aggression groups. Only pure reactive aggressor group of schoolchildren has no correlation between online and face-to-face peer vic- timization. The explanation may be based on Social Information Processing model that reactive aggres- sors are affected by hostile attributional bias, provocations mainly may happen in face-to-face interpersonal ambiguous situation rather than in the online world. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Many studies have focused on cyber bullying as it relates to aggressive behavior (Aricak et al., 2008; Dooley, Pyzalski, & Cross, 2009; Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009; Williams & Guerra, 2007) and aggression subtypes (Calvete, Orue, Estévez, Villardón, & Padilla, 2010; Law, Shapka, Domene, & Gagné, 2012) among schoolchildren. However, victims who have been bullied according to multiple aggression subtypes, both online and face-to-face, have not received a great deal of attention. To the best of our knowledge, no prior study has examined the relationship between reactive and proactive aggression and the various forms of online victimization (general online victimization, sexual online victimization, individual online racial discrimination, and vicarious online racial discrimination) and face-to-face peer victimization (physical victimization, social victimization, verbal victimization, and attacks on property) in schools. This study aims to fill these specific research gaps and to investigate in an original way the differences between online and face-to-face victimization among ordinary schoolchildren and schoolchildren with reactive, proactive, and co-occurring aggression. Aggression was originally defined as ‘‘an act whose goal re- sponse is injury to an organism or organism surrogate’’ (Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mower, & Sears, 1939, p. 11). The definition was then changed to focus on the perpetrator’s intent to inflict harm (excluding accidental harm) rather than the behavioral act. In the past two decades, the distinction between reactive and proactive aggression has been well documented across the behavioral (Dodge, 1991; Schwartz et al., 1998), affective (Dodge, 1991; Price & Dodge, 1989), cognitive (Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates, & Pettit, 1997; Miller & Lynam, 2006), physiological (Baker, Raine, Liu, & Jacobson, 2008; Brendgen, Vitaro, Boivin, Dionne, & Pérusse, 2006; Pitts, 1997), and psychosocial (Card & Little, 2006; Poulin & Boivin, 2000; Pulkkinen, 1996) domains. Reactive aggression is aggression associated with hostile aver- sive provocations unrelated to reward motivation. Schoolchildren with reactive aggression are characterized as impulsive, inatten- tive, oversensitive, paranoid, easily provoked, and angry due to a hostile attributional bias, poor emotional regulation, and unpopu- larity within their peer groups (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Dodge & Coie, 1987; Walters, 2007). In contrast, proactive aggression is an 0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.015 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 3411 5720; fax: +852 3411 5310. E-mail addresses: agneslaw@hkbu.edu.hk (A.K.-y. Law), annis.fung@cityu.edu.hk (A.L.-c. Fung). 1 Tel.: +852 3442 2923; fax: +852 3442 0283. Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 1224–1233 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh