The relationship between personality and bullying among primary school children: the mediation role of trait emotion intelligence and empathy

Background/Objectives: Several studies have shown that personality traits are a benchmark in research field of bul-lying prevention, while others have highlighted that the socio-emotional skills are important to prevent a wide range of maladjusted behaviors, suggesting that the investment in their developing may mediate the effects of per-sonality dispositions. The present study aims to clarify if socio-emotional attitudes can mediate the relationships between personality traits and bullying.Methods: Five sequential mediation models are tested using the Big Five personality traits as focal predictors, bul-lying as the outcome, and trait emotional intelligence and empathy as causally chained mediators, involving 199 primary school children (8-10 years) through the Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire, the Big Five Questionnaire for children, the Emotional Intelligence Index and the Empathy-Teen Conflict Survey.Results: Data showed that openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were inversely related to bullying, and that the causal chain of TEI-empathy negatively and completely mediated the relationship between emotional instability and bullying and negatively and partially mediated the relationship between openness and bullying.Conclusions: These results suggest that TEI and empathy mediate the relationship between personality traits and bullying, reducing the risk of being involved in bullying perpetration.