Self-Efficacy, Emotional Intelligence, and Bullying Profiles: A Study on High School Students

Introduction: School bullying negatively affects students' psychological well-being and social interactions. Research identifies distinct bullying profiles—bullies, victims, bully-victims, and neutral students—each characterized by specific emotional and behavioral traits (Salmivalli, 1999). Two key psychological factors influencing bullying dynamics are self-efficacy (SEF), the belief in one’s ability to regulate social interactions and resist negative peer influences (Bandura, 1997), and emotional intelligence (EI), students’ capacity to understand, manage and express emotions in social contexts (Baroncelli & Ciucci, 2014). Aims: This study aims to: (1) identify different bullying and victimization profiles (2) analyze differences in emotional and behavioral difficulties, prosocial behavior, self-efficacy, and EI competencies across these groups. Method: A total of 313 students (14-18 years, M = 16.16, SD = 1.25) from three schools in Rome completed the Florence Bullying-Victimization Scales (Palladino et al., 2016), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997), Self-Efficacy Scale (Pastorelli & Picconi, 2001) and Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS;Grazzani et al., 2009) One-way ANOVAs and post-hoc Tukey-b tests were conducted. Results:Participants were classified as neutral (67.1%), bullies (12.1%), victims (9.6%), and bully-victims (11.2%).Victims exhibited significantly higher internalization (M= 0.7) while bully-victims showed the highest externalization (M= 0.9).Victims (M=8.1) and neutral students (M=7.3) exhibited greater prosocial behavior. Neutral students reported higher regulatory self-efficacy (M=45.5) while bully-victims exhibited the lowest regulatory EI (M= 27.9). Conclusion: Findings confirm the existence of different profiles and highlight the role of self-efficacy and EI in bullying dynamics, supporting interventions to enhance students' emotional and behavioral regulation.