Emotion recognition abilities and empathy of victims of bullying.

Bullying behaviour is a common experience for a significant minority of children and adolescents. Bullying is the sysematic abuse of power among peers or siblings (Sharp & Smith, 1994, p. 2; Wolke & Samara, 2004), with adverse effects n mental health in a significant number of victims (Stassen Berger, 2007). Physical bullying is characterised by observable, xternalised behaviours including being hit or beaten up, physical threats, blackmail, and nasty tricks. In contrast, relational orms of victimisation includemore subtle indirect forms of behaviour including friendshipwithdrawal, untrue rumours, and ocial exclusion. Crick and colleagues argued that physical and relational behaviours loaded onto separate factors (Crick & rotpeter, 1995), while some argue that there is some overlap between physical, and relational forms of bullying (e.g., Archer Coyne, 2005). Therefore, it is increasingly important to consider the possible overlap between physical and relational ullying. The Social Information Processing Theory (SIP) offers a detailed six-stage model of how children process and interpret ues in social situations to arrive at competent behaviour (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994). Previous SIP research has concentrated n the biases and deficits that aggressors use in social situations, and has not considered in detail the SIP styles of victims. n particular, little is known about the role of emotions and emotion recognition within a SIP framework. This has several mplications both for victimisation and bullying perpetration. Being able to perceive and attribute emotions correctly is