Aim

The overall aim of the study is to investigate how sibling bullying relates to peer bullying in order to find the embryonic origins of bullying.It is planned to go about this by longitudinally studying sibling bullying. The overall study is broken down into two parts: The first part will examine the precursors of sibling bullying, the second part will examine the outcomes of sibling bullying, inclusive of examining how sibling bullying relates to peer bullying.This break down is done in order to answer the following questions: (1) what factors influence sibling bullying (as a bully, victim, and bully-victim)? (2) What are the specific outcomes of sibling bullying (as a bully, victims and bully-victim)? (3) Are there cross-over effects from a sibling bullying dynamic to a peer bullying dynamic? (4) Should there be cross-over effects, how strong are they? Do bullies, victims and bully-victims at home, remain in their respective roles in a peer bullying dynamic?