Empathy and Callous-Unemotional Traits in Different Bullying Roles: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Bullying is an extremely damaging type of violence that is present in schools all over the world, but there are still many gaps in knowledge regarding different variables that might influence the phenomenon. Two promising research lines focus on empathy and callous-unemotional traits but findings from individual studies seem to be contradictory. This article reports the results of a systematic review and a meta-analysis on empathy and callous-unemotional traits in relation to school bullying based on 53 empirical reports that met the inclusion criteria. Bullying perpetration is negatively associated with cognitive (odds ratio [OR] = 0.60) and affective (OR = 0.51) empathy. Perpetration is also positively associated with callous-unemotional traits (OR = 2.55). Bully-victims scored low in empathy (OR = 0.57). There is a nonsignificant association between victimization and empathy (OR = 0.96), while the relationship between callous-unemotional traits and victimization is significant but small (OR = 1.66). Defenders scored high on cognitive (OR = 2.09) and affective (OR = 2.62) empathy. These findings should be taken into account in explaining and preventing bullying.