Abstract:
This research study deals with the widespread concern that exists amongst parents,
educators and healthcare professionals working with children about issues regarding
bullying in childhood and adolescence. By using the Transactional Analysis (TA) theory,
this research project aimed to describe possible social transactions that occur between
bully perpetrators and bully victims, and to examine these social transactions from the
perspective of potentially predisposed personality profiles. The link between the
personality profile and social transactions lie within the notion that our personality
profiles could possibly influence the way we interact with or behave towards other
individuals. The motivation behind this research study was therefore to analyse and
examine the social transactions that occur between bully perpetrators and bully victims,
which exemplifies the unique relationship that defines a bully perpetrator and bully
victim in order to better explain (by way of TA) the ‘games’ they play. This was done by
identifying the psychological profile tendencies that prompt bully perpetrators and bully
victims to engage in repetitive transactions in order to uncover the games they tend to
play, as well as to foster an understanding of why bully victims struggle to ‘unhook’
from these dysfunctional transactions.
