Personality profiles of bully perpetrators and bully victims as a basis for identifying social transactional games

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.