Individual risk factors for school bullying

This article reviews individual risk factors for bullying, especially gender, age, aggressiveness, low intelligence and achievement, hyperactivity‐impulsiveness, low empathy, low self‐esteem, depression, unpopularity, and physical and biological features. It also reports individual, family and socio‐economic predictors and correlates of bullying discovered in a longitudinal survey of 411 London boys. The most important individual risk factors are low impulsiveness and low empathy, and they could be targeted in cognitive‐behavioural skills training programmes.