There is evidence from the literature that the negative emotions and behaviours that bystanders expressed in reactions to witnessing bullying could have stemmed from self-debasing cognitive distortions and errors in thinking patterns which included personalisation, catastrophising, over-generalisation and selective abstraction. For this reason, the purpose of this qualitative descriptive-exploratory study was to explore and describe 10 early adolescent bystanders' experiences of school bullying following a self-debasing cognitive distortion restructuring intervention. Appraisal and cognitive theory were adopted as the overarching theoretical framework. This is because both theories demonstrated how individual thinking patterns could play a primary and significant role in the development and maintenance of emotional and behavioural responses to events witnessed or experienced. A descriptive-exploratory research design was used because it best suited the purpose of the study. The philosophical assumption underpinning this study emanated from an interpretivism paradigm which is a paradigm concerned with understanding the world from the perspective of people‟s experiences thereof. Purposive sampling was used to select 10 participants who were within the age range of 11 to 13 years for the study. Individual interviews were used as formal data collection strategies while a reflective research journal and audio recordings were used as additional data collection methods. The inductive thematic data analysis process was followed to analyse all data collected. The data was collected and analysed in two stages. The findings of this study, from the pre-intervention phase, indicated that personalisation evoked self-blame and feelings of guilt; catastrophising amplified anxiety and fear; overgeneralisation induced and exacerbated a negative perception of school safety and selective abstraction led to indirect co-victimisation. The findings that emerged at the first stage informed the common concepts that were addressed in the intervention. The findings of this study from the post-intervention phase revealed specifically that the self-debasing cognitive distortion restructuring intervention modified bystanders‟ experiences of school bullying. There were observable reduction in bystanders‟ negative emotional and behavioural reactions to witnessing bullying as a result of learning to challenge the validity and reality of distortions in their thinking patterns. Therefore, it is recommended that school counsellors and educational psychologists should provide adequate support to victims of bullying by equipping them with cognitive restructuring skills to root out the source of bias in their thought patterns. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Educational Psychology / PhD / Unrestricted

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:47:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MARCIO ROBERTO JORGE FILHO.pdf: 662481 bytes, checksum: 90991728737b3a8aab0dc77e2d933cd3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-25 / In Brazil it is common find in the farms the presence of slave labor or same kind of very debasing conditions, that why the study of this question is actual and necessary. Of course we don t accept slave labor or same kind of very debasing conditions, because freedom is included in the core of the human rights, which represents the minimal conjunct of rights for a honorable live. With this ratiocination, the State must interfere in the society in order to guarantee the dignity and the liberty of the rural workers, whoever the instruments to active the objective should be used in harmony whit the fundamental property right. This is the way that this monograph develops, analyzing the effectiveness of the instruments of intervention in property, the collision of liberty and the property. / No Brasil é comum encontrar em imóveis rurais a utilização de mão de obra escrava ou em condições análogas à escravidão, por isso o estudo desta questão se mostra atual e necessário. É verdade que não se aceita a utilização de trabalho escravo ou em condições análogas em qualquer hipótese, pois a liberdade está inserida dentro do núcleo central de direitos humanos, que representa um conjunto mínimo de direitos para viver dignamente. Realmente, o Estado deve exercer um papel ativo como garantidor da efetividade da liberdade e dignidade dos trabalhadores, entretanto, é preciso esclarecer que os meios e instrumentos de intervenção na sociedade não podem ser utilizados de maneira arbitrária e em descompasso com o ordenamento jurídico brasileiro. Nesse sentido o desenvolvimento desta dissertação se desenvolve, analisando a efetividade dos meios de intervenção do Estado na propriedade privada sob o ponto de vista da colisão do Direito Fundamental à Liberdade e o Direito Fundamental à Propriedade Privada.