Bullying is a pattern of intentional, repeated behavior that involves direct and/or indirect aggressive actions by one or more students towards other student(s), and has serious negative consequences for both bullies and victims. Several individual and microsystem risk factors have been identified, but their pathways to bullying still remain unclear. This study examined the interaction effect between the individual characteristic of normative beliefs about aggression and the microsystem factor of peer influence on bullying perpetration among secondary school students in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. One hundred and seventy two students from school district nine in the country participated in this study that used a set of questionnaires measuring demographic variables including age and gender, individual risk factors including callous-unemotional traits and normative beliefs about aggression, and microsystem risk factors such as peer influence, parental support and exposure to verbal and physical family violence. Results showed that normative beliefs about aggression, peer influence and exposure to physical family violence were related to bullying perpetration. Moreover, the interaction effect between normative beliefs about aggression and peer influence significantly predicted bullying perpetration. Further analyses revealed that higher levels of normative beliefs about aggression were associated with more bullying perpetration as negative peer influence increased. Furthermore, the relationship between negative peer influence and bullying perpetration was enhanced among students who had higher approving normative beliefs about aggression. Prevention and intervention anti-bullying strategies may therefore be aimed at reducing the influence of negative peers and normative beliefs about aggression among students.
