Illinois Bully Scale

Abstract

The Illinois Bully Scale (IBS), developed by Dorothy L. Espelage and Melissa K. Holt (2001), is a premier, empirically validated self-report instrument engineered to measure early adolescent peer aggression, violent altercation, and victimization. Comprising 18 behavioral items scored on a 5-point frequency continuum (0 = Never to 4 = 7 or more times, referencing past-30-day behavior), the instrument operationalizes three distinct yet intercorrelated dimensions: Bullying Perpetration (9 items), Fighting Behavior (5 items), and Peer Victimization (4 items). Psychometric validation across diverse middle school and high school cohorts has consistently supported a robust three-factor orthogonal and oblique latent architecture, decisively parsing unprovoked social, relational, and verbal intimidation (bullying) from reciprocal physical conflict (fighting) and direct maltreatment (victimization). Internal consistency reliability estimates remain exemplary across international literature, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from α = .83 to .89 across the three subscales (Bullying α = .87; Fighting α = .83; Victimization α = .88 in foundational validation cohorts). The scale possesses extensive construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity, correlating systematically with adolescent psychological distress, depression, suicidal ideation, academic disengagement, delinquent peer group affiliation, and disciplinary sanctions. Widely integrated into longitudinal developmental research and school-wide anti-violence intervention evaluations—including federal assessment protocols cataloged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—the Illinois Bully Scale provides researchers, educational leaders, and clinical practitioners with a reliable, ecologically sound psychometric standard for quantifying the adolescent peer violence continuum.

Keywords

Illinois Bully Scale, peer victimization, bullying perpetration, adolescent fighting, school violence, psychometrics, relational aggression, physical aggression, factor analysis, social-ecological model, school psychology, behavioral assessment

Authors

The Illinois Bully Scale was conceptualized, developed, and psychometrically validated by leading scholars in developmental psychology, counselor education, and youth violence prevention:

• Dorothy L. Espelage, Ph.D. — William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (formerly Professor of Child Development and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Florida). Dr. Espelage is an internationally recognized authority on youth bullying, school safety, teen dating violence, and LGBTQ+ adolescent wellbeing.
• Melissa K. Holt, Ph.D. — Professor and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her research focuses on the developmental consequences of youth victimization, school-based mental health systems, and violence prevention.
• V. Paul Poteat, Ph.D. (Collaborating Researcher and Disseminator) — Professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College. Dr. Poteat has published extensively on homophobic teasing, peer group dynamics, and the validation of adolescent aggression measures. Contact: Campion Hall 307, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467; Email: [email protected].

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Illinois Bully Scale is to provide an objective, reliable, and developmentally calibrated behavioral assessment tool that captures the multifaceted nature of youth aggression in educational settings. Prior to the emergence of the IBS, adolescent aggression research frequently suffered from critical methodological confounding. Researchers often aggregated disparate constructs—such as unprovoked verbal intimidation, mutual physical brawling, peer exclusion, and passive victimization—into undifferentiated composite scores of “conduct problems” or “externalizing behavior.” Furthermore, early self-report instruments heavily relied on subjective, value-laden definitions of “bullying” presented directly to adolescents, prompting pronounced social desirability bias, underreporting, and cognitive misinterpretation among younger respondents.

To circumvent these psychometric artifacts, Espelage and Holt designed the IBS around clear, concrete behavioral descriptions of recent interpersonal actions (e.g., “I teased other students,” “I hit back when someone hit me first,” “Other students picked on me”) without ever utilizing the potentially pejorative or ambiguous term “bully” within the student-facing prompts. By tethering responses to explicit 30-day behavioral frequencies, the tool minimizes recall bias and enables precise longitudinal and cross-sectional monitoring.

Clinically and educationally, the instrument serves multiple interrelated purposes:

• Delineation of Bullying from Mutual Fighting: While both behaviors involve aggression, bullying is theoretically demarcated by an asymmetrical power imbalance and intentional, repeated harm, whereas fighting frequently reflects reciprocal conflict, reactive retaliation, or dispute resolution among peers of comparable social or physical status. The IBS uniquely separates these constructs into independent subscales.
• Universal School-Based Screening: The scale enables school psychologists, guidance counselors, and administrative leaders to systematically evaluate baseline rates of overt and relational aggression, identify vulnerable student clusters, and isolate high-risk structural environments within schools.
• Programmatic Evaluation: The IBS is widely recognized as a benchmark evaluative metric for multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), and specialized anti-bullying curricula (e.g., the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, Second Step).
• Longitudinal Psychopathology Research: The instrument facilitates prospective investigations into the trajectory from bully perpetration or victimization to downstream psychological distress, including major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, borderline personality traits, school dropout, and criminal justice system involvement.

Psychological Construct

The Illinois Bully Scale operationalizes adolescent peer aggression as a tripartite behavioral construct situated within social networks. Each of the three subscales reflects a conceptually distinct dimension of interpersonal peer dynamics:

1. Bullying Perpetration Subscale (9 Items)

Bullying perpetration is defined as proactive, largely unprovoked negative actions executed by an individual or a coalition to inflict emotional, social, or psychological discomfort upon peers who possess less social power or perceived status. The IBS operationalizes this dimension through two primary behavioral modalities:

• Verbal and Direct Teasing: Manifested in items such as “I upset other students for the fun of it” (Item 1) and “I teased other students” (Item 9). These items reflect malicious humor, targeted ridicule, and sadistic amusement derived from a victim’s emotional distress.
• Relational and Social Instigation: Captured via behaviors designed to manipulate peer ecology, such as “I excluded other students from my clique of friends” (Item 18), “I spread rumors about other students” (Item 15), and “I started (instigated) arguments or conflicts” (Item 16). Rather than engaging in physical combat, relational bullies harness social exclusion, alliance building, and passive social sabotage to undermine the victim’s social capital.

2. Peer Victimization Subscale (4 Items)

Peer victimization represents the experiential pole of interpersonal aggression, capturing the frequency with which an adolescent is targeted by peer abuse. In accordance with clinical diagnostic frameworks of trauma and social distress, the IBS isolates direct and indirect victimization markers:

• Verbal Maltreatment: Reflected in “Other students made fun of me” (Item 5) and “Other students called me names” (Item 6).
• Physical and General Harassment: Represented by “Other students picked on me” (Item 4) and “I got hit and pushed by other students” (Item 7).

Victimization scores systematically track internalizing psychopathology, school avoidance, somatic complaints, and internalized self-blame, serving as a critical diagnostic index for youth requiring clinical and protective intervention.

3. Fighting Behavior Subscale (5 Items)

Fighting behavior measures involvement in overt, physically violent altercations with peers. In stark contrast to pure bullying perpetration, fighting in early adolescence frequently encompasses both instrumental/offensive physical aggression and reactive/defensive retaliation:

• Instrumental / Asymmetrical Combat: Reflected in “I fought students I could easily beat” (Item 3) and “I threatened to hurt or hit another student” (Item 11).
• Reactive / Retaliatory Conflict: Operationalized by “I hit back when someone hit me first” (Item 13) and “I got into a physical fight because I was angry” (Item 12).
• General Physical Altercation: Assessed broadly via “I got in a physical fight” (Item 10).

Differentiating fighting from pure bullying is clinically vital: youth who score high on fighting but low on bullying often exhibit emotional dysregulation, poor impulse control, and hostile attributional biases, whereas high-bullying youth often display intact executive function combined with low affective empathy and Machiavellian social goals.

Theoretical Framework

The architecture of the Illinois Bully Scale is informed by several convergent theoretical models within developmental psychology, social cognitive theory, and ecological systems theory.

The Social-Ecological Model of Youth Aggression

Grounded in the ecological systems theory of Urie Bronfenbrenner, Espelage and colleagues conceptualized youth violence not as an isolated pathology residing solely within an antisocial adolescent, but as an emergent property of systemic interactions across microsystems (peer groups, family dynamics, classrooms), mesosystems (parent-school relations), and macrosystems (societal norms surrounding aggression and dominance). Within this framework, bullying is recognized as a functional behavior sustained by peer-group reinforcement, bystander passivity, and shifting social hierarchies. The inclusion of items assessing group-level behaviors (e.g., “In a group I teased other students,” “I excluded other students from my clique of friends”) directly reflects the empirical reality that adolescent bullying is fundamentally a group-level phenomenon mediated by peer norms.

Social Dominance Theory and Evolutionary Perspectives

As posited by developmental researchers such as Anthony Pellegrini, the transition into early adolescence (middle school) coincides with a disruption of existing peer structures, driving youth to establish new social status hierarchies. Proactive bullying functions evolutionarily as a social dominance strategy: by humiliating low-status peers and curating an exclusive in-group, perpetrators secure social prestige, peer attention, and perceived popularity without incurring significant physical costs. Conversely, physical fighting carries higher risks of physical injury, institutional discipline, and retaliatory escalation, explaining why fighting behaviors peak and stabilize differently across adolescent maturation.

Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory

Formulated by Kenneth Dodge and Nicki Crick, the SIP model delineates the cognitive mechanisms governing reactive versus proactive aggression. Reactively aggressive adolescents misinterpret benign social cues as intentionally hostile (hostile attribution bias) and respond with explosive retaliation (captured by IBS Items 12, 13, and 14: “I was mean to someone when I was angry”). Proactively aggressive adolescents, conversely, value dominance outcomes, anticipate positive reinforcement from aggression, and experience little autonomic distress when tormenting others (captured by IBS Item 1: “I upset other students for the fun of it”). The structural independence of the IBS subscales allows empirical observation of these distinct socio-cognitive pathways.

Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established the construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Illinois Bully Scale across diverse socio-demographic, geographic, and clinical adolescent samples.

Construct and Structural Validity

The three-dimensional construct validity was initially corroborated by Espelage and Holt (2001) in a sample of 422 middle school students (grades 6–8) and subsequently confirmed in massive statewide and national samples exceeding 10,000 participants. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) consistently demonstrate that a three-factor model provides superior fit relative to alternative unidimensional (all 18 items loading on a single aggression factor) or two-factor models (collapsing Bullying and Fighting into a single externalizing factor). Standard goodness-of-fit indices across independent evaluations regularly show comparative fit index (CFI) values exceeding .93, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) values > .92, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) values below .06, confirming that Bullying, Fighting, and Victimization represent psychometrically separate entities.

Convergent Validity

The convergent validity of the IBS subscales has been robustly demonstrated through established correlations with external behavioral and psychological metrics:

• Bullying Perpetration: Strongly and positively correlates with delinquency scales (r = .50 to .62), attitudes supportive of violence (r = .45), peer group aggression (r = .48), and callous-unemotional traits. It also displays significant positive associations with homophobic teasing, as measured by the Homophobic Content Agent Target (HCAT) Scale (Poteat & Espelage, 2005).
• Fighting Behavior: Exhibits substantial correlations with school disciplinary referrals, physical weapon carrying, out-of-school suspensions (r = .40 to .55), and impulsivity indices.
• Peer Victimization: Demonstrates high convergent correlations with depressive symptomatology on the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI; r = .45 to .56), social anxiety (r = .42), loneliness scales (r = .48), and somatic complaints, alongside negative correlations with school belonging (r = -.38) and self-esteem.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is supported by the moderate magnitude of the inter-factor correlations. In early validation work, the Bully and Fight subscales correlated moderately (r = .55 to .65), demonstrating shared externalizing variance while maintaining distinct psychometric identities. Victimization shares low-to-moderate positive correlations with Bullying (r = .20 to .35), confirming that while a subset of adolescents operate as “bully-victims,” the vast majority of perpetrators and victims belong to non-overlapping groups. Crucially, social desirability scales correlate minimally with IBS item scores (typically |r| < .15), affirming that concrete behavioral framing suppresses impression management artifacts.

Predictive and Longitudinal Validity

Prospective longitudinal tracking demonstrates that baseline IBS Bullying scores significantly predict subsequent substance initiation (alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco use) 12 to 24 months later, controlling for baseline delinquency. Similarly, elevated Victimization scores longitudinally predict clinical escalations in self-harm ideation, academic absenteeism, and grade-point-average declines.

Reliability

The Illinois Bully Scale demonstrates excellent reliability across diverse evaluation frameworks, including classical test theory, item response modeling, and longitudinal stability indices.

Internal Consistency

Foundational investigations by Espelage and Holt (2001) established strong Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficients across all three subscales:

• Bullying Subscale (9 items): α = .87
• Peer Victimization Subscale (4 items): α = .88
• Fighting Subscale (5 items): α = .83

Subsequent psychometric evaluations across varied adolescent demographics have confirmed the stability of these estimates. Across a statewide Illinois sample of over 7,000 middle school respondents, alpha values remained remarkably invariant: Bullying (α = .86 to .88), Victimization (α = .85 to .89), and Fighting (α = .81 to .84). McDonald’s omega hierarchical (ω_h) and categorical omega coefficients further substantiate high composite scale reliability (ω > .85 across dimensions), confirming that the items consistently tap their intended latent behavioral dimensions without inflating error variance.

Test-Retest Stability

Given that the IBS measures behavioral frequency over a specified temporal window (typically the past 30 days), test-retest reliability reflects behavioral continuity over time. Short-term test-retest assessments administered over two- to four-week intervals yield stability coefficients ranging from r = .74 to .82 for Bullying, r = .70 to .78 for Fighting, and r = .68 to .76 for Victimization. Over longer intervals (e.g., 6 to 12 months across academic semesters), stability coefficients attenuate moderately (r = .45 to .58), which is theoretically expected due to natural developmental maturation, classroom reshuffling, and school-wide intervention effects.

Factor Analysis

The factorial structure of the Illinois Bully Scale has been subjected to rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using contemporary polychoric correlation matrices and robust weighted least squares estimators (WLSMV), suitable for ordinal categorical data.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the initial development of the scale, Espelage and Holt (2001) conducted exploratory factor analyses utilizing principal axis factoring with promax (oblique) rotation to account for expected inter-factor correlations among aggressive behaviors. The scree test, alongside Kaiser’s eigenvalue-greater-than-one criterion, unequivocally demonstrated a three-factor solution accounting for approximately 58% of the total variance.

Item loadings across the three factors demonstrated strong primary saturations with minimal cross-loadings:

• Factor 1: Bullying Perpetration: Standardized factor loadings ranged from .54 to .78. Items such as “I teased other students” (.78), “I upset other students for the fun of it” (.74), and “I helped harass other students” (.71) exhibited high loadings, while showing cross-loadings below .20 on Fighting and Victimization.
• Factor 2: Peer Victimization: Standardized loadings clustered exceptionally high, ranging from .72 to .86. Items “Other students called me names” (.86) and “Other students made fun of me” (.84) loaded cleanly without cross-loading onto aggressive enactment factors.
• Factor 3: Fighting Behavior: Standardized loadings ranged from .58 to .82. Items “I got in a physical fight” (.82) and “I fought students I could easily beat” (.65) loaded strongly onto this factor.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Measurement Invariance

In subsequent large-scale structural equation modeling, CFA verified the tenability of the tripartite model. Standard fit indices across middle and high school cohorts consistently met modern psychometric criteria:

• χ²/df ratio < 3.0
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) ≥ .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) ≥ .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 (90% CI: [.043, .053])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .041

Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) has confirmed metric and scalar invariance across biological sex (males vs. females) and across racial/ethnic groups (e.g., White, African American, Hispanic/Latino). This indicates that the 18 items measure the identical underlying psychological constructs with equivalent scale metrics and thresholds across diverse youth subgroups, permitting unbiased group-mean comparisons in both clinical and epidemiological investigations.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Illinois Bully Scale is a highly structured, self-administered questionnaire designed for group or individual administration in paper-and-pencil or computer-assisted formats.

• Instrument Designation: Illinois Bully Scale (IBS)
• Authors: Dorothy L. Espelage, Ph.D., & Melissa K. Holt, Ph.D. (2001)
• Target Population: Children and adolescents in early to late adolescence (typically grades 5 through 12, ages 10 to 18)
• Administration Format: Self-report questionnaire; individual or group classroom administration; paper-and-pencil or secure digital survey platforms
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes
• Total Item Count: 18 behavioral items
• Subscale Breakdown:
  • Bully Subscale (9 items): Items 1, 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
  • Fight Subscale (5 items): Items 3, 10, 11, 12, 13
  • Victim Subscale (4 items): Items 4, 5, 6, 7
• Response Scale: 5-point ordinal frequency scale referencing behaviors occurring over the past 30 days:
  • 0 = Never
  • 1 = 1 or 2 times
  • 2 = 3 or 4 times
  • 3 = 5 or 6 times
  • 4 = 7 or more times
• Scoring and Quantification Rules:
  • All items are scored positively (0, 1, 2, 3, 4); there are no reverse-coded items.
  • Subscale scores are derived either by summing the numerical item values or by calculating the mean score across completed subscale items:
  • Bully Subscale Score Range: 0 to 36 (sum) or 0.0 to 4.0 (mean)
  • Fight Subscale Score Range: 0 to 20 (sum) or 0.0 to 4.0 (mean)
  • Victim Subscale Score Range: 0 to 16 (sum) or 0.0 to 4.0 (mean)
  • Clinical Categorization: Higher scores reflect greater frequency of bullying perpetration, physical fighting, or peer victimization. Researchers frequently classify students exceeding designated subscale thresholds (e.g., mean > 1.0 or scoring 1 or higher on multiple items) as active bullies, fighters, victims, or bully-victims.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Illinois Bully Scale was originally developed and published in 2001 in the Journal of Emotional Abuse (Volume 2, Issues 2/3), copyrighted by The Haworth Press, Inc. (now part of Taylor & Francis Group).

Accessibility and Permissions:

• Public Domain / Educational Research Use: The scale has been cataloged and published by the United States federal government in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Compendium of Assessment Tools (Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences, p. 49; Hamburger, Vivolo, & O’Flaherty, 2011). As reproduced within public health assessment frameworks, the instrument is widely accessible for non-commercial educational, scientific, and clinical screening purposes without licensing fees.
• Commercial and Derivative Use: Reproduction within commercial assessment software, textbooks, or revenue-generating diagnostic test batteries requires formal copyright permission through the original publisher, Taylor & Francis Group, or direct licensing authorization from the primary authors.
• First Published: 2001

References

• Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
• Espelage, D. L., & Holt, M. K. (2001). Bullying and victimization during early adolescence: Peer influences and psychosocial correlates. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2(2–3), 123–142. https://doi.org/10.1300/J135v02n02_08
• Espelage, D. L., Holt, M. K., & Henkel, R. R. (2003). Examination of factor structure and construct validity of the Illinois Bully Scale. In Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• Hamburger, M. E., Vivolo, A. M., & O’Flaherty, R. L. (2011). Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences: A Compendium of Assessment Tools. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/bullycompendiumbk-a.pdf
• Pellegrini, A. D., & Long, J. D. (2002). A longitudinal study of bullying, dominance, and victimization during the transition from primary school through secondary school. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20(2), 259–280. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151002166442
• Poteat, V. P., & Espelage, D. L. (2005). Exploring the relation between bullying and homophobic verbal content: The Homophobic Content Agent Target (HCAT) Scale. Violence and Victims, 20(5), 513–528. https://doi.org/10.1891/vivi.2005.20.5.513
• Poteat, V. P., & Espelage, D. L. (2007). Predicting psychosocial consequences of bullying: The unique and combined effects of homophobic epithets and traditional bullying. Journal of School Violence, 6(3), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1300/J202v06n03_04

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)