Reduction of School Bullying Through Moral Behavior Training

The Moral Behavior Program (MBP) is an intervention developed in Brazil to teach pro-social behavior. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the MBP in reducing bullying and increasing empathy in schoolchildren. Participants were 81 students of one public school, with a mean age of 9.38 years (SD = 0.916), divided into intervention ( n = 41) and control ( n = 40) groups. The MBP was developed over 13 sessions, addressing values and moral emotions. The school violence scale and the Questionnaire to Assess Affective and Cognitive Empathy in Children were used pre-and post-intervention. The effect sizes in reducing bullying behaviors in intervention group were large for the witness (Cohen´s d e = 1.199), for the victim (Cohen´s d e = 1.965), and for the aggressor (Cohen´s d e = 1.439). Similar effect size on change was observed for empathy (Cohen´s d e = 1.169). The Moral Behavior Program could be a promising way to reduce school bullying.