Ricerc@Sapienza

Individuals’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviors, aside from being affected by intra-psychological influences, are influenced by the knowledge that comes with their belonging to social groups. This is particularly true for students, whose academic experiences are affected by numerous dynamics that exist in their classrooms. This chapter focuses, in particular, on bullying and social comparison processes.

The term “group dynamics” was coined and popularized for the first time by Kurt Lewin in the 1930s with the scope to describe the way groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances [1]. Fundamentally, the dynamics of a group conceptually derives from the continuous interaction (resonance) between its members. For Lewin, the principle of interactionism in his field theory is expressed by the formula: B = f(P,E) which means that the behavior (B) of an individual (i.e.