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Contemporary research adopts an evolutionary theoretical perspective in which bullying is strategic behavior that is conducive to peer-group status enhancement. Within this view, a high social status (i.e., popularity) has been associated with bullying others, while a high affiliative status (i.e., preference) has been associated with defending others. This study investigated whether the associations between adolescents' bullying role behavior (i.e., bully, follower, defender, outsider, and victim) and their peer-group status (i.e., popularity and preference) are cross-culturally similar. A multigroup path modeling analysis on a sample of Dutch (n = 219; 53.4% boys; M[subscript age] = 13.8 years, SD = 9 months) and Indian (n = 480; 60.8% boys; M[subscript age] = 13.8 years, SD = 12 months) adolescents suggested that these associations were indeed largely cross-culturally similar and consistent with previous findings, with one exception. While defending was associated with a relatively average popularity status position for Dutch adolescents, it was associated with a high popularity status position for Indian adolescents. In general, the findings are supportive of the evolutionary theoretical perspective, but the differential association between defending and popularity for Dutch and Indian adolescents seems to also require a cultural perspective.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a shortened version of the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) under an item response theory framework (the one- and two-parameter logistic models). The shortened Raven SPM was administered to N = 453 cognitively healthy adults aged between 24 and 83 years. The IQ point estimates that were obtained under the one- and two-parameter logistic models were very similar (r = 0.97), but the two-parameter logistic-based test version had a higher measurement precision. The results showed that older age and being female were associated with a lower Raven SPM test performance. A user-friendly computer program was provided to facilitate the scoring and norming of the shortened Raven SPM under the different frameworks. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)