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The aim of this study was to test the direction of effect in the relationship between bullying and empathy. The participants were 205 sixth‐grade students, randomly selected from urban and rural schools in Cyprus. A six‐month, two‐time‐point longitudinal design was used in which the participants completed the bullying subscale of the Revised Bullying and Victimisation Questionnaire (BVQ‐R) and the Basic Empathy Scale. The results of this study showed that bullying at Time 1 negatively predicted the affective component of empathy at Time 2. Moreover, children’s affective empathy at Time 1 negatively predicted bullying at Time 2. The results of this study indicate towards a reciprocal model of understanding the relationship between bullying and empathy.