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. (Contains 5 tables.)