Introduction: Our aim is to investigate differences of causal attribution among participants in bullying, as they judge the facts from their particular place of participation in the abuse at any given moment, as well as their habitual profile in bullying situations. Method: Using a sample of students between 10 and 18 years of age, and the CIMEI questionnaire (Aviles, 1999), children are classified into sub-groups for analysis: bullies, victims, bully-victims and onlookers. Results: We find differences of attribution depending on the situation of the subjects' participation, their individual profiles and, in some attributions, as a function of gender. Explanatory consistency in the profiles is shown in the aggressors' tendency toward minimization and their use of provocation as a justification for bullying; the victims' idea of asymmetry and in their ignorance of why this happens to them; reactivity in bully-victims and onlookers' identification of amoral intentionality in those who attack. Discussion: Aspects like social competence and cognition, differences in assigning value, handling of emotions, motivation, power relations and use of them in the peer group, have all been identified as interactively important in the attributions made in bullying. Thus, intervention is oriented towards working on empathy, internalizating mechanisms for preventing conflicts, training in emotional self-control, individual and group learning of tasks involving helping and protecting others, and towards prevention of abuse through universal moral education. (Contains 10 tables and 6 footnotes.)