Importance: Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) refers to a psychological mechanism that is aimed at establishing and maintaining social hierarchies and unequal relationships. Although there is significant overlap in the constructs of SDO and bullying, there is a limited understanding on what role social dominance orientation plays in bullying.

Objective: To identify the role of social dominance orientation in bullying behaviours.

Methods: We systematically searched PsycINFO, PsycArticles, Scopus and Web of Science and reviewed existing peer-reviewed literature on social dominance orientation and bullying (online and offline) published between 2014 and November 2025.

Results: An initial total of 839 articles were retrieved and following the screening process only 9 articles were included in the review. The results demonstrate that there is limited empirical research that has investigated the role of SDO in bullying behaviours, and much of the research employs quantitative cross-sectional research designs.

Conclusions: The limited findings suggest that SDO is associated with a range of bullying contexts - both perpetration and victimisation, and bystander behaviour.

Implications for Practice: However, further research on the role of SDO, along with more robust analyses, are needed before we can go as far as to suggest social dominance theory as a theoretical explanation for bullying.