Speakers
Description
Cyberbullying has long been a significant concern due to its impact on youth wellbeing, and studies show its rates have risen since the COVID-19 pandemic. With worsening mental health issues among young people, new intervention approaches are urgently needed. Bystanders play an important role in the prevention, detection, and intervention of cyberbullying. However, various factors may influence their willingness to take proactive measures against cyberbullying incidents, such as empathy and moral disengagement. Therefore, we aimed to develop an intervention that fosters empathy for victims and brings awareness to moral disengagement mechanisms among bystanders.
We proposed to achieve this goal through a quasi-experimental, mixed-factorial pilot study with a between-groups pretest-posttest design, consisting of two sessions with a one-week interval. Participants were 64 psychology university students. The experimental group listened to AI-generated podcasts, featuring fictitious cyberbullying stories created by psychologists, designed to address empathy and the activation of moral disengagement mechanisms. The control group received no intervention during the experiment, but received it afterward.
Results indicated a conditional and statistically significant reduction in Empathy Difficulties observed in the experimental group, which became evident after controlling for pre-existing variables. Qualitative feedback highlighted the perceived realism and conversational nature of the podcasts as key drivers of empathic connection and critical thinking.
This pilot study offers insights for addressing cyberbullying by demonstrating the feasibility and potential effectiveness of AI-generated podcasts in fostering empathy. This innovative methodology, combining psychological knowledge with technology, provides a promising direction for future bystander training programs.
Keywords
cyberbullying, adolescents, innovative methodologies, AI tools
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
|---|---|
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
