Speaker
Description
Cyber bystanders can choose from three different strategies during cyberbullying incidents (reinforcing behaviour, ignorance, and direct/indirect intervention) and these responses influence the outcome. Hence, cyber bystanders are specifically targeted by prevention programs and research investigating variables influencing bystander responses is crucial for such programs. The aim of our study was to explore which context makes cyberbullying incidents more severe and what are the most frequent bystander responses. We also aimed to learn how the context of cyberbullying incidents affects bystander responses and the last study aim was to investigate the joint effect of individual and contextual variables on bystander responses. In our online survey, 314 Hungarian high school students participated (age range= 14-20 years, mean age=16.15, SD=3,28). The respondents filled in self-administered questionnaires that measured cyber bystander responses, severity of different cyberbullying incidents (publicity, anonymity, type and victim response were altered across descriptions), empathy, moral disengagement, social desirability, and cyberbullying engagement. According to the results, respondents deemed public and visual cyberbullying, and when the victim was upset the most severe. In almost every condition, the two most likely bystander responses were ignorance and emotional support for the victim. At last, the individual and contextual variables had a joint effect influencing bystander responses except for emotional support that was only influenced by individual variables (empathy, moral disengagement, social desirability). All in all, our results suggest that cyberbullying prevention should focus on empathy training, decrease of moral disengagement, and education about the effects of online contextual variables.
Keywords
Cyberbullying, Empathy, Moral Disengagement, Social Desirability, Online Context, Bystanders
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
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| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
