Speaker
Description
Theoretical Background and Study Objective: Bullying is a severe public health issue involving not only children and adolescents but also adults, who play a key role in addressing it. Traditional methods often need to be revised due to social desirability biases and difficulties in age-based comparability. Visual attention, however, represents an implicit and objective measure, allowing researchers to bypass these challenges. This study uses eye-tracking to investigate how children, adolescents, and adults allocate attention across roles when observing bullying scenarios.
Methodology: The sample involved 232 Italian participants across three age groups: primary school students (n = 68, 29%), middle school students (n = 88, 38%), and adults (n = 76, 33%). While their gaze was tracked, participants watched six drawings of physical and relational bullying. Four mixed ANOVAs were conducted, assessing two attentional indices: total fixation duration and fixation count.
Results: Significant interaction effects were observed across all ANOVAs (physical bullying: fixation duration, p = .008; fixation count, p < .001; relational bullying: fixation duration, p = .01; fixation count, p = .03). While children and adolescents primarily focused on the bully and victim, adults showed a broader distribution of attention, dedicating more focus to the defender role.
Conclusion and Implications: Encouraging younger individuals to recognize multiple roles in bullying can promote empathy and social awareness. Adults’ broader perspectives can enhance mentoring efforts, supporting a comprehensive approach to addressing bullying across age groups.
Keywords
eye-tracker; different ages; attention; bullying; drawings
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
|---|---|
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
