Speaker
Description
Theoretical Background: Bystanders play a critical role mitigating the consequences of bullying, with individual and situational factors impacting their decision to actively defend online.
Objective: To examine four studies we conducted looking at factors influencing online bystanding.
Methodology: A cyber version of the Student Bystander Behaviour Scale (Thornberg & Jungert, 2013) and the Cyberbullying Bystander Scale (Sarmiento et al., 2019) were used. Individual characteristics included Moral Disengagement Scale (Hymel et al., 2005), Defender Self-Efficacy Scale (Barchia & Bussey, 2011), Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (Spreng et al., 2009), normative beliefs (Goldstein et al., 2008), and past bullying experiences, while situational characteristics included social power (Sharp & Daniels, 2023), and psychosocial costs (Sharp & Daniels, 2023). First & second year university students (N = 495, N = 265, N = 589, N = 697) participated.
Results: In Study 1, moral disengagement (MD) predicted reinforcer behavior, while defender self-efficacy predicted active defending. In Study 2, low empathy, victimization and perpetration predicted reinforcer; however, no individual factors predicted defending. Study 3 indicated that reinforcers had high MD, low defender self-efficacy, high popularity, and relationship difficulties, while defenders were high in empathy and defender self-efficacy and perceived a cost to friendships. In Study 4 normative beliefs negatively predicted active defending.
Conclusion: Active defending is more difficult to predict than reinforcer behaviour online; only defender self-efficacy consistently predicted.
Implications: Bystanders may struggle to know what to do when witnessing cyberbullying, making it crucial to provide support and skills to enhance their confidence to empower them to intervene.
Keywords
- Cyberbullying
- Cyber bystanding
- Defenders
- Individual Characteristics
- Contextual Characteristics
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Quantitative method study |
|---|---|
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
