Bystanders of bullying: Social-cognitive and affective reactions to school bullying and cyberbullying

Abstract

The Bystander Intervention Model by Latané and Darley (1970) describes the stages necessary for a bystander to intervene in an emergency and can be used to explain bystander behavior in the case of bullying. Social-cognitive and affective reactions to bullying such as empathy with the victim, moral disengagement, feelings of responsibility, defender self-efficacy and outcome expectancy are supposed to determine whether a bystander passes through all stages of the intervention model and are thereby crucial for the behavioral response. These mental reactions were compared between school bullying and cyberbullying in a sample of 486 German students (56% girls, age: M = 12.95) from 28 classes with a newly developed questionnaire covering the five Social-Cognitive and Affective Reactions to Bullying (SCARB) for school context and cyber context separately. Confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit and internal consistency coefficients were acceptable to good. In line with our hypotheses, for cyberbullying as compared to school bullying students reported higher moral disengagement and lower feelings of responsibility and self-efficacy. However, no significant difference was found for empathy. The level of negative outcome expectations was lower for cyberbullying than for school bullying. Results confirm that the context of bullying matters for the social-cognitive and affective reactions of bystanders.

The association between witnessing cyberbullying and depressive symptoms and social anxiety among elementary school students

“…Passive bystander behavior has been linked to moral disengagement (Hymel et al, 2005), diffusion of responsibility (Bjärehed et al, 2020), low defender self‐efficacy (Sjögren et al, 2020), and a lack of confidence (Midgett, Doumas, Moran, et al, 2020), knowledge, or skills to intervene (Forsberg et al, 2014; Hutchinson, 2012), and not knowing what to do (Bauman et al, 2020). These factors may play an even greater role in cyberbullying due to the lack of social–emotional cues (Knauf et al, 2018; Runions & Bak, 2015), physical distance (Knauf et al, 2018), and ease of disseminating communication via social networks (Runions & Bak, 2015). Thus, students who witness cyberbullying may be at higher risk for negative outcomes than students who witness school bullying.…”

Hotspots and Trends of Teenagers Cyberbullying Based on WoS

“…Establish our own awareness of responsibility, and increase the intervention of cyberbullying. Whether it is traditional school bullying or cyberbullying, nearly half of teenagers may be bystanders (Knauf, Eschenbeck, & Hock, 2018). Therefore, mobilizing bystanders and raising their awareness of responsibility are promising goals in anti-cyberbullying projects.…”

Editorial: Special issue on bystanders of online aggression

“…The third article in the issue (Knauf, Eschenbeck, & Hock, 2018) compares the social-cognitive and affective reactions to the self-reported experiences of witnessing bullying and cyberbullying. The findings show that bystanders of cyberbullying incidents reported stronger moral disengagement, lower feelings of responsibility, lower defender self-efficacy, and, surprisingly, lower negative outcome expectations for defending.…”