Defending victimized peers: Opposing the bully, supporting the victim, or both?

Abstract

To reduce bullying, more knowledge on children defending their victimized peers is critical. In previous work, predominantly cross-sectional in nature, defending has typically been operationalized as one single, broad construct. However, there are good reasons to assume that attacking the bully (bully oriented defending) and comforting the victim (victim-oriented defending) are relatively independent constructs, with potentially different correlates. This longitudinal study in the Netherlands (N = 394; M = 10.3) combined person- and variable-centered techniques to examine relations between two different forms of defending and multiple outcome variables. In addition to the largest group scoring low on both types of defending, three subgroups emerged. A small group of "traditional," predominantly female defenders, scored high on both forms of defending. These children were well liked and high in reputation-based status, as indexed by perceived popularity and resource control. A larger, predominantly female second group only scored high on victim-oriented defending. These children were also well liked, but low in reputation-based status. The third group only scored high on bully oriented defending, and predominantly contained boys. These children were high in reputation-based status but quite disliked, and they scored high on bullying. Findings strongly suggest that bully oriented defending does not in all cases reflect desirable interventions of empathic children. Aggr. Behav. 42:585-597, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Differences in adolescents’ motivations for indirect, direct, and hybrid peer defending

“…Finally, it must be noted that Reijntjes et al () found that direct defending had positive ties with bullying and was strongly present in peer‐classified probullying adolescents. Similarly, Huitsing et al () suggested that adolescents in probullying cliques use peer defending to help each other.…”

“…Reijntjes et al () were the first to explicitly investigate the potential heterogeneity of adolescents’ peer defending. In their study, three defender groups with distinct status patterns surfaced: (a) indirect defenders, who were high in social preference but low in popularity, (b) direct defenders, who were low in social preference but high in popularity, and (c) hybrid defenders, who were high in both social preference and popularity.…”

“…Second, through peer defending, adolescents were found to increase their peer‐group status (van der Ploeg, Kretschmer, Salmivalli, & Veenstra, ). Finally, for the different defending subtypes specifically, strong associations with peer‐group status in terms of popularity and/or social preference were found (Reijntjes et al, ). The present study sought to further examine whether the defending subtypes qualify as goal‐directed and strategic prosocial behaviors.…”

“…Previous studies have related defending to being skilled and competent at the social, emotional, and physical levels (e.g., Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoè, ; Lambe et al, ; Pronk et al, ). Moreover, indirect and hybrid defending were found to be associated with social preference, while direct and hybrid defending were found to be associated with popularity (Reijntjes et al, ). Following from this, the hypothesis that peer defending is goal‐directed and strategic prosocial behavior is theoretically plausible.…”

“…Gender differences in defending favoring girls are quite consistently reported (Lambe et al, ). Girls were also found to prefer indirect and hybrid defending specifically, while boys seem to prefer direct defending (Pronk et al, ; Reijntjes et al, ). Gender may also moderate the associations between some of the motivations for defending and actual peer defending.…”