Defending victims of bullying in the classroom: The role of moral responsibility and social costs

Abstract

The current study examined the role of moral responsibility (i.e., moral disengagement) and social costs (i.e., prioritizing popularity and classroom norms) in defending victims of bullying in the classroom. Participants were 1362 students (Age 8-15) from 58 classrooms who completed self-reported measures on moral disengagement and prioritizing popularity and peer-reported measures on bullying and defending. We first examined whether the outcome of the cost-benefit analysis with regard to the social costs of defending (i.e., prioritizing popularity) only related to defending among students who did not justify bullying (i.e., low levels of moral disengagement). This hypothesis was supported among boys; multi-level analyses showed that prioritizing popularity was positively associated with defending, but only among boys with low levels of moral disengagement. We also investigated contextual effects by examining how differences in the potential negative social costs of bullying as measured by classroom norms of bullying were related to defending. Girls were more likely to defend in classrooms in which bullying was relatively common than in classrooms in which bullying was relatively uncommon. Boys and girls were more likely to defend in classrooms in which bullies were relatively popular than in classrooms in which bullies were relatively unpopular. We further tested interactions between individual and contextual characteristics. Only among boys, the effect of classroom prestige norms on defending was stronger among boys with lower levels of prioritizing popularity. These findings highlight the importance of considering interactions between moral responsibility and social costs at the individual and classroom level when trying to understand acts of moral courage, such as defending. Perceived moral courage in the classroom: defending victims of bullyingBullying can be defined as a moral transgression that is a subtype of aggression, in which one or more individuals (the bullies) repeatedly attack, humiliate, or exclude other persons (the victims) who have difficulties to defend themselves (Salmivalli, 2010). Students can defend victims of bullying by trying to stop the bullying or by comforting

Examining the Potential Mental Health Costs of Defending Victims of Bullying: a Longitudinal Analysis

“…Moreover, the current study did not account for classroom-level norms that may influence whether defending is associated with risks for youth. For example, previous research has shown that youth are more likely to defend in classrooms with strong anti-bullying norms (Garandeau et al, 2019;Pouwels et al, 2019). Future research should consider how classroom-level variables, such as bullying norms, relate to the outcomes of defending.…”

Effects of the KiVa Anti-Bullying Program on Affective and Cognitive Empathy in Children and Adolescents

“…The classroom bullying popularity norm was operationalized as the within-classroom correlation between bullying and perceived popularity. This operationalization was used in at least 11 other studies (e.g., Dijkstra & Gest, 2015;Laninga-Wijnen et al, 2018, 2020Peets et al, 2015;Pouwels et al, 2019). The bullying descriptive norm was operationalized as the classroom average of individual scores in bullying.…”

Bullying Perpetration, Moral Disengagement and Need for Popularity: Examining Reciprocal Associations in Adolescence

“…Some adolescents use coercive methods to elevate themselves in the social hierarchy (Ojanen & Nostrand, 2014 ), and adolescent bullying is associated with intentional reward motives for aggression (Dumas et al, 2019 ; Runions et al, 2018 ). Adolescents who are motivated to be popular will pay special attention to the potential benefits and cost of bullying behavior (Pouwels et al, 2019 ). If bullying appears to lead to popularity with minimal costs, young people are more likely to involve in bullying (Pan et al, 2020 ).…”