Digital era bullying: An examination of adolescent judgments about bystander intervention online

Gender‐based cyberbullying: Understanding expected bystander behavior online

“…Our gender‐related findings support our hypotheses, indicating that women were significantly more likely to report that they would support the victim and less likely to support the cyberbully compared to men. Past work on expected bystander intervention offline and online found that female adolescents were more likely to defend against bullying when they witnessed someone being bullied compared to their male adolescent peers (Herry et al., 2021; Nickerson et al., 2008). One possible explanation for these findings is that women may feel they are better able to support a victim compared to men, as prior work on sexual assault has demonstrated that women tend to feel more confident than men in their ability to support victims (Amar et al., 2014).…”

“…One possible explanation for these findings is that women may feel they are better able to support a victim compared to men, as prior work on sexual assault has demonstrated that women tend to feel more confident than men in their ability to support victims (Amar et al., 2014). Not only that, but women and girls tend to be more sympathetic towards victims no matter the type of abuse, harassment, or bullying that occurs (Amar et al., 2014; Herry et al., 2021; Nickerson et al., 2008). Women may also see gender‐based cyberbullying as a more serious problem than do men (Nickerson et al., 2008).…”

“…Next, we only used two scenarios per participant which were relatively ambiguous. Although these scenarios were based on previous research (Herry et al., 2021; Mulvey & Killen, 2016), it is possible that these limited scenarios may impact participants’ abilities to fully comprehend the potential severity of the situation or to fully empathize with the victims. Therefore, future research should aim to include additional context and stimuli (e.g., a fake social media post) in order to more fully explore potential responses.…”

“…The majority of the literature surrounding gender‐based bullying and harassment has focused on the experiences of women and girls (Reed et al., 2019; Rodríguez‐Darias & Aguilera‐Ávila, 2018). The literature has found that women and girls tend to be more likely to expect that they would support victims of bullying and sexual harassment, and women and girls tend to find bullying of any kind less acceptable than men and boys (Amar et al., 2014; Herry et al., 2021). Additionally, women tend to report more experiences of gender‐based harassment and bullying compared to men (Kennedy & Taylor, 2010; Lindsay et al., 2016; Vogels, 2021).…”

To defend or not to defend a cyber victim: The role of individual and situational characteristics in motivating active cyber defending among university students

“…Another area that has emerged from the recent interest in the literature to explore factors that motivate active cyber-defending are the situational characteristics (Domínguez-Hernández et al, 2018;Herry et al, 2021;Jenkins & Frederick, 2017;Lambe et al, 2019;Song & Oh, 2017;Van Cleemput et al, 2014). Indeed, situational factors, such as social power, an individual's relationship with the victim, and the psychosocial cost of defending have been examined as possible motivators for active defending (Burns et al, 2008;Brody & Vangelsti, 2016;Glasford & Pratto, 2014;Lambe et al, 2019;Schumann et al, 2014;Patterson et al, 2016); however, existing research investigating these situational characteristics is limited.…”