Intention to Stop Bullying following a Condemning, Empathy-Raising, or Combined Message from a Teacher – Do Students’ Empathy and Callous-Unemotional Traits Matter?

Abstract

Knowing which intervention strategies work best and for which student is essential for teachers when they intervene in cases of bullying. The effects of teachers’ (1) condemning, (2) empathy-raising, and (3) combined (including elements of both) messages on students’ intention to stop bullying were tested in a between-subject experimental design. A total of 277 seventh grade students (Mage = 12.93, SD = 0.49; 47% female) were asked to imagine they had bullied a peer and were invited to a discussion with a teacher. They saw a video vignette with one of the above messages. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that students’ intention to stop bullying was highest among those who saw the combined message. Callous-unemotional traits were negatively, and affective and cognitive empathy positively associated with intention to stop bullying. Students’ level of cognitive empathy moderated the relative effect of the condemning message on intention to stop bullying. At low levels of cognitive empathy, the condemning message was the least effective, whereas among those with high cognitive empathy, all messages were equally likely to lead to intention to stop bullying. Together, the findings suggest that for educators intervening in bullying among adolescents, an approach involving both condemning and empathy-raising messages is the ‘best bet’, most likely to lead to intention to stop bullying.

Interventions That Failed: Factors Associated with the Continuation of Bullying After a Targeted Intervention

“…This could explain the lower compliance of male bullying perpetrators with teachers' requests to stop bullying. This is in line with the results of Johander et al (2022), who also found that boys were less likely to say that they would stop their bullying behavior as a response to an intervention. This lower responsiveness of male perpetrators to the interventions could also be the reason why victimization was more likely to continue for male victims.…”

Differences in Aggression and Alcohol Use among Youth with Varying Levels of Victimization and Popularity Status

“…Whether or not youth admit to bullying also has important ramifications for intervention. For example, targeted interventions have made distinctions between confronting and non-confronting approaches when intervening with a perpetrator (e.g., Johander et al, 2022 ), but an important first step is whether a perpetrator even acknowledges their bullying behavior. In addition, lower-status victims self-reported more concurrent bullying than high-status non-victims, despite not being seen as a bully by their peers.…”

A Study on the Prediction about Internet Addiction Disorder by Callous-Unemotional Traits and Internet Use Preferences

“…Although the influence of CU on individuals get attention in recent years, the majority of the existing research focus on the relationship between CU and violent behaviours in real life such as bullying and behavioural disorders. [4] However, the relationship between CU and different types of Internet use is still unclear, and there are few studies on adolescent objectives, and most of them are reform school students instead of ordinary middle school students. Therefore, studies on relation of CU and Internet use remains to be further explored.…”