Moral motivation in defending classmates victimized by bullying

Abstract

The study addresses factors that relate to defending of classmates victimized by bullying in early adolescence. Specifically, it examines whether moral motivationmeasured as a combination of emotion attributions and their justifications in response to a hypothetical transgression-predicts defending in context of gender, social preference, perceived popularity and teacher support. We gathered singletime-point data on a sample of 512 sixth-graders (aged 11 -13 years). A three-step hierarchical regression analysis showed that defending was positively predicted by:(1) moral motivation, when gender, social preference, perceived popularity and teacher support were accounted for; (2) interaction between moral motivation and social preference, when all other independent variables were accounted for. Simple slopes indicated that increased social preference strengthened the link between moral motivation and defending. The full model explained 40.5% of the variance in defending. The findings underscore the relevance of morality and its interplay with social preference in understanding defending.

Victimization and its associations with peer rejection and fear of victimization: Moderating effects of individual‐level and classroom‐level characteristics

“…A peer rejection score was measured using an item included in an 11‐item adaptation of a peer nomination method (Coie & Dodge, ) used previously by Kollerová, Janošová, and Říčan (). In this method, participants nominated an unlimited number of classmates who fit a certain characteristic.…”

Comparing factors related to school-bullying and cyber-bullying

“…Others (Caravita, Gini & Pozzoli, 2012) showed that acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement is associated to SB among early adolescents only, with moral disengagement in childhood relating to defending among girls. Moreover, it is possible that popular children bully others and perceive their actions as a reward leading to high-perceived popular status (Kollerová, Janošová & ŘíČan, 2015). Similarly, Thornberg and Jungert (2014) who added the effect of gender and age, suggested that compared to girls, boys express significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution; with younger children and girls being more likely to defend victims.…”

Ethical and Moral Aspects of School Education: The situation in the Czech Republic

“…In the section that dealt with children's aggression, we talked about a specifi c form of aggression -bullying classmates. However, we can also look at the problem of bullying through a positive lens and examine how classmates help the victims of bullying (Kollerová, Janošová, & Říčan, 2015). Th e research was conducted among 512 basic school pupils (53% boys, 47% girls; age 11-13) in two large cities.…”