The Influence of School Climate and Empathy on Cyberbystanders’ Intention to Assist or Defend in Cyberbullying

Abstract

Bystanders play a crucial role in aggressive behavior in group contexts. Cyberbystanders can react in proactive ways such as assisting a cyberbully or defending the victim. Since school relationships spill over to the online world, the school context is likely to influence students' online behavior. In the present study, we examine the influence of school climate on active cyberbystanding behavior beyond the influence of individual social competences. Participants were 726 students from a more comprehensive study, who were classified as non-victims and non-bullies (i.e., pure bystanders). They were from 36 classes in five schools in Germany (Grades 7-10; M age = 13.37 years, SD age = 1.01 years, 53.3% female). Two hypothetical scenarios were used to operationalize active bystanding: one for assisting in cyberbullying and one for defending the cybervictim. Separate multilevel analyses were conducted to predict assisting in cyberbullying and defending the victim on the individual level, respectively. Individual-level independent variables were affective and cognitive empathy. Class-level independent variables were assessed with six subscales of the Inventory of School Climate (ISC-S; Brand et al. 2003). Age, gender, class-level offline and online bullying, and offline and online victimization were controlled for. Results showed cognitive and affective empathy, lack of positive peer interactions, and offline bullying to predict assisting. Defending was predicted by cognitive and affective empathy, lack of safety problems, and teacher support. School plays a role in students' online bystander behavior and interventions should aim to foster a supportive school climate.

Factors influencing negative cyber-bystander behavior: A systematic literature review

“…While various demographic factors were addressed, age and gender were the most commonly studied across the articles included in this review and were the only demographic factors identified as being significantly associated with negative cyber-bystander behavior, with some exceptions which provided contradicting results by Schultze-Krumbholz et al ( 40 ), Erreygers et al ( 41 ), and Barlinska et al ( 42 ).…”

“…Schultze-Krumbholz et al ( 40 ) found that lower levels of positive peer interactions in class was associated with assistant behavior cyber-aggression situations. Additionally, they also stated that classrooms that contained a higher number of offline-aggressors tend to promote more negative cyber-bystander behavior—likely due to social norms and pressure.…”

“…Moreover, one's environment needs to promote these behaviors as being desirable behavior in order to further encourage it as the review indicates that individuals tend to engage in these behaviors if they believe that their peers expect ( 28 ) or will reward such behaviors ( 52 ), or that it would keep them safe ( 43 , 49 – 51 ). This includes efforts to discourage both face to face and online cyber-aggression as those who were in classrooms with a higher number of aggressors were more likely to reinforce aggression ( 40 ). In addition to that, efforts to improve poor peer relationships and peer support also seem vital as factors such as self-efficacy were found to be associated with these variables ( 51 ), and it might also increase one's sense of safety when they have adequate social support.…”

From pity to numbness: Social exclusion moderates the relationship between trait empathy and bystanders’ aggressive tendencies in cyberbullying

“…For instance, Van Cleemput et al (2014) used self-reported measures and determined that bystanders who joined in cyberbullying scored lower on trait empathy. Schultze-Krumbholz et al (2020) used hypothetical scenarios to assess cyberbullying bystander behaviours and found that participants with high trait empathy were less likely to assist in cyberbullying. However, other studies have indicated that trait empathy is unrelated to cyberbullying bystanders' aggressive behaviours.…”

Adolescent School Bullying and Life Skills: A Systematic Review of the Recent Literature

“…Eight studies (Caravita, Gini, & Pozzoli, 2012;Haddock & Jimerson, 2017;Jenkins et al, 2017;Machackova & Pfetsch, 2016;Schultze-Krumbholz, Zagorscak, Hess, & Scheithauer, 2020;Yang & Kim, 2017;Walters & Espelage, 2019) investigated bystander roles, showing a strong relation between defending and affective empathy. Two studies failed to find a relation between defending and cognitive empathy (Caravita et al, 2012;Walters & Espelage, 2019).…”