Why the Victims of Bullying Are More Likely to Avoid Involvement When Witnessing Bullying Situations: The Role of Bullying Sensitivity and Moral Disengagement

Cyberbullying among secondary school students: Analyzing prediction and relationship with background, social status, and ICT use

This study explored the predictions of and relationships between background, social status, and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in cyberbullying among 2430 secondary school students from schools affiliated with Thailand's Office of the Basic Education Commission. The stratified sampling method was used along with the Cyberbullying Questionnaire, Sociometric Status Questionnaire, Perceived Popularity Questionnaire, and ICT Use Questionnaire and data were collected through the CU Smart Sociometry web application and Google Forms. Data analysis was conducted to determine 1) demographic data using descriptive statistics; 2) correlation analysis of students' backgrounds, sociometric status, and ICT use against cyberbullying using the chi-square test; and 3) variables that predict cyberbullying among secondary school students using multinomial logistic regression. Results showed a link between cyberbullying and secondary school students' backgrounds, social status, and ICT use. Students with different backgrounds (sex and academic performance), social statuses (social preference and perceived popularity), and ICT use partook in different cyberbullying roles. Independent variables of sex, academic performance, social preference, perceived popularity, and ICT use all predicted cyberbullying by 33.3 % with statistical significance. Male students were noted to have a higher likelihood of being cyberbullies than female students, whereas female students were more likely to be cybervictims and bystanders. Moreover, students with low academic performance were more likely to be cyberbullies and cybervictims than high-performing students, with rejected students having the highest likelihood of being cyberbullies. Interestingly, the higher a student's popularity, the higher was their likelihood of being cyberbullies. Finally, cyberbullies had the highest average daily internet use, and students who had never had their guardians monitor their internet usage were more likely to be cyberbullies; students with moderate and good social media behavior were mostly bystanders.

A serial cascade effect of cybervictimization and hostile rumination on the within-person change of moral disengagement

OBJECTIVE

There is a lack of clarity regarding the developmental mechanisms underlying moral disengagement (a typical moral personality) at the within-person level. To address this issue, we explore the serial cascade effect of cybervictimization and hostile rumination.

METHOD

The longitudinal relationships between cybervictimization, hostile rumination, and moral disengagement were explored among 1146 undergraduates, assessed four times (T1-T4) across 2 years.

RESULTS

The random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) analysis revealed that the random intercepts of all variables were positively associated with each other. At the within-person level, cybervictimization at T2 indirectly predicted subsequent changes in moral disengagement at T4 through changes in hostile rumination at T3 (the indirect effect was 0.02); furthermore, moral disengagement at T3 predicted changes in hostile rumination at T4 (β = 0.091).

CONCLUSIONS

The within-person dynamics of moral disengagement should be partly due to the serial effect of cybervictimization and hostile rumination, whereas hostile rumination and moral disengagement may form a developmental cascade to some degree. These findings and the proposed serial cascade model of moral disengagement could expand our understanding of the developmental mechanism of moral personality. Additionally, caution must be exercised as this study exhibits seemingly small effect sizes and inconsistent results.

Experiences of Street Harassment and the Active Engagement of Bystanders: Insights From a Swiss Sample of Respondents

In this article, we analyze data from a survey conducted in the Swiss city of Fribourg to investigate the correlation between bystanders' experiences of street harassment and their likelihood of active engagement and strategies used to stop the harasser or assist and support targets of street harassment. Results reveal that, among bystanders, lifetime experiences of street harassment correlate positively with their ability to recognize street harassment conduct and the likelihood of intervention, support of the survivors, and reporting emergencies, even more significantly when the bystander endured physical abuse. In addition, behavioral differences among bystanders reflect different forms of resistance to the sexist culture that fuels street harassment. In light of these findings, we emphasize the need to integrate the narratives of the bystanders into awareness programs and campaigns, the importance of designing tools and policies to improve feelings of safety and limit street harassment conducts, including forms of benevolent sexism, and support further studies to assess the effectiveness of different intervention strategies in support of victims, including the need to research the use of digital media and its impact as a deterrent to street harassment or in increasing police reporting.

Bullying and Self-Concept, Factors Affecting the Mental Health of School Adolescents

Bullying is an aggressive and repetitive behavior, where one person or several people physically, socially, or emotionally harm a vulnerable person and provokean imbalance of power in a school setting. Several factors such as age, sex, school performance, psychological factors, and ethnicity have been associated with bullying and more are being sought. Thus, the objectives of this study were as follows: (1) analyze the differences in bullying (victimization and aggression) and self-concept (academic, social, emotional, family, and physical) with respect to sex, school location, and educational level among Spanish adolescents; (2) explore the associations of bullying and self-concept with these sociodemographic dimensions. A cross-sectional study was designed with a total of 1155 participants (between 12 and 18 years old); there were 48.8% boys and 51.2% girls, where 75.9% studied compulsory secondary education (CSE) and 24.1% Baccalaureate, and 31.9% were students from rural schools and 68.1% were from urban schools. Medium and inverse correlations were shown between victimization and self-concept at the general level, for both sexes, both types of school, and both educational stages. For the aggression dimension, the correlations with self-concept were inverse at the general level (low), in girls (low), in rural students (medium), and in compulsory secondary education students (medium). For academic self-concept and family self-concept, the associations were medium and inverse with bullying in all variables. For emotional self-concept the correlation with bullying was direct and medium in all variables; in physical self-concept, the correlations with bullying were inverse in almost all variables except in boys. Self-concept may be a protective factor for bullying and interventions should aim at adolescents building a positive multidimensional self-concept that prevents and protects them from bullying either as aggressor or victim.

Effects of the KiVa anti-bullying program on defending behavior: Investigating individual-level mechanisms of change

Given that defending victimized peers might help discourage bullying behavior and prevent its harmful consequences, various anti-bullying programs have attempted to increase defending behavior among participating children. However, the cognitions that underlie the effectiveness of interventions in increasing defending remain unknown. Data for this randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the KiVa anti-bullying program were collected in Finnish primary schools at baseline, after 5 months of implementation, and after 9 months of implementation and were used to examine the possible mediating role of seven psychological factors (empathy for the victim, feelings of responsibility to intervene, self-efficacy for defending, negative attitudes towards victims, and outcome expectations that defending would decrease or stop the bullying, be beneficial for one's status, and not increase one's risk of being victimized). Analyses conducted on a sample of 5731 children (baseline M_age = 11 years; 51% girls) revealed that the positive effects of KiVa on defending behavior after 9 months of implementation could partly be explained by the positive effects of the program on two factors (i.e., feelings of responsibility to intervene and expectations that the defending would make the bullying decrease or stop) after 5 months of implementation. This study provides information regarding the individual-level factors that anti-bullying interventions can target to successfully promote defending of victimized peers in primary schools.

The Effect of Everyday Moral Sensitivity on Bullying Bystander Behavior: Parallel Mediating Roles of Empathy and Moral Disengagement

The higher moral sensitivity to bullying a student has, the more likely they are to help the victim or inhibit bullying rather than ignore it. Research has mainly focused on particular sensitivity to bullying, and it remains unknown whether sensitivity to everyday moral issues functions similarly. The present study aimed to examine the effect of everyday moral sensitivity (EMS) on bullying bystander behaviors. We included a range of school children (n = 1,655, Grades 3-12, 27.6% girls) in Southwest China. The results show 6.10% have been a victim-only, 0.48% have been a bully-only, 0.85% have been the bullying victim, 92.57% have been neither a bully nor a bullying victim, and 45.86% have observed bullying. Students in lower grades are more likely to be bullied. After controlling for covariates (i.e., gender, grade, and social desirability), EMS is positively associated with positive bystander behaviors. Moreover, empathy and moral disengagement (MD) play a mediating role in the relationship between EMS and positive bystander behaviors. The results reveal two parallel processes of EMS influenced bystander behaviors (i.e., empathy and MD). The findings indicate the possibility of cultivating EMS and highlight the role of morality development in preventing school bullying.

The indirect association between moral disengagement and bystander behaviors in school bullying through motivation: Structural equation modelling and mediation analysis

Guided by the social-cognitive theory and self-determination theory, this study examined whether moral disengagement is indirectly associated with pro-bullying, passive bystanding, and defending, mediated by autonomous motivation, introjected motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation to defend victims of bullying among early adolescents. Participants were 901 upper elementary students from 43 school classes at 15 public schools in Sweden who completed a questionnaire in their classrooms. The results showed that students who were less inclined to morally disengage in peer bullying tended to be more autonomously motivated to take the victim’s side, which in turn was associated with greater defending and fewer pro-bullying behaviors. Introjected motivation to defend negatively mediated the association between moral disengagement and defending, and positively mediated moral disengagement’s associations with passive bystanding and pro-bullying behavior. Extrinsic motivation to defend mediated moral disengagement’s associations with passive bystanding and pro-bullying behavior. Finally, students who were more prone to morally disengage in peer bullying tended to be more amotivated to take the victim’s side, which in turn was associated with greater pro-bullying behavior and less defending.

The use of Latent Profile Analyses to examine social dominance orientation as a predictor of peer-to-peer aggression among adolescents

Peer-to-peer aggression and bullying is a social phenomenon and is related to social structures in the school. In-group membership as well as construction of the other and differentiation from other potential groups is an important predictor of one's social identity. Social Dominance Orientation is an important addition to social identity theory as it examines both issues of social dominance and social egalitarianism and is related to out-group denigration. In this study, we examined whether social dominance theory (both the dominance and egalitarian forms) will add to the prediction of physical and relational aggression among adolescents. Using a bias-corrected 3-step approach, we used Latent Profile Analyses to examine the responses of 1617 Israeli adolescents on measures of social dominance and egalitarian orientation, salience of their social groups and moral disengagement. Based on the analysis, we identified four classes of respondents, which can be broken down into two distinct categories: high social dominance and moral disengagement and high social egalitarianism. We compared male and female adolescent respondents and group salience. We then compared the four latent profiles on the two distal variables of physical and relational peer-to-peer aggression. Findings have theoretical and applied relevance to further investigating issues of group dynamics and construction of the other as potential predictive factors in understanding peer-to-peer aggression and bullying.

Defending or Remaining Passive as a Bystander of School Bullying in Sweden: The Role of Moral Disengagement and Antibullying Class Norms

The overall aim of the present study was to examine whether moral disengagement and perceptions of antibullying class norms at individual level and at class level were associated with defending and passive bystanding in school bullying among school-age children. More specifically, we investigated the extent to which moral disengagement would contribute to explain defending and passive bystanding, after controlling for sex and perceptions of antibullying class norms at individual level and at class level. A total of 789 Swedish students (aged 10-14) from 40 middle school classes filled out a self-report survey. The findings revealed that girls and students who were less prone to morally disengage, and who perceived that their classmates endorsed more antibullying norms, were more likely to defend victimized peers. Students who were more inclined to morally disengage and perceive that classmates do not condemn bullying were more likely to act as passive bystanders. In addition, classes with higher levels of antibullying class norms were more likely to show higher rates of defending and lower rates of passive bystanding compared to the other classes. The findings suggest that schools and teachers need to develop educational strategies, methods, and efforts designed to make students aware of moral disengagement and to reduce their likelihood of morally disengaging in bullying situations. The present findings also point to the importance of teachers establishing class rules against bullying together with the students.

Two Dimensions of Moral Cognition as Correlates of Different Forms of Participation in Bullying

The present study investigated the extent to which moral disengagement and the tendency to consider moral rules as socio-conventional rules are distinct dimensions of morality, and their association with three different forms of participation in bullying (perpetrating bullying, defending the victim and passive bystander behavior). These two types of moral cognitions have been theorized in different models of morality and are usually studied independently, even if research on moral shifts (the interpretation of a moral rule transgression as a socio-conventional rule transgression) suggests some possible overlaps. A group of 276 Italian students from primary and middle school (aged 8–15) completed self-reports assessing moral disengagement, socio-conventional perception of moral rules, and participation in bullying as bully, defender of the victim and passive bystander. Results from structural equation modeling analysis confirmed that moral disengagement and socio-conventional comprehension of aggressions are separate and moderately connected morality dimensions. Controlling for age, gender and SES, only moral disengagement was positively associated with perpetrating bullying. These results point to moral disengagement as the critical component of moral cognitions to be addressed in interventions.