Effects of Bystander's Emotional Empathy and Social Problem-Solving Skills on Defending Behaviors Against Bullying in Elementary School: Mediated Through Peer Acceptance

Objectives: Many children are exposed to their peers being bullied, which negatively impacts individuals and the society as a whole. We investigated the effects of elementary school children’s emotional empathy and social problem-solving skills on their defending behaviors. We evaluated the direct and indirect effects of these personal characteristics, mediated through their perceived peer acceptance among classmates. Gender differences were also tested.Methods: The study participants were 386 fourth- and fifth-graders (M = 10.4 yrs.) from six elementary schools in the metropolitan Seoul area of South Korea. Children’s perceived social acceptance, emotional empathy, and problem-solving skills were measured using self-reported questionnaires. Defending behavior was measured using peer nomination. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling were conducted using SPSS 21.0 and MPLUS 6.12.Results: Bystanders‘ emotional empathy and social problem-solving skills had significant effects on defending behaviors. Social problem-solving skills directly affected defending behaviors of boys and girls. Girls’ peer acceptance mediated both emotional empathy and social problem-solving skills for defending behaviors, while no mediation effect was found in boys.Conclusion: For children, feeling accepted by classmates is important for defending bullied peers. For girls, peer acceptance magnifies their socio-emotional and socio-cognitive skills, empowering them to defend the bullied peers. However, for boys, having competent socio-cognitive skills alone is sufficient. Based on this study’s findings, it is recommended that interventions are needed to enhance bystanders’ emotional empathy and social problem-solving skills, and thereby, empowering them to be competent defenders against school bullying.

The Silver Lining in the Dark Cloud of Social Status Insecurity: The Mediating Role of Popularity Goals in the Association Between Social Status Insecurity and Chinese Adolescents’ Bullying Bystander Behaviors

Bullying bystander behavior has an important effect on bullying—both in stopping and facilitating it. Although bullying bystander behaviors have long been understood as a peer group process, existing research that focuses on the role of peer factors is still limited. Moreover, less is known about the social cognitive-related role of peer factors and its underlying mechanisms in adolescents’ bullying bystander behaviors. Accordingly, using resource control theory, this study examines the mediating effects of popularity goals on the associations between social status insecurity and bullying bystander behaviors (active defending behaviors, passive bystanding behaviors) among 333 Chinese adolescents (181 males; Mage = 13.10; SD = .50). Analyses were conducted using SPSS 23 to conduct descriptive and correlation analyses. The hypothesized mediation model was tested using a structural equation modeling approach with bootstrapping techniques (bootstrap replications: 5,000) using AMOS 23. The results showed that popularity goals fully mediated the relationship between adolescents’ social status insecurity and their active defending behaviors. No gender differences in these mediating effects were observed. The results also indicated that popularity goals did not mediate the relationship between social status insecurity and passive bystanding behaviors. These findings enrich our understanding of bullying bystander behaviors and highlight the positive role of social cognitive factors (e.g., popularity goals) in active defending behaviors. Our findings deepen our understanding of bullying bystanders through integrating proximate and ultimate approaches. Our findings have significant practical implications, which suggest that school anti-bullying interventions should value the positive roles of social status insecurity and popularity goals in promoting active defending behaviors.

Navigating the Healthy Context Paradox: Identifying Classroom Characteristics that Improve the Psychological Adjustment of Bullying Victims

The healthy context paradox—an unexpected pattern in which victims’ psychological adjustment worsens as the overall level of victimization in a classroom or school declines—implies that reducing the frequency of bullying or victimization incidents does not do enough to help victims of bullying. In light of this finding, it is imperative to identify protective factors that alleviate victimization-related distress in the peer ecology. The current study examines classroom-level peer victimization and peer-defending behaviors as moderators of the association between individual-level victimization and psychological adjustment. These classroom-level moderators were tested with a sample of 1373 adolescents (40% girls, Mage: 14 years) from 54 classrooms in South Korean middle schools. Consistent with past findings documenting the healthy context paradox, the results of multilevel modeling indicated that victimized youth experienced a lower level of depressive symptoms in classrooms where victimization was more common. Most importantly, bullied students reported fewer depressive symptoms, on average, in classrooms with relatively high levels of bully-oriented (i.e., confronting the bully), rather than victim-oriented (i.e., comforting the victim), defending behavior. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the role of peers’ defending behaviors toward bullied adolescents and have significant implications for anti-bullying interventions.