Adolescent bystanders’ moral emotions in cyberbullying

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to extensively investigate not only bystander roles but also individual bystanders’ moral emotional responses in the context of cyberbullying based on the perpetrator's perceived popularity and the message type. Data from 566 adolescents in grade 7 attending six middle schools in South Korea were used to identify their bystander behavior and moral emotions in response to vignettes about cyber scenarios. Using latent profile analysis, the current study identified five types of bystanders: limited bystanders, pro-bullies, outsiders, defenders, and inconsistent bystanders. Moreover, multinomial logistic regressions were performed to determine the predictive power of the moral emotions of each bystander type. The findings indicated the importance of understanding bystanders’ roles for designing effective intervention strategies regarding moral emotions, leading to adolescents’ improved moral sensitivity.

Special issue: Child protection in the digital age. Latent profiles in cyberbullying and the relationship with self‐concept and achievement goals in preadolescence

“…Schultze-Krumbholz et al (2018) discovered that the prosocial defender (52.2%) was the most prevalent profile in a sample of 849 German students (11-17 years old), followed by the one who communicates the harassment to the rest (28.4%), the aggressive defender (9.5%), the victimized aggressor (7.1%) and the assistants (2.8%). Similarly, Hong and Lee (2022) discovered five distinct profiles of observers after analysing 566 12-year-old adolescents with LPA (limited bystanders, pro-bullies, outsiders, defenders and inconsistent bystanders). Table 1 summarizes the research literature that was examined.…”