Bullying, defending, and outsider behaviors: The moderating role of social status and gender in their relationship with empathy

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine whether the effect of empathy on the role children play in bullying situations, as either bullies, defenders or outsiders, was moderated by children's social status within their classroom, and whether this moderation was gender dependent. For this purpose, we used a representative sample of 2,050 Spanish primary school children (50.80% girls) from grades 3-6 (M = 9.80 years; SD = 1.24), recruited from 27 primary schools. Results showed that the effect of empathy on bullying behavior was moderated by the sociometric rating only in girls. Both empathy and social rating had an effect on defending behavior. However, neither the children's sociometric rating nor their gender moderated the relationship between empathy and defending and outsider behaviors. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for interventions designed to prevent bullying in school settings.

Risk and protective factors at school: Reducing bullies and promoting positive bystanders' behaviors in adolescence

“…To this end, it is important that all adults, not only teachers, offer the necessary support in all the spaces within the school system. This conclusion is important taking into account that previous studies have underscored the importance of promoting positive bystanders’ behaviors to prevent bullying situations (Lucas‐Molina et al ., ; Nickerson & Mele‐Taylor, ; Padgett & Notar, ; Polanin et al ., ).…”

“…Therefore, in violent contexts where the environment is hostile, micro‐level analysis may allow us to observe how the environment and, more specifically, bi‐directional relationships between different actors in a school (management, staff, teachers, and students) may prevent or perpetuate structural violence (Lindstrom Johnson, Waasdorp, Debnam & Bradshaw, 2013; Zych, Farrington, Llorent & Ttofi, ). Each of these variables will be analyzed in the following lines: School environment: it plays a key role in defining which relationship dynamics take place within a school between teachers and students, and among students themselves (Lucas‐Molina, Pérez‐Albéniz, Fonseca‐Pedrero & Giménez‐Dasí, ; Machackova & Pfetsch, ; O'Brennan & Furlong, ; Yoon, Sulkowski & Bauman, ). In a study conducted by Espelage, Polanin and Low () students reported higher levels of violence and intimidation when teachers and school staff exhibited high levels of violence in the school.…”

Empathy and defending behaviours in school bullying: The mediating role of motivation to defend victims

“…The reliability of the total scale score was .81. Given the suboptimal value of reliability for the AE subscale and the quite high correlation emerging between AE and CE subscales ( r = .66), the models we tested included just the total score, as done by other authors examining the link between bullying and empathy (e.g., Lucas‐Molina, Pérez‐Albéniz, Fonseca‐Pedrero, & Giménez‐Dasí, ; Warden & Mackinnon, ).…”

Adolescent Empathy Influences Bystander Defending in School Bullying: A Three-Level Meta-Analysis

“…Additionally, Caravita et al ( 2009 ) showed that the correlation coefficient between empathy and bystander defending increased proportionally with students' age. Moreover, the correlation coefficient between empathy and bystander defending among adolescents in middle school (Pozzoli et al, 2017 ; Yun and Graham, 2018 ) was stronger than for early adolescents (Pöyhönen et al, 2010 ; Lucas-Molina et al, 2018 ). Therefore, we proposed Hypothesis 4: the age of the subjects will moderate the relationship between empathy and bystander defending.…”