Cyberbullying und Empathie: Affektive, kognitive und medienbasierte Empathie im Kontext von Cyberbullying im Kindes- und Jugendalter

Abstract

Zusammenfassung Bei medial vermittelter Kommunikation sinkt sowohl die Hemmschwelle für aggressive Verhaltensweisen wie Cyberbullying als auch die Wahrscheinlichkeit empathischer Reaktionen. Im Fokus der vorliegenden Studie mit 979 Schülerinnen und Schülern der 4.-8. Klassen (M = 12.01, SD = 1.68 Jahre, 55% weiblich) stand die Frage, ob Cyberbullies geringere Ausprägungen für affektive, kognitive und medienbasierte Empathie aufweisen als Unbeteiligte. Empathie wurde im Selbst-und Peerbericht erhoben. Hypothesenkonform zeigte sich, dass Cyberbullies weniger empathisch sind als Unbeteiligte. Allerdings waren die Ergebnisse für selbst-und peerberichtete Empathie nicht deckungsgleich. Bei kleinen, aber signifikanten Effekten scheint die Förderung von Empathie für die Prävention von Cyberbullying viel versprechend.

Prevalence and Correlates of Cyberbullying Perpetration. Findings from a German Representative Student Survey

“…It can therefore be assumed that a high degree of empathy would stop someone from becoming a cyberbully. Pfetsch et al [ 24 ] were able to confirm in their study that cyberbullies are significantly less empathetic than bystanders. Other studies show that a lack of empathy and cyberbullying are related as described [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ].…”

Cyberbullying and Cybervictimization Within a Cross‐Cultural Context: A Study of Canadian and Tanzanian Adolescents

“…This suggests that there is a need for interventions that help adolescents develop positive relationships in a virtual world. Increasing online social responsibility, including empathy and compassion for “invisible” others, has been identified as a way to reduce cyberbullying and cybervictimization (Pfetsch, Müller, & Ittel, ). Similarly, for both countries, motivation for cyberbully was positively linked to engagement in CBCV.…”

Bystanders’ responses to offline bullying and cyberbullying: The role of empathy and normative beliefs about aggression

“…In a sample of 979 adolescents, different forms of empathy (affective and cognitive offline empathy in offline settings, affective and cognitive media empathy in online settings) were assessed via self and peer reports (Pfetsch, M€ uller & Ittel, 2014). Cyberbullies report lower affective offline empathy, affective media empathy, and cognitive media empathy than non-involved students, while their peers report the bullies to have less cognitive offline empathy than non-involved students (Pfetsch et al, 2014). In summary, cognitive and affective empathy in bystanders of cyberbullying is hypothesized to be linked to lower reinforcement of the cyberbully and higher support for the victim of cyberbullying.…”

“…Moreover, prior research pointed out possible differences between the different types of aggression related to specific types of both normative beliefs (Wright & Li, 2013) and empathy (Caravita et al, 2009;Yeo, Ang, Loh, Fu & Karre, 2011;Van Noorden et al, 2014). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated the link between bystander responses with specific types of normative beliefs (i.e., beliefs about verbal aggression and cyberaggression), and just a handful of studies studied cognitive, as well as affective, empathy (Barli nska, Szuster & Winiewski, 2013;Pfetsch et al, 2014). Therefore, controlling for gender and age, we aim to examine these links.…”