Full length articleWho's to blame?: The effects of victim disclosure on bystander reactions to cyberbullying
Introduction
Over the past several years, Facebook has become the second most visited website in the United States, only behind Google. Despite reports of its recent declining popularity among younger generations (Piper Jaffray, 2014), Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform among young adults (Guimaraes, 2014, Harvard Institute of Politics, 2011). Although social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook offer opportunities for communication and connection with others, they also provide a new venue for negative social interactions. Cyberbullying, the use of online media to engage in intentional aggression characterized by a power imbalance, has become a growing problem among users (Kowalski and Limber, 2007, Williams and Guerra, 2007). Although much research focuses on the cyberbullying experiences of children and adolescents, similar negative online experiences are also prevalent among young adults. In a study of undergraduate students, Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, and Reese (2012) found that almost one third of the sample were cyberbullied in the past six months and that over 30% experienced their first cyberbullying incident during their college years. Taken together with evidence of high rates of social media usage among college-aged youth (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015), these findings suggest that further investigation of cyberbullying experiences on SNS among young adults is warranted.
Much like victims of traditional bullying, cybervictims suffer a range of negative psychological outcomes (e.g., depression; Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, & Lattanner, 2014; Tokunaga, 2010). Bullying that occurs online, as opposed to in person, may be particularly harmful for victims, insofar as incidents typically occur in front of a wider audience. In turn, the reactions of online bystanders play an important role in shaping victim adjustment following cyberbullying incidents. Whereas victims experience heightened distress when bystanders do not intervene with bullying situations (Salmivalli, 2010), receiving support from onlookers can significantly alleviate victims' plight (Pepler, Craig, & O'Connell, 2010). As such, it is critical to understand the conditions under which bystanders will show increased support for victims of cyberbullying.
Section snippets
Online bystanders: an attributional framework
Bystander intervention in bullying incidents both online (Huang & Chou, 2010) and offline (Hawkins, Pepler, & Craig, 2001) is uncommon. Although the presence of many onlookers and options for more discreet intervention (e.g., sending victim private message of support) in online contexts suggest more opportunities for bystander intervention, research indicates that bystanders are significantly less likely to intervene with bullying incidents that occur online compared to in person (Barlińska,
Determinants of bystander cognitive–affective reactions: victim disclosure
To understand when and why bystanders intervene with cyberbullying, it is important to examine factors influencing bystanders' attributions of blame and empathy for a cybervictim. Yet, little research has considered how specific features of cyberbullying incidents impact bystanders' cognitive–affective processes. Studies of offline victimization, largely regarding sexual assaults or rape, suggest that onlookers who perceive victim behavior as inappropriate or provocative are more likely to
Current study
Relying on an experimental design to examine bystanders' perceptions and reactions to cyberbullying incidents on Facebook, the goal of the present study was to consider how a cybervictim's online personal disclosures impact bystanders' attributions of blame and empathy for a cyberbullied teen, as well as their subsequent intention to intervene and support the victim. In addition to varying the level of the victim's disclosure (i.e., highly personal post vs. general post), we manipulated the
Participants
A total of 118 young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 (Mage = 20.55; 58% female) were recruited through a convenience sampling of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers. Study eligibility criteria required all participants to speak English as their primary language and to live in the United States. The majority of participants (59%) were enrolled as full-time college students at the time of study. Most participants (74%) self-identified as White. All participants received $0.50 for their
Descriptive analyses
The majority of participants (80%) agreed or strongly agreed that the Facebook incident qualified as “cyberbullying”. Across conditions, participants reported relatively low levels of victim blame (M = 1.67, SD = 0.81) and high levels of empathy for the victim (M = 4.06, SD = 0.80). On average, participants reported moderate rates of intention to intervene and support the victim (M = 2.55, SD = 0.88).
Main analyses
The first goal of the study was to examine how level of disclosure and valence of a
Discussion
Past research has identified bystanders as important actors in bullying incidents (Salmivalli, 2010). They can worsen victim plight by not intervening or alleviate victim distress by supporting the victim (Pepler et al., 2010). Yet, relatively little is known about when and why bystanders intervene. The current study addressed this question by considering how bystanders' attributions and emotional reactions to a cyberbullied teen vary depending on the victim's degree of personal disclosure on
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research (Grant ID: G20141015627671) and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-1144087). The authors would also like to thank Negin Ghavami for her feedback on stimuli creation.
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