Bystanders in Bullying:
What we Know and Where to Go
Amanda B. Nickerson, Ph.D.
Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention | University at Buffalo
nickersa@buffalo.edu
gse.buffalo.edu/alberticenter
Colloquium September 30, 2015

Overview
 Bullying and Participant Roles
 Responses of Bystanders
 “Bystander effect”
 Defenders and outsiders (passive bystanders)
 5 Step Model for Bystander Intervention
 Implications for Practice and Future Directions
What is Bullying?
Any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by
another youth or group of youths who are
not siblings or current dating partners that
involves an observed or perceived power
imbalance and is repeated multiple times
or is highly likely to be repeated.
Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the
targeted youth including physical,
psychological, social, or educational harm.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014)
Importance of Bystander Reactions
 May contribute to the problem or help resolve it
 Impact on the bully
 Others joining in, providing positive feedback by verbal or
nonverbal cues (e.g. smiling, laughing) is rewarding
 Challenging the bully's power by taking sides with the victim
provides negative feedback
 Impact on the target
 Targets who have one or more classmates defend them
 Are less anxious and less depressed
 Have higher self-esteem
Sainio, Veenstra, Huitsing, & Salmivalli (2011); Salmivalli (2010)
Historical Context
Bystander Effect
(Latané & Darley)
 Presence of others discourages an individual
from intervening in an emergency situation
 Variables related to bystanders
 Diffusion of responsibility
 Cost (time, effort, distress)
 Social stigmatization of victim
Bystanders in Bullying
 Bystanders witness 80% of bullying episodes, but intervene less
than 20% of the time
 Most say they are disgusted by the bullying, but there are several
reasons why they don’t help:
 Diffusion of responsibility (“No one else is doing anything”)
 Pluralistic ignorance (“Everyone else must think it’s OK”)
 Power of bullies/fear of retaliation (“It will just get turned on me”)
 Attitudes toward the victims of bullying (“He got what was coming –
he is so irritating”)
Atlas & Pepler (1998); Boulton, Trueman, & Flemington (2002);
Lodge & Frydenberg (2005); O’Connell et al. (1999); Pepler & Craig (2001);
Rigby & Johnson (2006)
Guiding Questions for My Research
 What contributes to some
students defending victims
of bullying and others to
stand by passively?

Individual variables (e.g.,
empathy) and contextual
factors (relationships with
parents, peers)
 How can we encourage
more to intervene to
decrease bullying and its
negative impact?
Attachment and Empathy as Predictors in
Defenders vs. Outsiders
 Hypothesis: Attachment to mother, attachment to father, and
empathy, after controlling for gender, would predict whether
children nominated themselves as defenders in bullying situations

105 middle school students
 Nominated themselves as defenders or outsiders using Participant
Role Descriptions (adapted from Salmivalli et al., 1996)
 Reported on attachment to mother and father using Kerns’
Attachment Security Scale (Kerns, Klepac, & Cole, 1996)
 Reported empathy on Olweus Empathic Responsiveness
Questionnaire (Olweus & Endresen, 1998)
Nickerson, Mele, & Princiotta (2008)
Findings
Empathy, Group Norms, Prosocial Affiliations
in Bullying Roles
 Hypotheses:
 Empathetic Responsiveness will be an inverse predictor of
bullying and positive predictor of defending
 After accounting for empathetic responsiveness, group norms
and prosocial affiliations will be inversely related to to bullying
and positively related to defender role
Nickerson & Mele-Taylor (2014)
Method
 262 5th through 8th grade students (53.8% female, 46.2% male)
 Peer nomination of up to 5 closest friends
 Olweus Empathetic Responsiveness Questionnaire
 Perceived Group Norms (Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004)
 Higher scores more positive, anti-bullying norms
 Prosocial Tendencies Measure – Revised (Carlo et al., 2003)
 Average score of 3 closest friends (higher scores more prosocial)
 Bullying Participant Roles Survey (Summers, Demaray, & Becker, 2010)
 Role (defender: 52%, victim: 18%, bully: 15%, outsider: 10%; role
undetermined: 5%) based on:
 Engaging in behavior at least 3 times per month
 Engage in behaviors in role more frequently than those in other roles
Results
In Other Words….
 For boys, greater empathetic responsiveness and more positive
group norms predicted role as defender
 For girls, none of variables predicted role as defender, but group
norms and prosocial affiliations predicted involvement as a bully
perpetrator and a victim of bullying
 Interaction effect for girls: More prosocial affiliations but more
negative (pro-bullying) perceived norms predicted role as
perpetrator and role as victim


Bullying roles within girls’ friendship groups?
Misperceptions about peer norms regarding bullying?
Multiple Roles: Bystanders who
Have Been Victimized
 Hypotheses
 Bystanders who were also victims of bullying will report more
social and emotional maladjustment than bystanders who were
not victims
 Females will experience more emotional maladjustment than males
as a bystander
 Witnessing verbal bullying, rather than physical bullying, would
relate to more social-emotional maladjustment (Nishina & Juvonen,
2005)
Werth, Nickerson, Aloe, & Swearer (2015)
Method
 540 6th to 8th graders from two middle schools
 Bullying Survey – Student Version (Swearer, 2001)
 Experiences of bystanders, bullies, victims
 Verbal and physical bullying subscales (as victim and as bystander)
 Social maladjustment (difficulties with peers, family, school, etc.) and
emotional maladjustment (felt mad or sad, sick)
 From a sample of 1157 students, 689 were witnesses (bystanders) to
bullying; final sample of 540

270 bystanders who were victims of bullying matched to 270
bystanders who were not victims (logistic regression method of
estimation of propensity scores on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and 5
items of anti-bullying attitudes)
Findings
 Victimized bystanders experienced more social
maladjustment (but not more emotional maladjustment) than
bystanders who were not victims
 Youth who reported more social and maladjustment as
victims also experienced more social maladjustment
 Females reported more emotional maladjustment (but not
social maladjustment) than males
 Contrary to expectations, witnessing physical bullying (not
verbal bullying) related to more social maladjustment
Take-away Points
 Defending behavior is predicted by empathy, and relationship to
parent (especially mother) also appears to make a difference
 More positive group norms predict defending in boys but not for
girls, for whom they predict involvement as a perpetrator or victim
 Being both a victim and a witness to bullying predicts social
maladjustment (but not emotional maladjustment)
 Defending in bullying is a complex process influenced by multiple
individual and contextual factors – need to better understand this
process to encourage more to intervene in safe and effective ways
5 Step Model for Bystander Intervention
Classic model by Latané and Darley (1970)
Does the 5-Step Bystander Intervention Model
“Fit” for Bullying and Harassment?
 This model was developed originally to understand helping in
emergencies, but has been applied to helping behavior in
contexts such as drunk driving (Rabow et al., 1990), sexual assault
prevention (Burn, 2009), and organ donation (Anker & Feeley, 2011)
 Study Aims (Nickerson, Aloe, Livingston, & Feeley, 2014):



Develop and validate measure of bystander intervention in bullying
and sexual harassment
Assess extent to which each step of model predicts subsequent step of
Latané and Darley’s (1970) class bystander intervention model
Examine extent to which each step is associated with related
constructs (awareness, empathy, attitudes)
Method

562 high school students

Bystander Intervention in Bullying and Sexual Harassment








Notice (e.g., “I have seen other students being bullied or harassed at my school this
year”)
Interpret (e.g., “It is evident to me that someone who is being bullied needs help”)
Accept responsibility (“If I am not the one bullying or harassing others, it is still my
responsibility to try to stop it”)
Know how to help (e.g., “I can help get someone out of a situation where he or she
is being bullied or harassed”
Implement decision (e.g., “I would say something to a student who is acting mean or
disrespectful to a more vulnerable student”)
Awareness of bullying and sexual harassment facts (adapted from Taylor et al.,
2011)
Attitudes Toward Bullying and Sexual Harassment (Perkins et al., 2011)
Olweus Empathetic Responsiveness Questionnaire
Findings
 Confirmatory factor analysis in two nested models
 Model 1: all 16 items of Bystander Intervention as single factor
(common factor)
 Model 2: five-factor structure
 Model 2 fit better than Model 1 (2 D (10) = 890.55, p <.001);
with adequate fit RMSE = .05, CFI = .96, GFI = .95
Findings
.70*
.44*
Notice
Interpret
.88*
Take
Responsibility
.91*
Know how
to help
Act
Structural Equation Model (Maximum Likelihood Estimate Procedure)
indicated good fit, RMSE = 0.05, CFI = 0.98, GFI = 0.94
Awareness, Empathy, and Attitudes all correlated in expected direction
Step 1: Notice the Event
 Vivid, specific events with identifiable victim(s) draw attention
 Perceptions of an event’s occurrence predict intervention
(directly and indirectly)
 Barriers to noticing

Common occurrence
 May not recognize cues
 Not viewed as vivid
Step 2: Interpret Event as Emergency

Factors that impact interpretation of an event
 Social cues (victims may hide their suffering)
 Ambiguity of situation
 Is this bullying?
 Is help needed?
 Harm is psychological and easy to construe as joking

Perceived severity (low or high)
 Negative bias for victims (“that kid deserves it”)
 Emotional reactivity (high negative emotion and high heart rate
motivates students to intervene)
Barhight, Hubbard, & Hyde (2013); Cappadocia, Pepler, Cummings, & Craig (2012); Salmivalli (2010)
Step 3: Assume Responsibility
 Factors that impact acceptance of responsibility
 Attitudes and norms of acceptance of bullying
 Moral disengagement (not for boys)
 Cognitive restructuring
 Minimizing one’s role
 Disregarding/distorting consequences
 Blaming/dehumanizing victim
Almeida, Correia, & Marinho (2010); Burn (2009); Cappadocia, Pepler, Cummings, & Craig (2012);
Caravita, Gini, & Pozzoli (2012); Gini et al. (2011); Monks et al. (2002); Obermann (2011);
Pöyhönen & Salmivalli (2008); Rigby & Johnson (2005); Salmivalli & Voeten (2004)
Step 4: Know How to Help
 Factors that impact knowing how to help
 Lack of knowledge of options for providing help
 Individual and collective self-efficacy (belief that students
and/or teachers can intervene effectively to
stop bullying)
Barchia & Bussey (2011); Burn (2009);
Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoe (2008);
Poyhonen et al. (2010)
Step 5: Provide Help
 Factors that influence providing help
 Low self-efficacy (belief that interventions in a bullying
situation will not be effective)
 Perceived costs to the individual (e.g., time, danger)
 Fear of retaliation from the perpetrator or other peers
 Relation to victim (more likely to defend friend or
in-group member)
Anker & Feeley (2011); Banyard (2008); Batson (1995); Lodge & Frydenberg (2005);
Piliavin et al. (1975); Rigby & Johnson (2005)
Implications for Practice
 Assessing students within this
framework could help identify
specific areas of prevention
and intervention for students
or groups of students
 Interventions can be
developed to explicitly teach
each step of this model
Be an Upstander, Not a Bystander
Elements of Effective Bullying Prevention
 Build a positive school climate
 Encourage active and prosocial behavior
 Shared norms of valuing others
 Include parents
 Provide information, training, and hold meetings
 Use firm disciplinary methods
 Practice effective classroom management
 Do not reinforce bystander behavior and bullying perpetration
 Implement school wide anti-bullying policy and
classroom rules
 Provide active supervision
Polanin et al. (2012); Salmivalli (2010); Ttofi & Farrington (2011)
Success and Importance of
Defending Behavior
 Bystander intervention
 Abates victimization 50% of the time
 Decreases frequency of bullying in classroom
 Associated with higher sense of safety
 School-based bullying prevention programs successful in increasing
bystander intervention (Polanin, Espelage, & Pigott, 2012)

*
Effect size of .43 for high school and .14 for elementary school)
However, it should be noted that Ttofi and Farrington (2011) found
that work with peers (might include peer mediation, peer mentoring,
and/or bystander intervention) increased victimization
Craig, Pepler & Atlas (2000); Gini, Pozzoli, Borghi, & Franzoni (2008); O’Connell, Hawkins et al. (2001);
Pepler, & Craig (1999); Salmivalli, Voeten, & Poskiparta (2011)
Peers as a Target for Intervention: Tier 1
 Raise children's awareness of the role they play in the
bullying process
 Students recognize bullying requires intervention
 Increase empathic understanding of the victim's plight
 Shift attitudes to support intervention (upstanding) rather
than passive bystander behavior [student-led activities]
 Reduce pluralistic ignorance
 Social norms intervention (compare students’ perceptions of norms
to actual peer norms)
Nickerson, Aloe, Livingston, & Feeley (2013); Perkins, Craig, & Perkins (2011); Polanin et al. (2012); Salmivalli (2010)
Example Bystander Lesson:
Steps to Respect

Grab students’ attention

Crumple up paper and throw in garbage

Ask questions (who noticed?)

Discuss experiences witnessing bullying

Show transparency

Identify characters

Discuss (How many bystanders? Are they making it better or worse?)

Activity: “Is it part of the solution or part of the problem?”

Optional exercise: Video rerun (analyze bystander response)
Committee for Children
Peers as a Target for Intervention: Tier 2

Teach to report bullying behavior to adults

Differentiate between tattling/ratting and telling/reporting

Provide more targeted skill instruction
 Teach students safe and realistic strategies to support the victim
 Increase self-efficacy for defending

Increase adult monitoring, positive attention, and rewards
for intervening

Provide opportunities to role play and practice bystander intervention

Specific feedback on behavioral progress
Nickerson, Aloe, Livingston, & Feeley (2013); Polanin et al. (2012); Salmivalli ( 2010);
Pöyhönen et al (in press); Pöyhönen & Salmivalli (2008)
Peers as a Target for Intervention: Tier 3
 Individualized supports


Encourage and discuss supporting a
particular victim with some prosocial,
relatively high-status peers
Support Group Method (Maines &
Robinson, 1992)
Maines & Robinson (1992);
Salmivalli, Kärnä, & Poskiparta (2009a, 2009b)
Where Do We Go?
 Does teaching the 5-step bystander intervention model lead to
changes in bystander behavior?
 What are the most effective methods to teach each step of the
model (e.g., does “medium” matter?)
 Do social norms interventions lead to changes in bystander
intervention? If so, which aspect of it?
 Which interventions (e.g., report to adult, direct confrontation,
support victim) are most preferred and effective for whom?
 How does bystander intervention vary depending on the form of
bullying witnessed (e.g., physical, relational, cyber)?
Margaret Mead
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