Behaviors and motives of bystanders: Contributions for their evaluation

Abstract

Recent approaches about school bullying have criticized the exclusive focus on the bully/victim dyad and indicated the need to also examine the roles that observers can play in this phenomenon - assistants, reinforcers, defenders and outsiders (Salmivalli, Voeten, & Poskiparta, 2011). In this sense, based on the conceptual framework of the motivation to intervene in bullying situations Thornberg et al. (2012), the present study aimed to understand factors that lead observers to help or not the victims of bullying. A total of 481 students from 5th to 9th grade, from four schools of Évora region, participated in the study. For data collection it was used a questionnaire composed by socio-demographic and school characterization, and two scales related with observation of bullying situations: Bullying Bystanders Behaviour Scale (ECOB; Thornberg & Jungert, 2013) and Assessment and Moral Sensibility Scale towards Bullying (EASMB; Pereira & Melo, 2014). The main results suggest the existence of four factors that influence the observer to intervene or not in bullying situations - Lack of Basic Moral Sensitivity, Withdrawal from Bullying Situation, Empathy and Moral Disengagement.