Bystander Behaviors In Cyberbullying Among College Students:The Role Of Sympathy And Moral Self-evaluation

Cyberbullying refers to the behavior that individuals or groups repeatedly convey hostile or offensive messages through electronic or digital media in order to hurt or make others feel uncomfortable.Previous studies have shown that cyberbullying could have a serious negative impact on individuals’psychological and behavioral adaptation,such as anxiety and depression,academic difficulties,self-harm and so on.Therefore,it is essential to explore how to prevent and intervene in cyberbullying.Cyberbullying as a group interaction process,in addition to bullies and victims,there are a large number of bystanders,and the behavioral responses of bystanders would have an important impact on the development of cyberbullying.However,previous studies have mostly explored how to interfere with cyberbullying from the perspective of bullies and victims,ignoring the role of bystander behaviors.Bystander behaviors can be divided into defending behavior（protecting and supporting the victim）,pro-bullying behavior（inciting the bully through inflammatory action,assisting the bully to harm the victim）and outsider behavior（no response）.Positive defending behavior can effectively stop the continuation of cyberbullying and buffer the harm to victims,while negative bystander behaviors（such as pro-bullying behavior,outsider behavior）would aggravate the severity of cyberbullying.Thus,it can be seen that exploring the factors that influence individuals to engage in different bystander behaviors is important for the prevention and intervention of cyberbullying.Previous research has shown that sympathy and moral self-evaluation have important impact on individuals’moral behavior,but few studies have examined their interaction in moral behavior.According to the dual-process model and the social information processing model,individuals’behavioral judgments in moral situations（e.g.,bystander behaviors in cyberbullying）are influenced by a combination of emotions and cognition,and emotional responses（e.g.,sympathy）resulting from experiencing the suffering of others do not necessarily motivate individuals to behave morally;their assessments of the current situation and their own condition（e.g.,moral self-evaluation）also play a role in the behavioral decision.Therefore,this study will examine the moderating role of moral self-evaluation between sympathy and cyberbullying bystander behavior.In addition,moral self-evaluation includes two forms:explicit moral self-evaluation and implicit moral self-evaluation.However,previous research has focused on the role of explicit moral self-evaluation in moral behavior,ignoring the possible role of implicit moral self-evaluation.Moreover,previous studies have shown that individuals’behaviors are influenced by the interaction of explicit and implicit cognitions;therefore,this study hypothesized that the interaction between explicit moral self-evaluation and implicit moral self-evaluation may influence the relationship between sympathy and cyberbullying bystander behavior.Study 1 used questionnaires to investigate 496 college students(M_age=19.40,17.14%male)in Jiangxi Province to initially explore the effect of sympathy on bystander behavior in cyberbullying and the moderating role of explicit moral self-evaluation.The results showed that sympathy differentially predicted bystander behaviors in cyberbullying among college students.Specifically,sympathy was positively associated with defending behavior of college students（β₁=.30,p<.001）,and negatively associated with outsider behavior（β₂=–.30,p<.001）,but wasn’t related to pro-bullying behavior（β₃=–.06,p>.05）.In addition,this study found that explicit moral self-evaluation moderated the association between sympathy and defending behavior.Under the condition of lower levels of explicit moral self-evaluation,the relation between sympathy and defending behavior was significant（B₁=.42,SE=.06,p<.001）,however,the relation was weaker in the condition of high levels of explicit moral self-evaluation（B₂=.17,SE=.06,p<.01）.Finally,the present study did not find a moderating effect of explicit moral self-evaluation between sympathy and pro-bullying behavior or outsider behavior.Study 2 used an experimental method to test 86 college students(M_age=21.86,25.58%male)recruited online to initiate individuals’sympathy through video and recall writing tasks,and analyzed the effects of sympathy on different bystander behaviors and the moderating role of explicit moral self-evaluation and implicit moral self-evaluation in them.The results showed that after successfully initiation of sympathy,individuals’sympathy was positively related to their defending behavior in cyberbullying（β₄=.27,p<.05）and wasn’t related to the pro-bullying behavior and outsider behavior in cyberbullying（β₅=–.13,p>.05;β₆=–.18,p>.05）.And implicit moral self-evaluation only moderated the relation between sympathy and pro-bullying behavior in cyberbullying;under the condition of lower levels of implicit moral self-evaluation,individuals in the sympathetic emotion state engaged in less pro-bullying behaviors（B₃=–.70,p<.05）;however,under the condition of lower levels of implicit moral self-evaluation,the relation between sympathy and pro-bullying behavior wasn’t significant（B₄=.29,p>.05）.Moreover,the present study did not find a moderating role of explicit moral self-evaluation between sympathy and bystander behaviors,or a higher-order moderating role of explicit and implicit moral self-evaluation in it.In conclusion,this study examined the effects of sympathy and moral self-evaluation（explicit and implicit）on individuals’bystander behaviors in cyberbullying using questionnaire and experimental methods.The results suggested that sympathy has differential predictive effects on individuals’bystander behaviors in cyberbullying,and that the mechanisms by which explicit and implicit moral self-evaluation may act in them may not be consistent.Therefore,the results of this study could enrich the existing research on the bystander behaviors in cyberbullying and deepen the understanding of how emotion and cognition jointly affect individuals’bystander behaviors.Moreover,these results are informative for developing interventions for bystander behavior in cyberbullying.