Authors
Tan Jing Ting, Keng Jun Wei Daniel
Supervisor
Assoc Prof Benjamin Hill Detenber
Year
2016
Abstract
This study explores the effect of message threat and victim vulnerability on virtual bystander intervention using the Social Impact Theory (Latané, 1981) as a theoretical framework. In order to understand if and how a virtual bystander would intervene when witnessing an act of cyberbullying, this study used a 2 (message threat) x 2 (victim vulnerability) x 2 (victim-aggressor pair gender) between-subject experiment involving 88 undergraduates from a university in Singapore.
Participants took part in an online discussion with two confederates and their responses were analysed for bystander intervention and other types of bystander behaviour. The findings revealed that while there was no significant main effect between message threat and virtual bystander intervention, higher victim vulnerability would lead to higher instances of virtual bystander intervention.
High levels of vulnerability result in more bystander intervention, task reorientation initiation and explicit request for cessation of arguments. Message threat and victim vulnerability also significantly interacted such that the likelihood of explicit requests for cessation of argument was greatest when both threat and vulnerability were high. When threat was high and the aggressor was male, more explicit requests for cessation occurred, and when vulnerability was high and the victim was female, more task reorientation initiation was observed.
Results indicate that the Social Impact Theory may not hold true in online contexts where the bystander is highly involved in interacting with both the victim and aggressor.
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http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66884