Teens who intervene: identifying factors related to adolescent cyber-bystander intervention in cyberbullying

Introduction: Cyberbullying experiences have been linked to mental health difficulties, highlighting the need to refine anti-cyberbullying interventions, particularly for at-risk groups, and understand what encourages bystanders to intervene. The current study compared adolescents’ prosocial cyber-bystander intentions in an intragroup (‘UK-born’ victim status) and intergroup (‘immigrant’ victim status) cyberbullying context. State empathy and state self-efficacy were examined as potential mediators, accounting for baseline trait levels of these two factors and gender. Methods: British adolescents (N=129; 13.5-15 years old; 59.7% female; predominately White) from two comprehensive schools in the UK took part in a two (gender: female/male) by two (victim status: British/immigrant) between-subjects quasi-experimental study. Participants were randomly assigned to read a gender-matched hypothetical cyberbullying vignette with an adolescent cyber-victim who was either ‘U.K.-born’ or an ‘immigrant’. Self-report questionnaires captured participants’ prosocial bystander intentions, state and trait self-efficacy and empathy, alongside demographic information. Results: Findings showed that victim status did not relate to self-efficacy or prosocial cyber-bystander intentions. Higher empathy was reported by females and, unexpectedly, within the ‘immigrant victim’ condition. An indirect relationship was found between victim status and prosocial cyber-bystander intentions, with state empathy as a statistical mediator. Trait empathy did not moderate the path between victim status and state empathy. Conclusions: The present study supports promoting bystander state empathy in anti-cyberbullying programmes, but the importance of intergroup processes is unclear. To reduce cyberbullying impact, future research should explore cyber-bystander behaviour towards at-risk groups inter-sectionally, controlling for additional intergroup variables which potentially caused a suppressor effect in the results

Bystanding or standing by? How the number of bystanders affects the intention to intervene in cyberbullying

This study examines the bystander effect in cyberbullying. On the basis of two experiments, we test whether individuals who witness cyberbullying are less willing to intervene when the number of others who have already observed the incident is increased. In addition, we inquire how differently severe cyberbullying incidents affect bystanders' intention to intervene. Our results show that a very severe cyberbullying incident boosts individuals' intention to intervene, mediated by the assessment of the situation as emergency and, in turn, by an increased feeling of responsibility. However, if there is a larger number of bystanders in a cyberbullying incident, rather than just a few, participants feel less responsible to help, and thus, they are less willing to intervene

A Systematic Literature Review on Cyberbullying in Social Media: Taxonomy, Detection Approaches, Datasets, And Future Research Directions

In the area of Natural Language Processing, sentiment analysis, also called opinion mining, aims to extract human thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions from unstructured texts. In the light of social media's rapid growth and the influx of individual comments, reviews and feedback, it has evolved as an attractive, challenging research area. It is one of the most common problems in social media to find toxic textual content.  Anonymity and concealment of identity are common on the Internet for people coming from a wide range of diversity of cultures and beliefs. Having freedom of speech, anonymity, and inadequate social media regulations make cyber toxic environment and cyberbullying significant issues, which require a system of automatic detection and prevention. As far as this is concerned, diverse research is taking place based on different approaches and languages, but a comprehensive analysis to examine them from all angles is lacking. This systematic literature review is therefore conducted with the aim of surveying the research and studies done to date on classification of  cyberbullying based in textual modality by the research community. It states the definition, , taxonomy, properties, outcome of cyberbullying, roles in cyberbullying  along with other forms of bullying and different offensive behavior in social media. This article also shows the latest popular benchmark datasets on cyberbullying, along with their number of classes (Binary/Multiple), reviewing the state-of-the-art methods to detect cyberbullying and abusive content on social media and discuss the factors that drive offenders to indulge in offensive activity, preventive actions to avoid online toxicity, and various cyber laws in different countries. Finally, we identify and discuss the challenges, solutions, additionally future research directions that serve as a reference to overcome cyberbullying in social media

Qualitative analyses on the classification model of bystander behavior in cyberbullying

IntroductionBystanders account for the largest proportion of those involve in cyberbullying and play an important role in the development of cyberbullying incidents. Regarding the classification of bystander behavior in cyberbullying, there exist some limitations in the previous research, such as not considering the complexity of the online environment. Therefore, this study constructed a new classification model of bystander behavior in cyberbullying.MethodsBy separately utilizing questionnaires and experimental methods, the study collected participants’ behavioral intentions and actual behavioral responses to deal with cyberbullying incidents.ResultsBased on two qualitative studies, this study summarized a new classification model, which included three first-level factors and six second-level factors. Specifically, the classification model included positive bystander behavior (i.e., pointing at the victim, bully, and others), neutral bystander behavior (i.e., inaction), and negative bystander behavior (i.e., supporting and excessively confronting the bully).DiscussionThe classification model has important contributions to the research on bystander behavior in cyberbullying. This model helps researchers to develop more effective intervention approaches on cyberbullying from the perspective of each category of bystander behavior

'Brand victimisation': when consumers are bullied by fellow brand followers in online brand communities

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of a consumer being bullied by a fellow brand follower in an online brand community, which is termed 'Brand Victimisation'. The thesis aims to provide a comprehensive review of the area of brand victimisation in online brand communities. In doing so, it aims to develop a conceptual model which can be used to explain how consumers in online brand communities react to brand victimisation. The thesis further aims to explore the potential negative impact that brand victimisation potentially has on victims (i.e., consumers who are bullied) and the respective brands, as well as to suggest how such negative consequences can be mitigated. Lastly, the thesis aims to provide a model that explains how victims react to being bullied in online brand communities. The thesis sets out to answer the following research questions: (1) What is known about inter-consumer hostility in online brand communities and what remains unexplored and needs to be investigated further? What theoretical models can help to conceptualise brand victimisation as a marketing phenomenon?, (2) What are the potential negative consequences of brand victimisation in online brand communities for victims and brands? and (3) What process do victims undergo when coping with being bullied in online brand communities? To address these research questions, three independent studies were conducted. Study 1 (Chapter 2) addresses research question 1 by providing an integrative literature review on hostile interactions between consumers and indicates where brand victimisation fits in conceptually as part of the interaction process. The study adopts Lasswell's model of communication (Lasswell 1948) as a guiding theory to conceptualise hostile consumer-to-consumer interaction process and to provide a more comprehensive understanding of brand victimisation. The study contributes to the marketing literature by showing the current state of research in the area, identifying research gaps, conceptualising inter-consumer hostility in online brand communities, and offering avenues for future research. Study 2 (Chapter 3) addresses research question 2 by conducting a scenario-based experiment to assess how brand victimisation affects three outcome variables, namely a victim's positive word-of-mouth intentions, community satisfaction and community following intentions. Following meta-analytical evidence from the cybervictimisation research, the experiment accounts for two central influences (victimisation severity and bystander reactions) on how victims react to being bullied in online brand communities. The experiment compares the impact of victimisation severity (severely aggressive versus mildly aggressive incident of brand victimisation), and the reactions from bystanders (i.e., other brand followers in the community who witness the victimisation incident) who either defend the victim, reinforce the victimisation or pretend that they do not notice the incident. Using a scenario-based experiment where brand victimisation was manipulated (n=387), the results show that outcomes significantly differ in relation to the severity of victimisation (Severe vs Mild) and the reactions from bystanders (Defending vs Reinforcing vs Pretending). The findings contribute to marketing theory and practice by providing novel insights on the negative effects of brand victimisation on brand- and community-related outcomes. The findings also offer brand managers a better understanding of the undesirable effects of brand victimisation, and on the type of reactions from bystanders that they may like to encourage in order to mitigate such negative consequences. Study 3 (Chapter 4) addresses research question 3 by adopting the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) as a framework to assess how victims think about, feel about, and cope with brand victimisation. Based on the dataset used in the study 2, 300 respondents were isolated and included in the analysis. The findings show that the severity of brand victimisation (Severe vs Mild) influences a victim's well-being and perception towards company accountability, mediated by a victim's emotional appraisal (anger and fear) and choice of coping strategy (retaliation and avoidance). The results indicate that retaliation and avoidance lead to opposite effects where avoidance strategy leads to lower negative well-being compared to when victims decided to retaliate to the bully. The study is the first to provide an empirically verified framework which illustrates how consumers respond to being bullied in online brand communities. The study contributes by developing and testing an empirical model of brand victimisation as a novel consumer phenomenon within the online brand community literature. The findings add to the limited research on the negative consequences of brand victimisation by demonstrating the detrimental effects of brand victimisation on victims' psychological well-being and perception towards companies that hosted online brand communities on social media. The findings also offer brand managers an understanding about the type of consumer coping strategies that they may like to encourage. Finally, the thesis concludes by providing a summary about how the findings of Chapter 2-4 are interrelated, as well as links the theoretical and managerial contributions from each chapters thematically into a cohesive whole. The final chapter also summarises the limitations of the research and provides guidance for future research to enhance knowledge in the domain of brand victimisation in online brand communities. Overall, the thesis contributes to the limited literature on inter-consumer hostility on social media, and particularly the lack of research on the perspective of victims who are bullied by fellow brand followers in online brand communities. It contributes to the online brand community literature by showing the current state of research in the topic area, identifying research gaps - some of which are explored here - and outlining avenues for future research in the domain of brand victimisation in online brand communities. It provides novel insights that highlight the negative impact of being bullied in online brand communities on brand and community-related consequences. It offers an empirical model that conceptualises the interaction process that victims go through when being bullied in online brand communities. It also highlights the importance of situational factors (victimisation severity and bystander reactions), psychological factor (negative emotion) and behavioural factors (coping strategies) on influencing the outcomes of brand victimisation. Through this thesis companies will gain a better understanding of brand victimisation in online brand communities and on the negative effects that this online phenomenon has on consumers and brands. The empirical evidence about the consequences of how brand victimisation affects victim's perception and behavioural intentions towards brands consequently encourages companies to detect and tackle brand victimisation that occurs in their online brand communities. The findings of this thesis also provide guidance on how, and in what circumstances, companies can mitigate the negative effects of brand victimisation. The thesis follows a three-paper model, consisting of three separate papers (Chapter 2-4) that conceptualise brand victimisation and explore its consequences. The three papers are embedded in a thesis framework that starts with a general introduction to 'set the scene' (Chapter 1), a literature review on inter-consumer hostility in general and how brand victimisation fits into extant research (Chapter 2), two empirical chapters that explore the consequences of brand victimisation (Chapter 3-4), and a general conclusion of the thesis (Chapter 5)

Automatic Detection of Cyberbullying in Social Media Text

While social media offer great communication opportunities, they also increase the vulnerability of young people to threatening situations online. Recent studies report that cyberbullying constitutes a growing problem among youngsters. Successful prevention depends on the adequate detection of potentially harmful messages and the information overload on the Web requires intelligent systems to identify potential risks automatically. The focus of this paper is on automatic cyberbullying detection in social media text by modelling posts written by bullies, victims, and bystanders of online bullying. We describe the collection and fine-grained annotation of a training corpus for English and Dutch and perform a series of binary classification experiments to determine the feasibility of automatic cyberbullying detection. We make use of linear support vector machines exploiting a rich feature set and investigate which information sources contribute the most for this particular task. Experiments on a holdout test set reveal promising results for the detection of cyberbullying-related posts. After optimisation of the hyperparameters, the classifier yields an F1-score of 64% and 61% for English and Dutch respectively, and considerably outperforms baseline systems based on keywords and word unigrams.Comment: 21 pages, 9 tables, under revie

Comparing early adolescents’ positive bystander responses to cyberbullying and traditional bullying: the impact of severity and gender

Young people are frequently exposed to bullying events in the offline and online domain. Witnesses to these incidents act as bystanders and play a pivotal role in reducing or encouraging bullying behaviour. The present study examined 868 (47.2% female) 11-13-year-old early adolescent pupils’ bystander responses across a series of hypothetical vignettes based on traditional and cyberbullying events. The vignettes experimentally controlled for severity across mild, moderate, and severe scenarios. The findings showed positive bystander responses (PBRs) were higher in cyberbullying than traditional bullying incidents. Bullying severity impacted on PBRs, in that PBRs increased across mild, moderate, and severe incidents, consistent across traditional and cyberbullying. Females exhibited more PBRs across both types of bullying. Findings are discussed in relation to practical applications within the school. Strategies to encourage PBRs to all forms of bullying should be at the forefront of bullying intervention methods

The Relationship Between Witnessing Cyberbullying and Depressive Symptoms and Social Anxiety Among Middle School Students: Is Witnessing School Bullying a Moderator?

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between witnessing cyberbullying and depressive symptoms and social anxiety among middle school students (N = 146). Students completed questionnaires assessing experiences witnessing cyberbullying, school bullying, depressive symptoms, and social anxiety. Regression analyses revealed that witnessing cyberbullying was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms even after controlling for frequency of witnessing school bullying. Further, for depressive symptoms, the moderating effect of witnessing school bullying was significant, indicating that students who witnessed both cyberbullying and school bullying reported the highest level of depressive symptoms and those that reported not witnessing either type of bullying reported the lowest level. Contrary to our hypotheses, however, we did not find significant effects for social anxiety. Results indicate that witnessing cyberbullying uniquely contributes to depressive symptoms for middle school students and students who witness both cyberbullying and school bullying are at the highest risk for depressive symptoms. Findings suggest the importance of providing programs to support middle school students who witness cyberbullying to reduce the mental health risks associated with being a bystander, particularly for students who also witness school bullying

Cyberbullying and the bystander: What promotes or inhibits adolescent participation?

Study One Study One aims to better understand the roles that adolescents take during cyberbullying situations exploring the influence of attitudes towards cyberbullying, social grouping (being alone or with others), age and gender. Methods: Focus groups were used to adapt the Participant Role Scales (Salmivalli, 1998) and the Pro Victim Scale (Rigby & Slee, 1991) to explore cyberbullying. These adapted measures were completed by 261 participants across four year groups (year 7 to 10) via self report questionnaires. Results: Across social groupings an average of 73% of adolescents took participant roles in cyberbullying situations. There were significant differences between assistant, defender, outsider and victim behaviour when alone or when physically with others. In addition attitude towards cyberbullying significantly influenced the role taken and females were more likely to be defenders than males. Age significantly influenced outsider behaviour when participants were alone and defender behaviour when participants were physically with others. Study Two Study Two aims to better understand what promotes or inhibits bystander involvement in cyberbullying situations. Methods: The study adopted an explorative approach to understand the experiences of 28 adolescents in a South West Local Authority in England. Data was collected via a semi-structured interview schedule administered in focus groups. Findings were analysed using latent thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Results: The decision for adolescent bystanders to actively join a cyberbullying situation was found to be complex. CMC, social influence (prior relationship, being alone or with others) and popularity and status of those participating in cyberbullying contribute to bystanders’ assessment of the risk and reward of participation. If reward outweighs risk an active role is taken (assistant, reinforcer, defender). However if risks are perceived to be higher than rewards then an outsider role is adopted