Bystander Intervention in Cyberbullying on Social Media

Cyberbullying often happens in the presence of bystanders. To examine the factors influencing cyberbystander likelihood of intervening in cyberbullying on social media, a 2 (degree of cyberbullying severity: high vs. low) × 2 (level of interpersonal similarity: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 132). Results indicated that cyberbystanders’ perceived responsibility for helping and empathic responses depended on the severity of cyberbullying. The more responsibility and empathy bystanders felt, the more likely they were to publicly and privately intervene. Moreover, the indirect effect of cyberbullying severity on willingness to intervene through empathy was more pronounced when the interpersonal similarity between victim and cyberbystander was low, rather than it was high.