What Motivates Adolescent Bystanders to Intervene When Immigrant Youth Are Bullied?

• In Event: Bias-Based Bullying Among Adolescents: Protective Factors and Bystander Interventions

Abstract

Purpose: While research has long documented the negative outcomes of bullying for youth, increasingly findings suggest that bias-based bullying, where victims are targeted because of a dimension of their identity, is particularly harmful (Mulvey et al., 2018; Russell et al., 2012). Moreover, immigrant children and adolescents are at high risk of experiencing bias-based bullying due to their immigration background (Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017). However, what is still unknown is what particular factors are especially important in motivating bystanders to intervene on behalf of their victimized immigrant peers. This presentation will share findings examining pathways to bystander responses in both generalized and bias-based bullying incidents involving immigrant-origin victims.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework: Different theoretical approaches pose potential pathways to bystander intervention, and the aim of this study was to test these different possible pathways. Turner and Cameron (2016) discussed individual and situational factors that may shape individual contact experiences or desires for contact with outgroups. The Social Reasoning Development Perspective (Rutland & Killen, 2015) posits that these factors may directly be related to one’s desire to intervene on behalf of an outgroup victim. In the current study, models tested whether contact with immigrants and one’s desires for social contact with immigrant-origin peers mediated the effects of individual (shared immigrant background, and discriminatory tendencies) and situational (inclusive peer norms) intergroup factors on active bystander responses.

Methods: Participants were 168 (Mage = 14.54, 57% female) adolescents of immigrant (37.5%) and non-immigrant backgrounds from public schools in the US. Participants read hypothetical vignettes about generalized and bias-based bullying of either an Arab or Latine victim. Then, they responded to their likelihood of intervening on behalf of the victim. Participants had higher contact with Latine peers than Arab peers, thus we directly compared models for these distinct immigrant groups. Peer norms, discriminatory tendencies, contact with immigrant peers and desire for social contact with immigrants were measured.

Results: First, a measurement model was tested, demonstrating good fit and measurement invariance by participant background (immigrant, non-immigrant) was confirmed. Then, two models were tested. First, a partial mediation model was tested (including immigrant background, discriminatory tendencies, peer norms, desire for social contact and contact with immigrants as all exogenous variables predicting bystander intervention in generalized and bias-based bullying incidents). Then, a full mediation model was tested (direct paths from immigrant background, discriminatory tendencies, and peer norms to both types of intervention were fixed to zero, thus leaving the effect of the former on the latter to be fully mediated by desires for social contact and contact with immigrants). Both models had comparable fit (see Table 1) indicating the more parsimonious full mediation model was better. Desires for social contact reliably mediated effects of peer norms and discrimination across both victims. Finally, we conducted multi-group analyses to test the model separately for Latine and Arab victims, finding that contact with immigrant peers also mediated effects for responses to Latine victims, see Figure 1.

Significance: Implications for theory and interventions focused on motivating bystander responses to support victims will be discussed.

Authors

• Aline Hitti
  Non-Presenting Author

• Secil Gonultas, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kelly Lynn Mulvey, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author