Poster #224 - Parental Advice About How Bystander Children Should Intervene During Bullying Situations Differs by Victimization Form

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Bystander-oriented school-based bullying prevention programs are most effective when they include parent components (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). However, factors influencing parental advice for how children should intervene during bullying situations are unknown. This study investigated whether parental advice about how bystander children should intervene when they witness bullying differed by the form of victimization that the child witnessed.

Method: Participants were 106 4th- and 5th-grade children (M = 10.5 years, SD = .71 years). Parents reported children’s race/ethnicity as 50% Caucasian/White, 32.1% African American/Black, 9.4% more than one race, 6.6% Latinx, and 1.9% Asian. Participants completed a task with a parent (87.7% mothers, M = 39.71 years old, SD = 7.47 years) in which parents were asked to give children advice about how to respond to five hypothetical bullying situations. Each situation described a different form of victimization (physical, verbal, property attack, social manipulation, exclusion). Audio-recorded, transcribed interactions were coded for parental advice to stop the bully (κ = .75), help/comfort the victim (κ = .79), and tell an adult (κ =.89). The proportion of each advice code given was calculated within each victimization condition.

Results: Three within-subjects ANOVAs were conducted, with one of the advice codes serving as the dependent variable in each ANOVA, and victimization type serving as the five-level independent variable in all ANOVAs. For each of the three types of advice, the extent to which parents offered it differed by victimization type [stop the bully, F(3.42, 352.04) = 8.62, p < .001; help/comfort the victim, F(3.26, 336.15) = 34.71, p < .001; get an adult, F(3.54, 364.71) = 94.69, p < .001].

Post hoc analyses using a Bonferroni correction of p < .002 (.05 / 30 comparisons) were used to determine which pairs of victimization forms differed significantly in each analysis (see Table 1). Parents were more likely to advise children to stop the bully in response to verbal victimization or social manipulation than in response to physical victimization, property attack, or exclusion. Parents were less likely to tell their children to help/comfort victims when bullying involved property attack than the other forms of victimization and more likely to do so when bullying involved exclusion than the other forms of victimization. Parents were least likely to advise children to tell adults about exclusion and social manipulation, more likely to give this advice about verbal victimization, and the most likely to give this advice about physical victimization and property attack.

Discussion: Results align with existing literature suggesting that parents most frequently advocate that youth intervene in bullying situations by seeking help from adults (e.g., telling a teacher or parent; Offrey & Rinaldi, 2017). While involving adults may be helpful in some situations, there may be reasons why bystander children cannot or do not want to tell an adult. Therefore, bystander children may need additional intervention strategies; this study demonstrates that parents’ likelihood of offering these alternate strategies (e.g., telling children to stop the bully or help/comfort a victim) varies by the victimization form witnessed.

Authors

• Stevie N. Grassetti, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Julie A. Hubbard, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marissa Docimo, Department of Medicine, Penn Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Megan K Bookhout, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lauren E. Swift, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael J. Gawrysiak, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author