The influence of social norms and bullying types on the defending intentions of school bullying bystanders

The defending behavior of bystanders toward bullied individuals in bullying situations can effectively prevent the occurrence and development of bullying incidents. However, owing to the influence of peer group behavior and specific situational factors, bystanders often do not undertake defending behaviors in bullying situations. To explore the influence of social norms (group factor) and bullying types (situational factor) on bystanders' defending intentions among 325 senior high school students in China, a 4 (social norms: descriptive, injunctive, descriptive-injunctive, no norms) x 4 (bullying types: physical, verbal, relational, cyber) two-factor mixed design was used. The results revealed that the interactive effect between social norms and bullying types was significant after controlling for gender and age. Only when descriptive norms and injunctive norms were presented concurrently was the level of defending intentions in verbal and cyber bullying situations significantly higher than that in physical bullying situations. These results indicate that social norms and bullying types jointly affect bystanders' defending intentions. This finding provides insight into the mechanisms underlying bystanders' defending intentions in bullying situations, and how to improve defending intentions.