Skip to main content
Log in

Defend, Stand By, or Join In?: The Relative Influence of Moral Identity, Moral Judgment, and Social Self-Efficacy on Adolescents’ Bystander Behaviors in Bullying Situations

  • Empirical Research
  • Published:
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In bullying situations, adolescent bystanders may help bullied others, just stand by, or join in the antisocial behavior. Current studies have yet to fully examine the moral and social factors motivating these varied responses to bullying encounters. Extending from pertinent developmental theories, the present study investigated the relative contributions of moral identity (i.e., viewing moral qualities as central to the self), moral judgment, and social self-efficacy to adolescents’ bystander behaviors vis-à-vis bullies. Also investigated were the interactions among these variables. Three hundred and thirty-seven adolescents (M age = 13 years, 56.1% female) who self-identified as Caucasian (90.2%), Hispanic-American (2.1%), Asian–American (0.9%), African–American (3.9%), or Other/Unknown (2.9%) participated in the study. Students completed questionnaires assessing moral identity, moral judgment, social self-efficacy, and how they would respond if they observed a peer being bullied. Moral identity predicted more prosocial action, particularly for adolescents high in social self-efficacy. Moral identity related positively to moral judgment, and both predicted less antisocial (joining in) behavior. Interestingly, moral judgment maturity primarily diminished antisocial behavior when moral identity was relatively low. Social self-efficacy predicted less passive bystanding. Overall, moral identity strongly relates to defending behavior, and—as does moral judgment maturity—predicts less antisocial behavior among bystanders.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aquino, K., & Reed, A. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1423–1440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arseneault, L. (2018). Annual research review: The persistent and pervasive impact of being bullied in childhood and adolescence: implications for policy and practice. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(4), 405–421.

  • Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 1–26.

  • Bandura, A. (2016). Moral disengagement: How people do harm and live with themselves. New York, NY: Worth.

  • Bandura, A., Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Pastorelli, C., & Regalia, C. (2001). Sociocognitive self-regulatory mechanisms governing transgressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 125–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barriga, A. Q., Morrison, E. M., Liau, A. K., & Gibbs, J. C. (2001). Moral cognition: Explaining the gender difference in antisocial behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 47(4), 532–562.

  • Baumrind, D. (2013). Authoritative parenting revisited: History and current status. In R. B. Larzelere, A. S. Morris & A. Harris (Eds), Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development (pp. 11–51). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

  • Blasi, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 88(1), 1–45.

  • Blasi, A. (1983). Moral cognition and moral action: A theoretical perspective. Developmental Review, 3(2), 178–210.

  • Blasi, A. (2004). Moral functioning: Moral understanding and personality. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 335–347). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

  • Brooks, J., Narvaez, D., & Bock, T. (2013). Moral motivation, moral judgment, and antisocial behavior. Journal of Research in Character Education, 9(2), 149–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burger, J. M., Girgis, Z. M., & Manning, C. C. (2011). In their own words: Explaining obedience to authority through an examination of participants’ comments. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(5), 460–466.

  • Cappadocia, M. C., Pepler, D., Cummings, J. G., & Craig, W. (2012). Individual motivations and characteristics associated with bystander intervention during bullying episodes among children and youth. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 27(3), 201–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlo, G. (2014). The development and correlates of prosocial moral behaviors. In M. Killen & J. G. Smetana (Eds), Handbook of moral development (2nd ed., pp. 208–234). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

  • Causey, D. L., & Dubow, E. F. (1992). Development of a self-report coping measure for elementary school children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 21(1), 47–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

  • Colby, A., & Damon, W. (1992). Some do care: Contemporary lives of moral commitment. New York, NY: Free Press.

  • Damon, W., & Gregory, A. (1997). The youth charter: Towards the formation of adolescent moral identity. Journal of Moral Education, 26(2), 117–130.

  • Doramajian, C., & Bukowski, W. M. (2015). A longitudinal study of the associations between moral disengagement and active defending versus passive bystanding during bullying situations. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 61(1), 144–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R.A., & Spinrad, T.L. (2006). Prosocial development. In W. Damon, R.M. Lerner (Series Eds) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 646–718). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

  • Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Knafo-Noam, A. (2015). Prosocial development. In R. M. Lerner & M. E. Lamb (Eds), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (7th ed., pp. 610–656). New York, NY: Wiley.

  • Frey, K. S., Hirschstein, M. K., Snell, J. L., Edstrom, L. V. S., MacKenzie, E. P., & Broderick, C. J. (2005). Reducing playground bullying and supporting beliefs: An experimental trial of the Steps to Respect Program. Developmental Psychology, 41(3), 479–491.

  • Gibbs, J. C. (2019). Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg, Hoffman, and Haidt (4th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

  • Gibbs, J. C., Basinger, K. S., & Fuller, D. (1992). Moral maturity: Measuring the development of sociomoral reasoning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

  • Gibbs, J. C., Basinger, K., Grime, R., & Snarey, J. (2007). Moral judgment development across cultures: Revisiting Kohlberg’s universality claims. Developmental Review, 27(4), 443–500.

  • Gibbs, J. C., Basinger, K. S., McDonald, R., & Lee, D. (2019). Moral judgment maturity: From clinical to standard measures. In M. W. Gallagher & S. J. Lopez (Eds), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (2nd ed., pp. 333–346). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

  • Gibbs, J. C., Clark, P. M., Joseph, J. A., Green, J. L., Goodrick, T. S., & Makowski, D. G. (1986). Relations between moral judgment, moral courage, and field independence. Child Development, 57, 185–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, J. C., Potter, G. B., & Dibiase, A.-M. (2013). Sociomoral development for behaviorally at-risk youth: Mac’s group meeting. In C. Proctor & A. Linley (Eds), Positive psychology: Research, applications, and interventions for children and adolescents (pp. 225–245). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

  • Gini, G. (2006). Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What’s wrong? Aggressive Behavior, 32(6), 528–539.

  • Gini, G., Albiero, P., Benelli, B., & Altoe, G. (2008). Determinants of adolescents’ active defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. Journal of Adolescence, 31, 93–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gini, G., Pozzoli, T., & Hymel, S. (2014). Moral disengagement among children and youth: A meta‐analytic review of links to aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 40(1), 56–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grusec, J. E. (2019). Principles of effective parenting. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

  • Hardy, S. A. (2006). Identity, reasoning, and emotion: An empirical comparison of three sources of moral motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 30(3), 205–213.

  • Hardy, S. A. (2017). Moral identity theory and research: A status update. In C. C. Helwig (Ed.), New Perspectives on Moral Development (pp. 89–104). New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Hardy, S. A., Bean, D. S., & Olsen, J. A. (2015). Moral identity and adolescent prosocial and antisocial behaviors: Interactions with moral disengagement and self-regulation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44(8), 1542–1554.

  • Hardy, S. A., & Carlo, G. (2011). Moral identity: What is it, how does it develop, and is it linked to moral action? Child Development Perspectives, 5(3), 212–218.

  • Hardy, S. A., Walker, L. J., Olsen, J. A., Woodbury, R. D., & Hickman, J. R. (2014). Moral identity as moral ideal self: Links to adolescent outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 45–57.

  • Hastings, P., Utendale, W. T., & Sullivan, C. (2007). The socialization of prosocial development. In P. Hastings & J. E. Grusec (Eds), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (pp. 638–664). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

  • Hawkins, L., Pepler, D. J., & Craig, W. M. (2001). Naturalistic observations of peer interventions in bullying. Social Development, 10(4), 512–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hertz, S. G., & Krettenauer, T. (2016). Does moral identity effectively predict moral behavior?: A meta-analysis. Review of General Psychology, 20(2), 129–140.

  • Jenkins, L. N., & Fredrick, S. S. (2017). Social capital and bystander behavior in bullying: Internalizing problems as a barrier to prosocial intervention. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 46(4), 757–771.

  • Jennings, P. L., Mitchell, M. S., & Hannah, S. T. (2015). The moral self: A review and integration of the literature. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(S1), S104–S168.

  • Killen, M., & Smetana, J. G. (2015). Origins and development of morality. In R. M. Lerner & M. E. Lamb (Eds), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (7th ed., pp. 701–749). New York, NY: Wiley.

  • Laible, D., Eye, J., & Carlo, G. (2008). Dimensions of conscience in mid-adolescence: Links with social behavior, parenting, and temperament. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37(7), 875–887.

  • Lapsley, D. K. (2008). Moral self-identity as the aim of education. In L. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds), Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 30–52). New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Mazzone, A., Camodeca, M., & Salmivalli, C. (2016). Interactive effects of guilt and moral disengagement on bullying, defending and outsider behavior. Journal of Moral Education, 45(4), 419–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Menesini, E., & Salmivalli, C. (2017). Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 22, 240–253.

  • Miller, S. A. (2018). Developmental research methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

  • Moshman, D. (2011). Adolescent rationality and development: Cognition, morality, and identity (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

  • O’Connell, P., Pepler, D., & Craig, W. (1999). Peer involvement in bullying: Insights and challenges for intervention. Journal of Adolescence, 22(4), 437–452.

  • Olweus, D. (1997). Bully/victim problems in school: Facts and intervention. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 12(4), 495–510.

  • Padilla-Walker, L. M., & Fraser, A. M. (2014). How much is it going to cost me? Bidirectional relations between adolescents’ moral personality and prosocial behavior. Journal of Adolescence, 37(7), 993–1001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Padilla-Walker, L.M., Memmott-Elison, M.K., & Nielson, M.G. (2018). Longitudinal change in high-cost prosocial behaviors of defending and including during the transition to adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0875-9

  • Pastorelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Bandura, A. (1998). The measurement of self-efficacy in school-age children. A preliminary contribution. Eta Evolutiva, 61, 28–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, R. B., & Gibbs, J. C. (2012). Inductive discipline, parental expression of disappointed expectations, and moral identity in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(8), 973–983.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perren, S., & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, E. (2012). Cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescence: Differential roles of moral disengagement, moral emotions, and moral values. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(2), 195–209.

  • Perren, S., Gutzwiller‐Helfenfinger, E., Malti, T., & Hymel, S. (2012). Moral reasoning and emotion attributions of adolescent bullies, victims, and bully‐victims. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30(4), 511–530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poyhonen, V., Juvonen, J., & Salmivalli, C. (2010). What does it take to stand up for the victim of bullying? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 56(2), 143–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pozzoli, T., & Gini, G. (2010). Active defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying: The role of personal characteristics and perceived peer pressure. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 815–827.

  • Pozzoli, T., & Gini, G. (2012). Why do bystanders of bullying help or not? A multidimensional model. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 33(3), 315–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pozzoli, T., Gini, G., & Vieno, A. (2012). Individual and class moral disengagement in bullying among elementary school children. Aggressive Behavior, 38(5), 378–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pozzoli, T., Gini, G., & Thornberg, R. (2016). Bullying and defending behavior: The role of explicit and implicit moral cognition. Journal of School Psychology, 59, 67–81.

  • Pozzoli, T., Gini, G., & Thornberg, R. (2017). Getting angry matters: Going beyond perspective taking and empathic concern to understand bystanders’ behavior in bullying. Journal of Adolescence, 61, 87–95.

  • Preacher, K. J., Curran, P. J., & Bauer, D. J. (2006). Computational tools for probing interaction effects in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437–448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Recchia, H. E., Wainryb, C., Bourne, S., & Pasupathi, M. (2015). Children’s and adolescents’ accounts of helping and hurting others: Lessons about the development of moral agency. Child Development, 86(3), 864–876.

  • Reynolds, S. J., & Ceranic, T. L. (2007). The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior: An empirical examination of the moral individual. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(6), 1610–1624.

  • Sainio, M., Veenstra, R., Huitsing, G., & Salmivalli, C. (2010). Victims and their defenders: A dyadic approach. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35(2), 144–151.

  • Salmivalli, C. (2010). Bullying and the peer group: A review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 15(2), 112–120.

  • Salmivalli, C., Lagerspetz, K., Björkqvist, K., Österman, K., & Kaukiainen, A. (1996). Bullying as a group process: Participant roles and their relations to social status within the group. Aggressive Behavior, 22(1), 1–15.

  • Salmivalli, C., & Voeten, M. (2004). Connections between attitudes, group norms, and behaviour in bullying situations. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28(3), 246–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snarey, J. & Samuelson, P. (2008). Moral education in the cognitive development tradition: Lawrence Kohlberg’s revolutionary ideas. In Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 53–79). New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Stams, G. J., Brugman, D., Deković, M., Van Rosmalen, L., Van Der Laan, P., & Gibbs, J. C. (2006). The moral judgment of juvenile delinquents: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 34(5), 692–708.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

  • Thornberg, R., & Jungert, T. (2013). Bystander behavior in bullying situations: Basic moral sensitivity, moral disengagement and defender self-efficacy. Journal of Adolescence, 36(3), 475–483.

  • Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., Hong, J. S., & Espelage, D. L. (2017). Classroom relationship qualities and social-cognitive correlates of defending and passive bystanding in school bullying in Sweden: A multilevel analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 63, 49–62.

  • van der Ploeg, R., Kretschmer, T., Salmivalli, C., & Veenstra, R. (2017). Defending victims: What does it take to intervene in bullying and how is it rewarded by peers? Journal of School Psychology, 65, 1–10.

  • van Noorden, T. H., Haselager, G. J., Cillessen, A. H., & Bukowski, W. M. (2015). Empathy and involvement in bullying in children and adolescents: A systematic review. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44(3), 637–657.

  • von Grundherr, M., Geisler, A., Stoiber, M., & Schäfer, M. (2017). School bullying and moral reasoning competence. Social Development, 26(2), 278–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Hippel, P. T. (2009). How to impute interactions, squares, and other transformed variables. Sociological Methodology, 39, 265–291.

  • Walker, L. J. (2004). Gus in the gap: Bridging the judgment-action gap in moral functioning. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 1–20). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

  • Wentzel, K. R. (2014). Prosocial behavior and peer relations in adolescence. In L. M. Padilla-Walker & G. Carlo (Eds), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 178–200). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

  • Wolke, D., & Lereya, S. T. (2015). Long-term effects of bullying. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 100(9), 879–885.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors’ Contributions

R.B.P. conceptualized the project including the design and implementation, helped with the analysis, and drafted the paper; W.M.R. developed the analysis plan, conducted the analysis, and drafted the paper; J.C.G. conceptualized the project including the design and implementation, scored questionnaires, and helped draft the paper; K.S.B. assisted with project conceptualization, scored questionnaires, and helped revise the paper. All authors read and approved the final submission.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The dataset for the current study is not publicly available but may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Renee B. Patrick.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of The Ohio State University IRB and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Patrick, R.B., Rote, W.M., Gibbs, J.C. et al. Defend, Stand By, or Join In?: The Relative Influence of Moral Identity, Moral Judgment, and Social Self-Efficacy on Adolescents’ Bystander Behaviors in Bullying Situations. J Youth Adolescence 48, 2051–2064 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01089-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01089-w

Keywords

Navigation