| Bullying refers to the repeated exposure to intentional negative actions in relationships involving an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully.It has been found that exposure to bullying as a victim is related to both immediate and delayed internalizing problems.In bullying situations,pro-victim behaviors by bystanders(i.e.,defending behaviors)can alleviate the harm caused by victimization.Nowadays,defending behavior is increasingly recognized as a multi-dimensional construct.However,there is still no clear and widely recognized classification of defending,especially within the Chinese cultural context.Specifically,within the Chinese cultural context,people are more inclined to adopt non-confrontational and tactical conflict resolution strategies,making it necessary to explore the classification of defending behaviors among Chinese adolescents.Furthermore,it is still unclear what leads adolescents to defend in a specific way and what consequences different types of defending have on the defenders.This study,therefore,comprises four research studies to examine the above questions.Study Ⅰ explored 36 Chinese adolescents’ views of the heterogeneous nature of defending by using semi-structured interviews.This study used a combination of inductive and deductive thematic analysis to analyze the interview data.Results first confirmed that Chinese adolescents utilized defending strategies similar to Western adolescents,including assertive and confrontational defending,comforting victims,supporting victims,seeking help from authorities,seeking help from peers,and aggressive defending.Additionally,a new type of defending strategy,tactical defending,was found in Study I.Tactical defending refers to the use of “tactics” to protect victimized peers.Moreover,findings also revealed a wide range of predictors of various types of defending,suggesting that different types of defending behavior may be predicted by distinct factors.Study Ⅱ aimed to test and validate the findings of Study I in a quantitative study,by developing and validating the Adolescent Defending Behaviors Questionnaire(ADBQ)in a sample of Chinese adolescents.Study II consisted of two sub-studies.Sub-study 1 recruited 824 students in grades 4-6(M = 11.25,SD = 1.15)to complete the initial 34 items to measure defending behaviors.Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify 24 items from the original 34 items as the items of the ADBQ.Based on the item content of each factor,these five factors were named: assertive defending,aggressive defending,comforting victims,reporting to authority,and tactical defending.Sub-study 2 recruited 1239 students in grades 4-6(M = 11.40,SD = 1.20)to complete the 24-item ADBQ and other questionnaires related to defending behaviors.Findings from Sub-study 2 indicated that the ADBQ had good reliability and validity.The five defending dimensions were differentially associated with cognitive and affective empathy,aggression,sociability,peer preference,and victimization.Study Ⅲ utilized the ADBQ to conduct multilevel analyses on both cross-sectional(Sub-study 1)and longitudinal(Sub-study 2)data,in order to explore the potential predictors of different types of defending.Results indicated that intrapersonal(i.e.,cognitive and affective empathy),interpersonal(i.e.,popularity and likability),and classroom-level variables(i.e.,descriptive norms of bullying,bullying-popularity norm,and bullying-likability norm)predicted various types of defending in different ways.Sub-study 1 involved 753 students in grades 4-6(M = 10.40,SD = 0.90)and found that,at the individual level,cognitive empathy was negatively related to aggressive defending but positively related to the other four types of defending.Affective empathy was only positively related to comforting victims.Likability was negatively related to aggressive defending.Additionally,Sub-study 1 found that interpersonal factors moderated the relationship between individual factors and defending behaviors.Specifically,only for adolescents with low levels of likability,cognitive empathy was positively related to assertive defending.For adolescents with high levels of likability,the negative association between cognitive empathy and aggressive defending was stronger than for those with low levels of likability.At the class level,Sub-study 1found that descriptive norms of bullying was negatively related to assertive defending and reporting to authority,while bullying-likability norm was negatively related to assertive defending and comforting victims,and bullying-popularity norm was negatively related to aggressive defending and tactical defending.Sub-study 2 involved 652 students in grades 4-6(M = 10.31,SD = 0.87)and found that,at the individual level,cognitive empathy could negatively predict aggressive defending 6 months later but positively predict the other four types of defending 6months later.Likability negatively predicted aggressive defending 6 months later,while positively predicted tactical defending 6 months later.Additionally,at the class level,Sub-study 2 found that descriptive norms of bullying could negatively predict assertive defending,comforting victims,reporting to authority and tactical defending 6 months later.Bullying-likability norm could negatively predict aggressive defending 6 months later.Bullying-popularity norm could negatively predict assertive defending,comforting victims,and tactical defending 6 months later.Sub-study 2 also found that classroom-level factors moderated the relationship between individual-level factors and defending behaviors.Specifically,only in classrooms with high levels of bullying,likability could negatively predict aggressive defending 6 months later.Only in classrooms where bullying behavior is not liked(i.e.,low bullying-likability norm),adolescents’ likability could positively predict tactical defending 6 months later.Only in classrooms where bullying behavior is popular(i.e.,high bullying-popularity norm),adolescents’ affective empathy could positively predict reporting to authority 6 months later.Lastly,Study IV used the ADBQ to conduct multi-level analysis on both crosssectional data(Sub-study 1)and longitudinal data(Sub-study 2)to explore the outcomes of different types of defending to defenders’ social and psychological adjustments.Sub-study 1 involved 957 students in grades 4-6(M = 11.04,SD = 0.89),and validated that different types of defending were related to defenders’ adjustments differently.Specifically,aggressive defending was positively related to victimization and depressive symptoms,while comforting victims was negatively related to victimization and depressive symptoms.Assertive defending was also negatively related to depressive symptoms.Sub-study 1 also revealed that classroom-level factors moderated the relationship between defending behaviors and adjustment difficulties.Specifically,only in classrooms with low levels of bullying,tactical defending was positively related to victimization.In classrooms where bullying behavior was socially accepted(i.e.,high bullying-likability norm),the positive association between aggressive defending and victimization was stronger than in classrooms where bullying behavior was not accepted(i.e.,low bullying-likability norm).Sub-study 2 involved 820 students in grades 4-6(M = 11.00,SD = 0.89),and found that different types of defending strategies predicted defenders’ adjustments differently.Specifically,assertive defending and comforting victims were identified as safe defending strategies,as they were found to predict a decrease in victimization and depressive symptoms,respectively,6 months later.Conversely,tactical defending was identified as a risky defending strategy,as it was found to predict an increase in victimization 6 months later.Sub-study 2 also revealed that classroom-level factors could predict the adjustment difficulties of adolescents.In classrooms with high levels of bullying,individuals were more likely to experience depressive symptoms 6 months later.In classrooms where bullying behavior was socially accepted(i.e.,high bullyinglikability norm),individuals were more likely to experience victimization and depressive symptoms 6 months later.However,in classrooms where bullying behavior was more popular(i.e.,high bullying-popularity norm),individuals were less likely to experience depressive symptoms 6 months later.Findings from this dissertation provide evidence regarding the heterogeneous nature of defending and highlight multi-level predictors of various types of defending.This dissertation also indicates that whether or not defending behaviors can lead to psychosocial maladjustment depends on the type of defending and the defender’s classroom norms.These research findings not only have rich theoretical value but also have practical significance for formulating safe and effective defending-related bullying preventions and interventions. |
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