Positive and Negative Bystander Behavior in Bullying Dynamics: Assessing the Impact of Social Capital Deprivation, Anti-Social Capital, and Positive Social Capital Development in Rural Youth

Background: Bystanders are individuals who witness a bullying event, but are not directly involved as a bully or victim. Bystander behavior influences rates of bullying because prosocial bystanders (those who support the victim) often end episodes of bullying, while negative bystanders (those who support the bully) elevate rates of bullying. The majority of existing bystander research examines how individual characteristics (e.g., empathy, gender) are associated with bystander behavior and fails to consider how school characteristics (e.g., size) and social relationships in the form of social capital deprivation (e.g., peer rejection), anti-social capital (e.g., delinquent friends), and positive social capital (e.g., friend support) are associated with bystander behavior. The current study aims to address these gaps in the literature.

Methods: The sample consists of 5,752 youth in a low-income rural community. Participants were in grades 6 through 11 and 29% identified as Caucasian, 26% as African American, 24% as Native American, 13% as mixed race/other, and 8% as Latino/Hispanic. Data were collected using the School Success Profile Plus, an online assessment that measures adolescents’ perceptions of school, friends, family, neighborhood, self, and health. Scales were added to measure bullying, victimization, and bystander behavior. Following multiple imputation, a binary logistic regression with robust standard errors was run to examine how social capital deprivation and anti-social capital factors were associated with the likelihood of engaging in negative bystander. An ordered logistic regression with robust standard errors was run to examine how positive social capital factors were associated with the likelihood of engaging in positive bystander behavior. 

Results: Anti-social capital in the form of high rates of delinquent friends, bullying perpetration, verbal perpetration, and physical perpetration were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior. High rates of peer pressure and verbal victimization were also significantly associated with negative bystander behavior. For example, compared to youth who reported experiencing low rates of peer pressure, those who experienced high rates had a significantly higher likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior (20.92% for low versus 54.53% for high, p<.001). Social capital, as measured by high rates of friend and teacher support, ethnic identity, religion orientation, and future optimism, was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in positive bystander behavior compared to low rates of these factors. For example, compared to youth with low rates of future optimism, those with high rates were significantly more likely to engage in positive bystander behavior (18.77% for high versus 8.53% for low, p<.001).

Conclusion and Implications: Findings indicate that the presence of social capital deprivation and anti-social capital are detrimental to classroom bullying dynamics as these factors are associated with increased negative bystander behavior, highlighting the need to connect socially disenfranchised youth to prosocial peers and adults.  While positive social capital contributes to increased positive bystander behavior, it seems have less of an impact. Further research is needed on etiology and interventions for bystander behavior during bullying episodes.