Bystanders’ Responses to Witnessing Cyberbullying: the Role of Empathic Distress, Empathic Anger, and Compassion

A lack of empathy for victimized individuals has been cited as a reason for why bystanders fail to intervene when they witness bullying. However, limited research has addressed how different empathic and compassionate responses could account for diverse bystander behaviors. In this study, we investigated the unique associations of empathic distress, empathic anger, and compassion with different ways that bystanders intend to respond to witnessing cyberbullying, including passive bystanding, aggressive defending, and prosocial defending. Participants were 270 Australian university students from diverse racial backgrounds ( M age = 20.34, SD = 2.78, age range 18 to 29 years, 74.8% females). Participants completed an online survey. As predicted, after controlling for gender, cybervictimization, cyberbullying, and social desirability, a multivariate path model revealed that empathic distress, empathic anger, and compassion had different associations with the three bystander behavioral intentions. Students higher in empathic distress and lower in empathic anger reported greater passive bystander intentions in response to witnessing cyberbullying, with those higher in empathic anger intending to use more aggressive and prosocial defending. Compassion was associated with lower aggressive defending intentions and higher prosocial defending intentions, making it unique in differentiating these two forms of defending. These findings emphasize the differential role of empathic distress, empathic anger, and compassion in predicting cyberbullying bystander behavioral intentions. Future research is needed to investigate how empathic anger and compassion can be targeted in interventions to help witnesses productively intervene to stop cyberbullying and support victimized individuals.