Standing by or Standing up? Victim Ethnicity, Bystander Responses and Psychological Distress in Different Types of Bullying Situations

Background: Bullying represents a complex problem affecting students of all ages. Among the factors that influence it, appraisals of the transgressions and bystanders’ responses play a very important role. The present study examined adults’ emotional, evaluative, and behavioral responses to hypothetical bullying scenarios varying by bullying type and victim ethnicity. It also explored whether psychological distress was associated with bystanding behaviors as well as previous bullying experiences. Methods: The study used a mixed 3 × 4 vignette-based design. Victim ethnicity (i.e., Romanian, Roma, or Hungarian) was manipulated between participants, while bullying type was manipulated within participants through four scenarios describing physical, verbal, indirect, and cyberbullying. The final sample included 477 adults aged between 18 and 52 years. Participants appraised each transgression (i.e., empathic reactions, unacceptability), reported their likely bystander behavioral intentions (i.e., defend, ignore, report or join the aggression), completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and reported previous bullying experiences as victim, witness, and aggressor. Results: Bullying type was the most consistent factor shaping participants’ appraisals as well as bystander reactions. The most tolerated forms were indirect bullying (e.g., highest probability to join the aggression) and verbal bullying (e.g., lowest unacceptability) the least accepted was physical bullying (e.g., lowest probability to join the aggression) while cyberbullying elicited specific patterns (i.e., lower empathy but higher willingness to report the incident). Victim ethnicity had a very limited effect, only concerning reporting intentions: lower for Hungarian targets compared to Romanian. Psychological distress was mainly associated with previous victimization and witnessing, while associations with scenario-based responses were smaller and more specific. Conclusions: The findings suggest that bystander responses are differentiated across bullying forms and prevention efforts should address subtle, indirect, verbal, and online forms of bullying, as these may be more easily normalized or less directly confronted.