“Help, I’m Getting Bullied”: Examining Sequences of Teacher Support Messages Provided to Bullied Students

Abstract

Many students who seek out teachers for help when getting bullied report receiving unhelpful support. We theorized that the placement of support types (emotional, informational, network) in a conversation influences participants’ (N = 640) supportiveness evaluations. Results suggest that 1) conversations with more than one support type were evaluated as most supportive; 2) conversations featuring network support anywhere were viewed as more supportive; and 3) the emotional support–only conversation was viewed as least supportive, whereas the emotional-and-network support conversation was viewed as most supportive. We end by providing useful information for bullied students’ postbullying adjustments and bullying education curricula for teachers.

Keywords:

• Coping
• Optimal Matching
• Social Ties
• Supportive Communication
• Support Providers