Why Should I Help You? Man Up! Bystanders’ Gender Stereotypic Perceptions of a Cyberbullying Incident

ABSTRACT

Bystanders observing a cyberbullying incident do not always intervene in favor of the victim. We argue that gender stereotypic perceptions of female versus male victims contribute to the differential reactions of bystanders to cyberbullying incidents. Results of a scenario-based experiment show that participants with moderate or high levels of sexist attitudes are more empathic toward a female victim of workplace cyberbullying. Consequently, a female victim is more likely to receive help. Female victims are less likely to be attributed blame if the perpetrator is male. The results imply that male victims of cyberbullying are marginalized by their social environment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mathias Weber

MATHIAS WEBER is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication, University of Mainz. His research focuses on adolescents’ media use, sexual media content, and on potentially harmful online behavior.

Christina Koehler

CHRISTINA KOEHLER is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Mainz. Her research focuses on detrimental social effects of computer-mediated communication (especially cyberbullying, online hate speech) and media effects on citizens’ political attitudes as well as political elites’ decision making.

Anna Schnauber-Stockmann

ANNA SCHNAUBER-STOCKMANN is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication, University of Mainz; her research areas are media choice (especially media habits), media effects (e.g., cultivation research), computer-mediated communication (espcially cyberbullying, mobile communication), and quantitative research methods.