From pity to numbness: Social exclusion moderates the relationship between trait empathy and bystanders’ aggressive tendencies in cyberbullying

Studies on cyberbullying have revealed an inconsistent relationship between trait empathy and bystanders' aggressive tendencies towards victims. We believe that these studies have overlooked the role of social exclusion. We infer that high-severity social exclusion suppresses the negative relationship between trait empathy and bystanders' aggressive tendencies. In Study 1, 226 participants read a news report concerning a singer's humiliation by netizens due to lack of talent. The results revealed that trait empathy predicted lower aggressive tendencies towards the singer for participants with fewer experiences of social exclusion. However, trait empathy was unrelated to aggressive tendencies for participants with more experiences of social exclusion. In Study 2, 146 participants were randomly assigned to a low-severity or a high-severity social exclusion condition and were required to recall their experiences of low- or high-severity social exclusion, respectively. The results demonstrated that in the low-severity condition, trait empathy was negatively associated with participants' aggressive tendencies towards the singer and this relationship was mediated by state empathy. However, there was no evidence that the process was at work in the high-severity condition. This study further presents implications and directions for future research.