When Empathy Leads to Passive Bystanding or Defending of the Victim in a Bullying Situation: Interaction With the Perceived Popularity of the Bully

The interactions between individual factors (i.e., cognitive empathy, affective empathy) and situational factors (i.e., perceived popularity of a bully) in predicting passive bystanding or defending of the victim in a bullying situation were examined. A total of 522 Korean secondary school students answered survey questions and responded to vignettes depicting bullying scenarios that included the different popularity statuses of the bully. The results revealed that high affective empathy positively predicted defending negatively predicted passive bystanding regardless of the perceived popularity of the bully. However, when bystanders had low affective empathy and high cognitive empathy, as the perceived popularity of the bully increased, their intention to remain passive also increased but their intention to defend the victim decreased.