The Role of Supportive Messages, Appraisals, and Attributions in Facilitating Cognitive Reappraisal of Bullying

This study examined how supportive messages that varied in their levels of person-centeredness or conveyed the notion that bullies can change influenced people’s cognitions about bullying. The sample included 304 adults who were facing ongoing bullying, and they provided their appraisals and attributions of the situation before and after receiving experimentally manipulated messages. Unexpectedly, repeated measures analyses revealed that low person-centered messages had a more positive impact on participants’ appraisals and attributions of bullying than messages that were moderately or highly person-centered, or those that conveyed the belief that people can change. Compared to low person-centered messages, moderately and highly person-centered messages resulted in less cognitive reappraisal due to changes in recipients’ attributions of the stability of the stressor. The implications of these findings for improving cognitions about ongoing stress are discussed.