Uma Abordagem da Teoria Social Cognitiva para Espectadores Virtuais: O Bom, o Mau e o Indiferente

Resumo

Cyberbullying has become a focus of recent research as the risk of experiencing cyberbullying has increased exponentially over the past decade. This is due to the increased use of the internet by the general community as well as adolescents especially on social network platforms where most cyberbullying occurs. To combat the problem of adolescent bullying many school-based interventions have been developed. Although these programs have had a moderate degree of success, cyberbullying persists. The focus of most antibullying programs has been on the bully and the victim. However, there have been mounting calls to increase the effectiveness of these programs by harnessing the assistance of the many students who witness cyberbullying. Most adolescents who witness cyberbullying do nothing and remain passive. When they do intervene, they are mostly successful in reducing bullying when they respond constructively. The paper aims to explicate a social cognitive theory model of cyber bystanders that can be used as a basis for developing an intervention program to increase constructive bystanding responses. Bandura’s social cognitive theory provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the complexity of bullying dynamics in cyber space. The theory considers the social context in which cyberbullying occurs and the major sociocognitive processes of self-regulation (moral disengagement, self-efficacy, social expectations) that are involved in understanding cyber bystanding.