Bystander responses in five-steps: Paving road to prosocial intervention to social exclusion through social-cognition

Abstract

To promote prosocial defending behaviours to social exclusion, it is important to understand the role of social-cognitive factors in bystanders' cognition, judgements and responses. The current research examined how social cognitive skills relate to different aspects of bystanders' cognition, judgements and responses in the five-step intervention model. Data were collected from 96 Turkish children and adolescents (M_age = 12.39 years, SD = 1.74, 59 girls, aged 10–17). Participants were presented with a hypothetical social exclusion scenario and their bystanders' cognition, judgements and responses were measured via five-step intervention model. Theory of mind (ToM), mind-reading motivation (MRM) and empathy were also measured as predictors. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that while ToM and MRM were more likely to predict bystanders' judgements and cognitions around social exclusion, empathy was also found to be correlated with behavioural aspects of bystanders' responses beside cognitions and judgements. Overall, our novel findings provide insight for intervention studies to promote prosocial bystanders' judgements, cognitions and responses by addressing different social-cognitive skills.