Do Targeted Interventions Diminish Victimization? Testing the Short- and Longer-term Effectiveness of Condemning, Empathy-Raising, and Combined Approaches

Given the detrimental effects of school bullying, it is essential that teachers are provided with effective guidelines on how to implement targeted interventions if a case of bullying comes to their attention. Yet to date, most research has focused on how bullying can be prevented, rather than how it should be intervened upon. To address this gap, the current study compared the short- and longer-term development of victimization of students whose bullies were enrolled in a targeted intervention, and compared three approaches taken in such interventions when talking to perpetrators: (1) promoting empathy for victims among bullies, (2) explicitly condemning bullying behaviors, and (3) a combination of these approaches. The sample consisted of n = 274 victims from primary and secondary schools (56.6% female, Mage = 11.95, SD = 1.89). School personnel used a mobile application KiVappi to document the steps they took when implementing targeted interventions on bullying perpetrators of these victims (including a follow up meeting in which victims were asked about the short-term effectiveness of the intervention). Most cases were handled with an empathy-raising approach (n = 117), followed by the condemning (n = 113) and combined (n = 44) approach. Targeted intervention data was matched to survey data collected to examine longer-term changes in self-reported victimization. The results indicate that the success rates of targeted interventions on the short-term were promising: 88.2% of the victims indicated that the victimization had decreased or ceased, and the combined approach seemed to be the “best bet”. In the longer term, victims whose bullies were enrolled in a targeted intervention were equally stable in self-reported victimization as the control group - irrespective of the approach taken in the targeted intervention. Thus, despite potential short-term successes, targeted interventions may not be enough to help victims of bullying escape their plight in the longer term.