Adolescent peer aggression judgments and expected bystander intervention in teen dating violence

Abstract

Instances of teen dating violence (TDV), like other forms of aggression, can involve both physical and social harm. This study (1) compares adolescent acceptability judgments and bystander expectations about a hypothetical TDV story to platonic physical aggression (PPA) and platonic social aggression (PSA) stories and (2) explores how individual, peer, and school climate factors relate to TDV bystander expectations. Adolescent participants (N = 828, 50.8% female) were less accepting of and more likely to expect to intervene in PPA compared to TDV and PSA. Females were less accepting and more likely to expect to intervene across all stories compared to males. In the TDV story, less TDV acceptance and higher rates of empathy and positive student-teacher relationships were associated with greater intervention expectations, whereas those nominated as “popular” and “least liked” were less likely to expect to intervene. Implications for programing aimed at reducing TDV through bystander intervention are discussed.