“Moral disengagement” and empathy of witnesses of peer bullying

Abstract

Reviewing the literature on peer bullying, we can repeatedly come across conclusions about the declared willingness of witnesses to help a person experiencing peer violence. As it turns out, however, these promises are rarely implemented by them and have little to do with helping in a real situation. The authors of scientific studies (Hymel, Bonanno, 2014; Machackova, Pfetsch, 2016; Tłuściak-Deliowska, 2016; Gini, Pozzoli, Thornberg, 2017, 2020) mention, among the significant factors that prevent witnesses from intervening, among others, a high level of moral disengagement and a low level of empathy of the observers. The article is an attempt to show the role of empathy and mechanisms of "moral disengagement" of witnesses of peer bullying in the face of harm to the victim. The author presented her own research, which is part of a wider research project, during which she conducted 23 free interviews with students of various fields of study. The main assumption of the research was to know the predictors of intervention during school bullying. The study focuses on empathy and "moral disengagement" and on the specific neutralization techniques that bystanders use to refrain from intervening or defending/helping a victim of peer bullying. The presented conclusions are an important point in the design of school preventive activities aimed at shaping morality and empathy.