Unleashing the superpowers of peer group empathy: a study on bullying intervention tendency and behavior in primary school students

Although previous studies have confirmed that bystanders with high empathy are more inclined to actively intervene in bullying incidents. These investigations have primarily focused on the individual level, overlooking potential group-level influences and failing to explicitly distinguish between intervention tendency and actual intervention behavior. This study employed a longitudinal design to thoroughly investigate the mechanisms influencing bullying intervention behavior among elementary school students. During the initial measurement (T1), 1,105 students were systematically assessed for empathy, self-efficacy, peer networks, and bullying intervention tendency. A follow-up measurement (T2) conducted six weeks later involved 1,016 participants (Mage = 10.89, SDage = 0.98) who were required to report their actual bullying intervention behavior during the preceding month. Social networks constructed through peer nominations identified 152 cliques, followed by multilevel linear model analysis. Results revealed that both T1 group empathy and T1 individual empathy significantly positively predicted T1 intervention tendency and T2 intervention behavior, while T1 intervention tendency itself positively predicted T2 intervention behavior. Furthermore, T1 self-efficacy moderated the relationship between T1 intervention tendency and T2 intervention behavior, indicating that self-efficacy facilitates the translation of intervention tendency into actual intervention behavior. This research transcends the individual-centered limitations of previous studies by revealing the independent effects of group empathy and the motivational regulatory mechanism of self-efficacy, thereby providing multi-level theoretical support for school bullying interventions.