Differential Effects of Friendship and School Norms on Adolescents’ Defending in Cyberbullying Situations: A Randomized School-Based Experiment

During adolescence, close friendships become increasingly important, yet whether norms within friendship groups may influence responses to cyberbullying more than norms from more distal reference groups such as schools remains untested. This preregistered experiment examined the effects of friendship and school pro-defending norms on adolescents' defending intentions and behaviors in response to hypothetical cyberbullying scenarios. Participants were 321 students from grades 5 to 10 in a German secondary school (55.45% female; M_age = 12.66, SD_age = 1.73), randomly assigned to a friendship norm (N = 105), school norm (N = 110), or control (N = 106) condition. Norm information was derived from previous data collection. Victim- and bully-oriented defending intentions and behaviors were significantly higher in the friendship norm condition compared to the control condition, while the school norm condition showed no significant effects. Neither norm condition influenced cyberbullying reporting and participation in an anti-bullying campaign. These findings demonstrate that friendship norms are effective in promoting defending in cyberbullying situations, suggesting that norm-based interventions may benefit from targeting such proximal reference groups that are aligned with adolescents' developmental needs.