Patterns of defender behaviors and outsider behaviors in school bullying among Chinese adolescents: based on latent profile analysis

The present study aimed to examine the heterogeneity of Chinese adolescents’ defender behaviors and outsider behaviors in school bullying and their predictors. A total of 1335 adolescents (59.78% were boys, M_age = 14.22, SD = 1.28) completed questionnaires concerning defender and outsider behaviors, moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy, and empathy. The results showed that: (1) There were four subtypes of defender behaviors and outsider behaviors in school bullying: comprehensive defender behaviors (23.30%), comforting defender behaviors (30.71%), typical outsider behaviors (12.88%), and mixed behaviors (33.11%). (2) Compared with the comprehensive defender behaviors, adolescents with lower level of defender self-efficacy were more likely to engage in comforting defender behaviors. Compared with the comprehensive defender behaviors, adolescents with higher level of moral disengagement as well as lower level of defender self-efficacy and affective empathy were more likely to perform typical outsider behaviors. Meanwhile, adolescents with higher level of moral disengagement as well as lower level of defender self-efficacy and cognitive empathy were more likely to engage in mixed behaviors rather than comprehensive defender behaviors. These findings provided important implications for developing intervention programs targeting school bullying.