The Effects of Moral Disengagement and Social Identity of Victim on Helping in Peer Bullying

In this research, it was aimed to examine the effects of moral disengagement and social identity of the victim on willingness to help to the victim of bullying in early adolescence. Social identity of the victim was manipulated via vignettes as either native or refugee, and not any information was provided to the participanst in the control condition. The sample of the research consisted of students who registered to the Kırşehir Cumhuriyet Ortokulu. 42 students participated in the pilot study, whereas 120 students participated in the main study. A 2 (gender of participants: female versus male) x 2 (moral disengagement level: high versus low) x 2 (social identity: native, Syrian refugee, control) ANOVA design was applied. According to the findings, the scores of being bystander and the perception of similarity with the victim were significantly higher among male participants with low moral disengagement level, whereas those were significantly higher among girls at the level of high moral disengagement. Empathy for the victim and active help were significantly correlated in the conditon where the victim was mentioned to be an asylum seeker. In addition, there was significant positive relationships between justice appraisal about bullying and both active help and being bystander. Also significant positive correlations between willingness to active help and emotions were found in the conditions where the victim was portrayed as native, and in the control group. Internal motivation to help, which is the subscale of attitudes towards the Syrians, positively correlated with both active help and being bystander. It was also seen that sense of discomfort and empathy for the victim mediated the relationship between inner motivation and active help. The relationship between external motivation and active help was found to be mediated by anger, and inner motivation mediated the relation between justice appraisal and active help. All findings were discussed in the light of the literature. Key words: Attitudes towards Syrians, bullying, moral disengagement, social identity of the victim, willingness to help.