Increasing Children's Defending Behaviors: Using Deviance Regulation

NCT ID: NCT04681209

Last Updated: 2020-12-23

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 1564 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2017-09-01
• Study Completion Date: 2020-07-30

Brief Summary

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has identified bullying as a significant public health concern. The research tests a novel approach to increase children's defending of victims of bullying. Previous research has shown that the presence of defenders leads to decreases in bullying. Thus, promoting defending has become a critical component of anti-bullying interventions. However, how to best motivate defending has been relatively unstudied. Deviance Regulation Theory (DRT) provides a theoretical basis for motivating positive health and social behaviors. This theory proposes that individuals are motivated to behave in ways that differentiate them from others in a positive manner. Accordingly, individuals will be motivated to engage in a behavior if they believe the behavior occurs infrequently and will be viewed positively by others. As children report that few of their peers defend victims of bullying, the goal of this study is to increase defending by communicating to children that defenders possess traits valued by their peers (e.g., being popular, kind). Children in 4th-grade and 5th-grade classrooms received a DRT-based anti-bullying intervention or an anti-bullying intervention focused on increasing empathy for victims and strategies for defending peers. Data collection occurred three times during the school year: a) at baseline, two weeks prior to the intervention; b) 3 months post-intervention; and c) 6 months post-intervention. Findings showed that compared to the traditional anti-bullying intervention, the DRT-based intervention resulted in larger, more sustained gains in teacher-reported defending, but not peer-reported or self-reported defending. Contrary to expectations, gains in teacher-reported defending were greatest for children who viewed defending to be normative amongst their classmates. Increases in defending were also greatest among those children least likely to defend (i.e., those low in popularity and prosocial behavior, and those often bullied by peer). These findings have implications for the development of anti-bullying interventions and more broadly for understanding how to encourage important behavioral changes in childhood and adolescence. However, more research is needed to understand why increases were limited to only defending behaviors observable to teachers.

Detailed Description

This study, conducted over the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years examined whether a DRT-based intervention activity resulted in greater increases in defending behaviors in response to witnessed bullying than a more traditional, empathy-based activity. Thirteen schools were randomly assigned to receive either the DRT-based or empathy-based activity, and all fourth-grade and fifth-grade children were invited to participate. Defending behaviors were assessed approximately two weeks prior to participation in the activity and at three-month and six-month follow-ups. Data collected included peer-reports, teacher-reports, and self-reports. Also examined was whether popularity, peer acceptance, prosocial behavior, peer victimization, empathy, self-efficacy for defending, moral disengagement, or gender moderated intervention effects.

Conditions

Bullying of Child

Keywords

Peer Relationship; Bullying Prevention

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

DRT-Condition

This is the experimental group that engaged in the DRT-based intervention activity.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

DRT Condition

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Children were asked to provide five descriptors of two children who each engaged in defending behaviors. Two weeks later they were told the top seven descriptors given by the hundreds of children participating in the project. This was followed by a brief discussion of how one could best help another kid who was getting bullied. Children then made posters to share with younger grades as to what "friendship heroes" are like, using the descriptor words shared with them, and how to be a friendship hero (i.e., how to help someone who is being bullied). Posters were hung for two-to-four months after the intervention activity.

Empathy-Condition

This is the experimental group that engaged in the empathy-based intervention activity.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Empathy Condition

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Children in the empathy-based condition were asked to provide five descriptors of how two children who were bullied would fee. Two weeks later they were told the top seven descriptors given by the hundreds of children participating in the project. This was followed by a brief discussion of how one could best help another kid who was getting bullied. Children then made posters to share with younger grades as to what being bullied feels like, using the descriptor words shared with them, and how to be a friendship hero (i.e., how to help someone who is being bullied). Posters were hung for two-to-four months after the intervention activity.

Interventions

DRT Condition

Children were asked to provide five descriptors of two children who each engaged in defending behaviors. Two weeks later they were told the top seven descriptors given by the hundreds of children participating in the project. This was followed by a brief discussion of how one could best help another kid who was getting bullied. Children then made posters to share with younger grades as to what "friendship heroes" are like, using the descriptor words shared with them, and how to be a friendship hero (i.e., how to help someone who is being bullied). Posters were hung for two-to-four months after the intervention activity.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Empathy Condition

Children in the empathy-based condition were asked to provide five descriptors of how two children who were bullied would fee. Two weeks later they were told the top seven descriptors given by the hundreds of children participating in the project. This was followed by a brief discussion of how one could best help another kid who was getting bullied. Children then made posters to share with younger grades as to what being bullied feels like, using the descriptor words shared with them, and how to be a friendship hero (i.e., how to help someone who is being bullied). Posters were hung for two-to-four months after the intervention activity.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Child in the fourth-grade or fifth-grade of participating schools

Exclusion Criteria

• None.

• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Auburn University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Wendy P. Gordon

Principle Investigator

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Wendy P Gordon

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Auburn University

Locations

Auburn University

Auburn, Alabama, United States

Countries

United States

References

Troop-Gordon W, Frosch CA, Wienke Totura CM, Bailey AN, Jackson JD, Dvorak RD. Predicting the development of pro-bullying bystander behavior: A short-term longitudinal analysis. J Sch Psychol. 2019 Dec;77:77-89. doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2019.10.004. Epub 2019 Nov 25.

Reference Type: RESULT

PMID: 31837730 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

AuburnUDRT

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id