The Power of Values in Adolescent Bystander Reactions to Cyberbullying

Adolescents increasingly witness harmful behaviors in online environments as bystanders, yet not all bystanders react the same way. Guided by a values-as-motivation perspective, this study tested whether personal values relate to adolescents’ bystanders’ behavioral and emotional responses to cyberbullying, and whether prior exposure to harmful online content moderates these links. Israeli adolescents (N = 308; ages 14–16, 57% girls) completed the PVQ-25 questionnaire and responded to three realistic cyberbullying scenarios and one hypothetical vignette indexing bystander behaviors (e.g., help vs. laugh) and emotions (supportive vs. indifferent/offensive). Self-transcendence values correlated with more supportive bystanders’ behaviors and more supportive bystanders’ emotions, and with less indifference. Conservation values were linked to more supportive emotions and less indifferent and amused emotions, but not to bystanders’ behavioral responses. Power values showed the opposite pattern: less supportive behavior and higher offensive emotions, as well as more indifference and amusement. Moderation analyses indicated that exposure to harmful content strengthened the association between prosocial values and supportive behavior: positive associations emerged only at medium and high exposure to online harmful content; the conservation × exposure interaction was marginal, with simple effects evident at medium and high exposure. Findings suggest that adolescents’ values are linked to both what they feel and what they do as online bystanders, especially when prior exposure makes value-based responding more salient.