Moral motivation in defending classmates victimized by bullying

Abstract

The study addresses factors that relate to defending of classmates victimized by bullying in early adolescence. Specifically, it examines whether moral motivation—measured as a combination of emotion attributions and their justifications in response to a hypothetical transgression—predicts defending in context of gender, social preference, perceived popularity and teacher support. We gathered single-time-point data on a sample of 512 sixth-graders (aged 11–13 years). A three-step hierarchical regression analysis showed that defending was positively predicted by: (1) moral motivation, when gender, social preference, perceived popularity and teacher support were accounted for; (2) interaction between moral motivation and social preference, when all other independent variables were accounted for. Simple slopes indicated that increased social preference strengthened the link between moral motivation and defending. The full model explained 40.5% of the variance in defending. The findings underscore the relevance of morality and its interplay with social preference in understanding defending.