Increasing Children's Defending Behaviors: Using Deviance Regulation
18 december 2020 bijgewerkt door: Wendy P. Gordon, Auburn University
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.
Studie Overzicht
Toestand
Voltooid
Conditie
Interventie / Behandeling
Gedetailleerde beschrijving
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.
Studietype
Ingrijpend
Inschrijving (Werkelijk)
1564
Fase
- Niet toepasbaar
Contacten en locaties
In dit gedeelte vindt u de contactgegevens van degenen die het onderzoek uitvoeren en informatie over waar dit onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd.
Studie Locaties
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Alabama
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Auburn, Alabama, Verenigde Staten, 36879-5402
- Auburn University
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Deelname Criteria
Onderzoekers zoeken naar mensen die aan een bepaalde beschrijving voldoen, de zogenaamde geschiktheidscriteria. Enkele voorbeelden van deze criteria zijn iemands algemene gezondheidstoestand of eerdere behandelingen.
Geschiktheidscriteria
Leeftijden die in aanmerking komen voor studie
- Kind
- Volwassen
- Oudere volwassene
Accepteert gezonde vrijwilligers
Nee
Geslachten die in aanmerking komen voor studie
Allemaal
Beschrijving
Inclusion Criteria:
- Child in the fourth-grade or fifth-grade of participating schools
Exclusion Criteria:
- None.
Studie plan
Dit gedeelte bevat details van het studieplan, inclusief hoe de studie is opgezet en wat de studie meet.
Hoe is de studie opgezet?
Ontwerpdetails
- Primair doel: Fundamentele wetenschap
- Toewijzing: Gerandomiseerd
- Interventioneel model: Parallelle opdracht
- Masker: Dubbele
Wapens en interventies
Deelnemersgroep / Arm |
Interventie / Behandeling |
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Experimenteel: DRT-Condition
This is the experimental group that engaged in the DRT-based intervention activity.
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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.
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Actieve vergelijker: Empathy-Condition
This is the experimental group that engaged in the empathy-based intervention activity.
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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.
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Wat meet het onderzoek?
Primaire uitkomstmaten
Uitkomstmaat |
Maatregel Beschrijving |
Tijdsspanne |
|---|---|---|
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Changes in Peer-reported Defending across The School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Peer ratings of how often each participating classmate defended bullied peers
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Changes in Self-reported Defending across the School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Children's ratings of how often they defended bullied peers
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Changes in Teacher-reported Defending across the School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Teachers' ratings of how often each participating student defended bullied peers
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Secundaire uitkomstmaten
Uitkomstmaat |
Maatregel Beschrijving |
Tijdsspanne |
|---|---|---|
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Changes in Perceptions of Defenders across The School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Children's ratings of how much children who help others who are bullied are popular, kind, sensitive to other's feelings, leaders, well-liked, confident, and helpful.
Higher scores reflected more positive perceptions of children who defend.
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Changes in Peer Aggression across the School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Ratings participating children received from classmates on the items "calls other kids bad names or say mean things to them," "tell other kids they can't play with them or won't be friends with them," and "hit or push other kids."
Ratings were made on a scale from never to a lot.
Ratings received from participating classmates were averaged, and item scores were averaged to compute a composite aggression score with higher scores indicating higher levels of aggressive behavior.
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Changes in Peer Victimization across the School Year
Tijdsspanne: three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Ratings received from participating classmates on the items "get left out of things that kids are doing (kids don't let him or her play with them), "get hit or pushed," and "kids call [this child] bad names or say mean things to him or her." Items were rated on a scale from never to a lot.
Ratings received from all participating classmates are averaged for each item, and item scores are averaged to create a composite peer victimization score.
Higher scores indicated higher levels of peer victimization.
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three-month follow-up; six-month follow-up
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Medewerkers en onderzoekers
Hier vindt u mensen en organisaties die betrokken zijn bij dit onderzoek.
Sponsor
Onderzoekers
- Hoofdonderzoeker: Wendy P Gordon, Auburn University
Publicaties en nuttige links
De persoon die verantwoordelijk is voor het invoeren van informatie over het onderzoek stelt deze publicaties vrijwillig ter beschikking. Dit kan gaan over alles wat met het onderzoek te maken heeft.
Studie record data
Deze datums volgen de voortgang van het onderzoeksdossier en de samenvatting van de ingediende resultaten bij ClinicalTrials.gov. Studieverslagen en gerapporteerde resultaten worden beoordeeld door de National Library of Medicine (NLM) om er zeker van te zijn dat ze voldoen aan specifieke kwaliteitscontrolenormen voordat ze op de openbare website worden geplaatst.
Bestudeer belangrijke data
Studie start (Werkelijk)
1 september 2017
Primaire voltooiing (Werkelijk)
30 mei 2019
Studie voltooiing (Werkelijk)
30 juli 2020
Studieregistratiedata
Eerst ingediend
14 december 2020
Eerst ingediend dat voldeed aan de QC-criteria
18 december 2020
Eerst geplaatst (Werkelijk)
23 december 2020
Updates van studierecords
Laatste update geplaatst (Werkelijk)
23 december 2020
Laatste update ingediend die voldeed aan QC-criteria
18 december 2020
Laatst geverifieerd
1 december 2020
Meer informatie
Termen gerelateerd aan deze studie
Trefwoorden
Aanvullende relevante MeSH-voorwaarden
Andere studie-ID-nummers
- AuburnUDRT
Plan Individuele Deelnemersgegevens (IPD)
Bent u van plan om gegevens van individuele deelnemers (IPD) te delen?
Nee
Beschrijving IPD-plan
Only de-identified data from all 1,564 participants will be shared
Informatie over medicijnen en apparaten, studiedocumenten
Bestudeert een door de Amerikaanse FDA gereguleerd geneesmiddel
Nee
Bestudeert een door de Amerikaanse FDA gereguleerd apparaatproduct
Nee
Deze informatie is zonder wijzigingen rechtstreeks van de website clinicaltrials.gov gehaald. Als u verzoeken heeft om uw onderzoeksgegevens te wijzigen, te verwijderen of bij te werken, neem dan contact op met register@clinicaltrials.gov. Zodra er een wijziging wordt doorgevoerd op clinicaltrials.gov, wordt deze ook automatisch bijgewerkt op onze website .