Teacher Responses to Bullying: An Examination of Socially Ostracized Youth’s Emotions and Help-Seeking Intention Using a Virtual Reality Experiment

Teacher responses to bullying may shape victimized youths' emotions and help-seeking. The current study used a virtual-reality experimental paradigm of social exclusion, Cyberball-VR, to examine how different types of teacher responses influence early adolescents’ help-seeking intention and emotions following social exclusion. Youth participants (N = 123) ages 10-14 (61% male) were randomly assigned to a teacher response condition (i.e., active, passive, ignoring) after experiencing social exclusion. The final analytic sample included 104 participants. Participants self-reported eight discrete emotions (i.e., anger, embarrassment, frustration, shame, fear, satisfaction, happiness, hope) and help-seeking intention during Cyberball-VR. Teacher response condition significantly moderated change in satisfaction and fear. Active teacher response was associated with an increase in both satisfaction and fear. When teachers actively address bullying, such as social exclusion, victimized youth may feel more satisfied because their plight has been noticed, and yet also fearful of possible negative social consequences of teachers becoming too involved.