Empathy and Bystander Roles in Children and Adolescents: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Empathy and Bystander Roles in Children and Adolescents: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Summary/Abstract: Empathy has been a constant component of anti-bullying programs based on bystander intervention. However, less is known about how cognitive and affective empathy are related to bystander behavior. The aim of the current meta-analysis and systematic review was to test the association between cognitive and affective empathy with three categories of bystanders: defenders, outsiders and pro-bullies. We systematically searched PsychINFO, Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed until March 2025. A total of 32 studies were included, with a combined sample of 24,783, mean age 11.93 years old. All studies were evaluated to be of good or fair quality. Results indicate significant positive correlations between defending and both cognitive and affective empathy, with a slightly larger correlation coefficient for affective empathy. Being an outsider was negatively and significantly related to affective empathy and negatively, but not significantly to cognitive empathy. Only one study has investigated cognitive empathy in relation to pro-bully involvement, therefore analyses were conducted exclusively on affective empathy. The association between affective empathy and pro-bully bystanding was negative and significant. Heterogeneity levels were high across results. No moderation effects were identified, but sensitivity analyses revealed minor improvements after eliminating ad-hoc measures of empathy in some instances. Funnel plot visual investigation indicated possible small study effects, but the Egger’s formal test revealed no publication bias. Results based on a limited number of studies should be interpreted with caution. Altogether, findings suggest that future studies should distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy and should address multiple bystanding behaviors.

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