Beyond Silence: How Privacy Affordances Shape Bystander’s Supportive Behaviors in Cyberbullying from a Mental Accounting Perspective

Abstract

Cyberbullying is a growing societal challenge linked to the misuse of technology. While the focus of previous studies has largely been on the bullies and victims, the bystander has often been overlooked. This critical subject plays a significant role in stopping the bullying behavior and offering support to the victims. Drawing on the mental accounting theory, people make decisions based on their risk and benefit evaluation, which is shaped by the media environment. Given the significant concern about potential retaliation when participating in supportive behaviors, protecting individual privacy becomes a focus. Considering the insufficient research on relevant psychological mechanism and privacy affordances in previous studies of cyberbullying, we propose a framework to understand how privacy affordances (i.e., visibility, editability, association, and searchability) influence bystanders’ risk and benefit perception, thereby affecting their supportive behaviors in cyberbullying. The results indicate that privacy affordances play a key role in motivating bystanders to engage in defending and resisting behaviors, and both perceived risks and benefits act as powerful intermediary factors in the process. Privacy visibility and searchability reduce perceived risk, and privacy association enhances perceived benefit, thus promoting more supportive behavior. The study extends the application of mental accounting theory in cyberbullying research and refines the concept of affordance in the context of social media privacy. It also provides practical implications for platform optimization, user protection, and governmental internet governance to create a more inclusive and supportive digital environment.