Julianna Casella,  Maggie Manges, Kay Huang,  Dylan Harrison, Lucia Sun  (Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology)

Zoom Link https://buffalo.zoom.us/j/97400885655?pwd=V3gzcjVqQytTbktXaW12ajcvZVdOUT09

The proposed panel will include three papers focused on different aspects of a study conducted by the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention evaluating the Norms and Bystander Intervention Training (NAB IT!), which aims to prevent bullying and sexual harrassment in high schools students.

The first paper examines the impact of a social norms campaign on personal normative attitudes and perceived peer norms, as well as the relationship between personal norms, perceived peer norms, and perpetration (i.e., bullying, cyberbullying, sexual harassment, and homophobic name calling). Correlation analyses reveal that perpetration variables at pre- and post-test are related to one another, and to social norms. Wilcoxen Signed Ranks Tests indicate that personal norms at pre- and post-test are significantly different, with post-test scores being more prosocial (Z = -2.30, p = .022), and with personal norms being more prosocial than perceived peer norms at pre-test (Z = -6.00, p = .000) and post-test (Z = -5.91, p = .000). Item-level differences will be highlighted in the context of the social norms campaign. Implications for the NAB IT! campaign and the utility of social norms campaigns broadly to address perpetration in high schools will be discussed.

The second paper will further examine the impact of a social norms campaign to target bullying and sexual harrassment in high schools by disscusing student and faculty’s impressions of the campaign. Students and faculty participated in focus groups asking about their thoughts, opinions and suggestions about the social norms campaign, which were then coded for overarching themes across participants. Themes from the student focus groups indicated positive feelings about the appearance, messages, and locations of the posters. Students also raised concerns about exposure and awareness to the campaign, due to remote schooling, as well as believability of the messages on the poster. The faculty focus groups indicate similar positive feelings about the poster and campaign design and message, as well as similar concerns about impact due to remote learning.  Teachers also discussed the interactions they had with students about the campaign, as well as suggested improvements. These themes will be discussed in further detail, highlighting implications for the NAB IT! campaign and usability of social norm campaigns in high schools.

The third paper explores the impact of the Bystander Intervention Training component of NAB IT! on high school student leaders  knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported bystander intervention behaviors. The study also examines students  and faculty s reactions and feedback to the training by participating in focus groups, which were then coded for broad themes across participants.