Promoting Positive Bystanding Among Adolescent Boys: Pilot Findings from the Wiseguyz Study

Increasing attention is being paid to the role of men and boys in preventing incidents of domestic and sexual violence. One promising approach for this work is the promotion of positive bystanding behaviors; however, men and boys face a number of barriers to bystander intervention (e.g., fears of negative peer evaluation). In considering how to address these barriers, recent literature points to the role of traditional masculine norms (e.g., norms that promote emotional restraint and dominance) in shaping recognition of and responsibility for bystander intervention. Specifically, adherence to these norms may make it harder to notice that something is wrong (e.g., because the behavior is in alignment with norms), or to actually intervene even if something is noticed (e.g., because of fears that intervention would be viewed as a gender role violation). Thus, deconstruction of traditional masculine norms represents a potential upstream effort to reduce barriers and increase positive bystander intervention among men and boys. Adolescence is a critical period for this upstream work, due to the increased gender norm socialization that occurs during this time and the prevalence of dating/sexual violence.

The present study reports on the pilot evaluation of one such upstream effort, the WiseGuyz program. WiseGuyz is a school-based healthy masculinities and healthy relationships program that works to deconstruct unhealthy gender norms, and is offered to Grade 9 boys over the school year. Research on this project is conducted through a practice-research partnership. In 2016-2017, we used a pre-experimental design to collect pre- and post-test survey data from 126 participants across eight Canadian schools. Bystanding behaviors were measured using Miller at al.’s (2012) bystander scale, which includes both positive (e.g., telling an adult) and negative (e.g., laughing or going along with it) forms of intervention. Data were analyzed using a three-level hierarchical linear model. All models controlled for population group and socio-economic status.

Overall, adolescents in the program reported a significant increase in positive intervention from pre- to post-test (15.5% improvement, p=.001). On the item level, changes in positive bystander intervention were driven by disruption of discourse (e.g., sexual jokes), but not of more aggressive behaviors (e.g., physically hurting a girl). No changes in negative bystander intervention were found. Together, findings indicate that participants were more likely to intervene by disrupting problematic discourse, but that implicit encouragement behaviors were still occurring. We conclude with a discussion of how our partnership model promotes research-practice knowledge translation and informs future evaluation plans.