Bystanders Are the Majority — Reading Bullying Beyond the Bully-Victim Frame

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"My child isn't the one doing the bullying" — that statement is probably accurate in most cases. Perpetrators are a minority. So are direct victims. The question is how to think about the much larger layer in between.

What decades of bullying research have established is not a two-person relationship between aggressor and victim but a map of roles distributed across a classroom functioning as a social system. Perpetrators are necessary for bullying to occur, but what sustains it — laughter, attention, silence — is a broader collective dynamic. That finding has been reproduced across longitudinal studies and school-based surveys for years [1,2].

This article uses the participant role theory developed by Finnish developmental psychologist Christina Salmivalli as its organizing framework. Easy prescriptions are not on offer. But understanding the structure changes the questions worth asking.

Bullying as a Group Phenomenon

Salmivalli's Six Roles

The research Salmivalli and colleagues conducted in Finnish primary schools in the 1990s moved the analysis of bullying from a two-person dynamic to a description of role distribution across the whole class [2]. Using to classify how each student behaved, they identified six roles.

Bully: actively initiates and leads aggressive behavior
Assistant: does not initiate but participates directly alongside the bully
Reinforcer: maintains the behavior indirectly by laughing, gathering to watch, or encouraging
Outsider: does not become involved
Defender: attempts to support the victim
Victim: repeatedly targeted

The distribution of these roles is the key finding. In the Finnish data, victims represented approximately 11–12% of students, while outsiders — those who knew but did not act — formed the single largest group at 20–30% [1]. Perpetrators are a small minority. The normative position in a bullying situation turns out to be informed non-involvement.

What Reinforcers and Assistants Actually Do

Reinforcers do not touch the victim. They laugh, gather, film on their phones, and amplify the scene. In naturalistic observation research by Hawkins and colleagues, behavior that reinforced aggression was frequently observed in bystanders during bullying episodes [3]. Being "just a witness" can be one factor that sustains aggressive behavior.

When the reinforcer and assistant roles are functioning, bullying stops being a two-person problem. It becomes structured as a performance in front of a classroom audience, and the perpetrator is sustained by that attention.

The Defender

Among the six roles, research has focused particular attention on the defender. The presence of a third party willing to take the victim's side has been shown to have a protective effect on victim wellbeing [4]. In Gini and colleagues' research, empathy and a sense of moral obligation were associated with taking a defending role [4].

Being a defender is not easy. It carries the social cost of going against the mood of the group, and the risk of becoming the next target is real. Remaining a bystander is in many cases the result of fear and judgment, not indifference. Avoiding a simple condemnation of "doing nothing" is important when trying to understand this structure honestly.

What the KiVa Program Demonstrated

The school-wide intervention program KiVa (Kiusaamista Vastaan, Finnish for "against bullying") was designed directly on Salmivalli's theoretical framework. Rather than focusing only on the perpetrator, KiVa targeted the transformation of the bystander layer. The curriculum was built around two goals: shifting the recognition that "being a bystander supports the aggression," and practicing the concrete behaviors of a defender.

In the large by Kärnä and colleagues, KiVa schools were compared to control schools over two years across grades 4–6 [5]. Bullying victimization declined significantly in KiVa schools relative to controls, with a reported effect size of a 35–50% reduction in victimization rates [5]. This is evidence that changing the structure — mobilizing the bystander layer — can be the lever that moves group-wide dynamics.

That said, KiVa was a large, organizationally supported program implemented within the Finnish public school system. Its effects cannot be translated directly to family-level engagement. "Families can do the same thing at home" is not a fair reading. But the structural understanding — that the bystander layer is the key — can form the basis of conversations at home.

Signs Families Can Watch For

Bullying victimization can manifest as physical symptoms. The association between headaches, abdominal pain, sleep disturbance, and school victimization has been confirmed in multiple epidemiological studies [6]. These symptoms have many causes, however. Their presence opens the possibility of victimization as one explanation among others; it does not confirm it on its own.

Behavioral changes — reluctance to go to school, becoming quieter, losing belongings, or feeling unwell on specific days of the week — are commonly noted patterns. These too may signal some difficulty at school, but are not conclusive indicators.

"How was school?" tends not to work well as a question because it is closed and invites a one-word answer. Asking about specific scenes — "Who did you eat lunch with today?" or "What did you do at recess?" — is more likely to encourage a child to describe what happened. That said, daily interrogation can cause a child to close down. A relationship where ordinary conversation includes school naturally will often pick up more than a deliberate "extraction" attempt.

Keeping low-key records — fragments of what a child said about school, changes you noticed in their mood — with a date attached gives you material later when you need to think through "when did this start," or when you want to bring something to a teacher or specialist. Memory pulls toward impressions and distorts. Records are a corrective.

The Limits of Home Involvement, and Working with the School

Because bullying happens inside the social system of a classroom, the school has direct access to that structure in a way a family does not. However much parents try to engage, changing the dynamics within a peer group is something with real limits from the outside.

Contacting the school does not require you to have complete evidence first. "I've heard something from my child and their behavior has me concerned" is a sufficient starting point for a conversation with a class teacher or school counselor. How the school chooses to respond is their decision, but what they can do depends on what information they have.

In Japan, the number of bullying cases recognized in the 2023 school year reached 732,568 — a record high [7]. That increase reflects not only a worsening of the problem but also changes in detection and reporting systems. The "recognized" count is the number of cases the school identified; the part that remains invisible is still substantial.

From Structure to Action

Knowing the structure, here are several options for what families can do. These are not directives.

Bring the concept of the bystander into everyday conversation. Situations where someone stayed silent while something happened are not limited to formal bullying contexts. Films, news stories, or everyday incidents can all open this conversation.
Set the premise that "it's okay to talk about anyone." Create a climate where a child can talk not only about their own experiences but also about things they saw or situations that concerned them.
When you notice a change, listen first. When you pick up on a signal, enter with "how have things been lately?" rather than proposing solutions. If the child doesn't want to talk, let it go for now.
Don't hesitate to talk to the school. The hesitation that "this might be making too much of things" is natural, but you can consult without certainty. That judgment is yours to make.

Summary

Ending the analysis at "the bully is at fault" leaves most of the structure invisible. What Salmivalli's participant role theory showed is that the numerically dominant bystander layer functions to maintain the situation. The KiVa program demonstrated through an RCT that working on that bystander layer can change the dynamics of the group as a whole [5].

What families can do is not to change the whole structure, but to maintain a foundation in which a child can feel that "there is somewhere to go when something happens."

Bullying is a complex phenomenon. Holding that complexity honestly — rather than offering easy solutions — creates a more durable foundation.

References

Salmivalli C. Bullying and the peer group: a review. Aggression and Violent Behavior. 2010;15(2):112–120. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2009.08.007
Salmivalli C, Lagerspetz K, Björkqvist K, Österman K, Kaukiainen A. Bullying as a group process: participant roles and their relations to social status within the group. Aggress Behav. 1996;22(1):1–15. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1996)22:1<1::AID-AB1>3.0.CO;2-T
Hawkins DL, Pepler DJ, Craig WM. Naturalistic observations of peer interventions in bullying. Soc Dev. 2001;10(4):512–527. doi:10.1111/1467-9507.00178
Gini G, Albiero P, Benelli B, Altoe G. Determinants of adolescents' active defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. J Adolesc. 2008;31(1):93–105. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.05.002. PMID: 17631944
Kärnä A, Voeten M, Little TD, Poskiparta E, Kaljonen A, Salmivalli C. A large-scale evaluation of the KiVa antibullying program: grades 4–6. Child Dev. 2011;82(1):311–330. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01557.x. PMID: 21291445
Craig W, Harel-Fisch Y, Fogel-Grinvald H, et al. A cross-national profile of bullying and victimization among adolescents in 40 countries. Int J Public Health. 2009;54(Suppl 2):216–224. doi:10.1007/s00038-009-5413-9. PMID: 19714328
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. Survey Results on Problem Behavior, Truancy, and Other Student Guidance Issues in Schools, Fiscal Year 2023. 2024. https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/2024/