Striving for accuracy attenuates the positive relationship between cyberbullying bystanders’ dispositional empathy and tendencies to help victims

Empathy is a key predictor of bystanders’ helping behaviors, yet its role in cyberbullying contexts has yielded inconsistent findings. This study investigated whether accuracy motivation, the drive to form correct and well-reasoned judgments, moderates the relationship between dispositional empathy and helping tendencies among cyberbullying bystanders. In Study 1, 164 Taiwanese undergraduates (61 males, 100 females, 3 unknown; Mage = 22.96, SD = 14.25) read a cyberbullying scenario and completed measures of empathy, helping tendencies, and need for cognition (NFC), a personality trait reflecting enjoyment of cognitively effortful tasks, widely used as a proxy for accuracy motivation. Results showed that the positive association between empathy and helping tendencies was weaker among participants with higher NFC scores (i.e., higher accuracy motivation). In Study 2, 180 undergraduates (67 males, 113 females; Mage = 20.96, SD = 5.44) were randomly assigned to either control or high accuracy motivation group. Findings revealed that, for participants in the control group, empathy predicted helping through increased feelings of responsibility. This mediational pathway was not observed in the high accuracy motivation condition. These findings suggest that accuracy motivation may attenuate the influence of empathy on helping behavior in cyberbullying contexts. Theoretically, this provides a possible explanation for the mixed results observed in prior research. Practically, it highlights the importance of encouraging individuals to prioritize providing timely support in cyberbullying incidents, rather than becoming overly focused on verifying the authenticity of online messages.