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Two years of school observations and interviews with parents, educators, and adolescents led to the creation of an application to investigate how adolescents respond when peers are threatened, and how those actions relate to cultural norms, identity and victim well-being. The resulting project attempted to address questions raised by community members and by developmental theories of caregiving and bystander intervention. Surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted with 300 7th to 12th grade adolescents, evenly divided between African American, European American, Mexican American and Native American. Five research studies are published or submitted for publication.

The first study describes the specific bystander actions that victims identified as moderating or amplifying their negative emotions. The second study shows that victims experienced greater emotional well-being and social connection after bystanders calmed their emotions and helped resolve conflicts, than when bystander amplified victim anger or took revenge on behalf of the victim. The bystander perspective on those four actions is the topic of the third and fourth studies. Bystanders felt more pride, less guilt and shame, and more like a good friend when they calmed and resolved than when they amplified and avenged. Third-party resolution was followed by strong feelings of competence, while third-party revenge was often followed by feelings that actions were inconsistent with values and one's "true self." Study 5 developed a measure of adolescent honor, dignity and face norm endorsement. It shows the predicted associations with threat response and self-evaluation of responses. Implications of the results for educational practice are discussed.