Shane McCarty

Promote Care & Prevent Harm

Bullying victimization remains a pressing concern to the health and development of U.S. adolescents. Victims of bullying face threats to their safety and education. Hence, interventions are needed to prevent bullying and equip others to intervene in bullying situations. Prior research has examined preventive interventions with little consideration...

The racial reckoning of 2020 involved the largest social movement protest in U.S. history, but support for the Black Lives Matter movement declined shortly after. To advance a moral reckoning on structural racism that dismantles racialized structures and redresses racial inequities, we call on scholar activists within the field of community psychol...

Aggressing, bullying, and helping occur within the social context and their impact may be determined by the nature of the dyadic relationship between the agent and the recipient of the behavior. This study tests a theoretical model of power-relevant interpersonal behavior which proposes two bipolar continua: beneficial to harmful impact and relativ...

The bystander intervention paradigm consists of upstanders preventing, mitigating, or responding to harm. The bystander intervention model (BIM) captures the decision-making process of bystanders: 1) notice harm; 2) interpret the situation; 3) assume responsibility; 4) select a strategy; and 5) take action (Latané & Darley, 1970). BIM has been appl...

Objective: Disasters, such as a school shooting or a global pandemic, harm psychological health and necessitate recovery. To complement adult-led disaster recovery and trauma-specific approaches, we propose a Youth-Led Resilience Promotion (YLRP) framework focusing on: (a) multitiered change, (b) resilience goals, (c) a promotion mindset, (d) yout...

We developed an integrative Upstanding for Promotion-Prevention (UPP) program based on the decision-making steps of a revised bystander intervention model (i.e., notice an opportunity; interpret the situation; assume responsibility; select a promotion or prevention strategy; take action: Latané & Darley, 1970; McCarty, Arnold, Booker, Pacqué, & Lis...

This field study evaluated the impact of an intervention designed to prevent bullying among elementary-school students by prompting and rewarding prosocial behavior. More specifically, teachers of 404 second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students from an elementary school in northeast Virginia asked their students to look out for other...

Pay-it-forward behavior reflects actively caring for people (AC4P) and the reciprocity principle. Interventions to increase the frequency of pay-it-forward behavior were evaluated. At a buffet-style dining hall, a research assistant (RA) entered the line and paid for the next person’s meal. In the Sign Intervention Phase, the RA discreetly paid for...

On May 15th, 2012, we traveled to Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio with 12 additional AC4P coaches from Virginia Tech (VT). We arrived in the cafeteria and stopped at a table covered with flowers, stuffed animals, three photographs, and classmates' messages to the victims. Suddenly, we realized-this was the site of their shooting. Three months...

A professor and a group of student leaders initiated the Actively Caring for People (AC4P) Movement to establish a more civil, compassionate, and inclusive culture by inspiring intentional acts of kindness. This article explores the AC4P Movement in a first-year residence hall at Virginia Tech and a second-year residence hall at University of North...