Several criteria have been proposed for defining cyberbullying to young people, but no studies have proved their relevance. There are also variations across different countries in the meaning and the definition of this behavior. We systematically investigated the role of five definitional criteria for cyberbullying, in six European countries. These criteria (intentionality, imbalance of power, repetition, anonymity, and public vs. private) were combined through a set of 32 scenarios, covering a range of four types of behaviors (written-verbal, visual, exclusion, and impersonation). For each scenario, participants were asked whether it was cyberbullying or not. A randomized version of the questionnaire was shown to 295 Italian, 610 Spanish, 365 German, 320 Sweden, 336 Estonian, and 331 French adolescents aged 11-17 years. Results from multidimensional scaling across country and type of behavior suggested a clear first dimension characterized by imbalance of power and a clear second dimension characterized by intentionality and, at a lower level, by anonymity. In terms of differences across types of behaviors, descriptive frequencies showed a more ambiguous role for exclusion as a form of cyberbullying, but general support was given to the relevance of the two dimensions across all the types of behavior. In terms of country differences, French participants more often perceived the scenarios as cyberbullying as compared with those in other countries, but general support was found for the relevance of the two dimensions across countries.

The NoTrap! (Noncadiamointrappola!) program is a school-based intervention, which utilizes a peer-led approach to prevent and combat both traditional bullying and cyberbullying. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of the third Edition of the program in accordance with the recent criteria for evidence-based interventions. Towards this aim, two quasi-experimental trials involving adolescents (age M = 14.91, SD = .98) attending their first year at different high schools were conducted. In Trial 1 (control group, n = 171; experimental group, n = 451), latent growth curve models for data from pre-, middle- and post-tests showed that intervention significantly predicted change over time in all the target variables (victimization, bullying, cybervictimization, and cyberbullying). Specifically, target variables were stable for the control group but decreased significantly over time for the experimental group. Long-term effects at the follow up 6 months later were also found. In Trial 2 (control group, n = 227; experimental group, n = 234), the moderating effect of gender was examined and there was a reported decrease in bullying and cyberbullying over time (pre- and post-test) in the experimental group but not the control group, and this decrease was similar for boys and girls.

As adolescents grow up, one of the important developmental tasks is to individuate themselves and to become more autonomous from parents. This requires a realignment of the parent-adolescent communication. The current meta-analytic study aims at identifying developmental changes in parent-adolescent communication, conceptualized within the parental monitoring framework, as entailing parental solicitation, control and knowledge, and adolescent's disclosure and secrecy. Thirty-one longitudinal studies published between 2000 and 2015 were identified and included in the current meta-analysis. Informants, age at assessment and study duration were tested as moderators. Results showed a low to medium normative decline in parental control (Cohen's d =-.395, 95% CI [-.541,-.249]), knowledge (d =-.245,95% CI [-.331,-.160] and adolescence disclosure (d =-.147, 95% CI [-.204,-.090]), and an increase in adolescent's secrecy (d = .194, CI [031, .356]). Parental solicitation decreased based on parents' (d =-0.242, 95% CI[-0.376,-0.109]) but not on adolescents' reports (d = 0.038, 95% CI[-0.099, 0.175]). Another significant moderator was the duration of the study, with studies longer than 2 years being able to detect a more pronounced change in parental control than studies lasting less than 2 years (≤ 2 years, d=-0.139 vs. duration > 2 years, d=-0.581). Limitations of the current knowledge and new direction of studies are discussed.

IntroductionDespite a growing interest in the field, scarce narrative studies have delved into adolescents’ psychological experiences related to global emergencies caused by infective diseases. The present study aims to investigate adolescents’ narratives on positive and negative experiences related to COVID-19.MethodsItalian adolescents, 2,758 (females = 74.8%, mean age = 16.64, SD = 1.43), completed two narrative tasks on their most negative and positive experiences during the COVID-19 emergency. Data were analyzed by modeling an analysis of emergent themes.Results“Staying home as a limitation of autonomy,” “School as an educational, not relational environment,” the impact of a “new life routine,” and experiencing “anguish and loss” are the four emergent themes for negative experiences. As for positive experiences, the four themes were “Being part of an extraordinary experience,” “Discovering oneself,” “Re-discovering family,” and “Sharing life at a distance.”ConclusionAuthors discuss the impact of COVID-19 on adolescents’ developmental tasks, such as identity processes and autonomy acquisition.

The present study tried to answer the research need for empirically validated and theoretically based instruments to assess cyberbullying and cybervictimization. The psychometric properties of the Florence CyberBullying-CyberVictimization Scales (FCBVSs) were analyzed in a sample of 1,142 adolescents (Mage=15.18 years; SD=1.12 years; 54.5% male). For both cybervictimization and cyberbullying, results support a gender invariant model involving 14 items and four factors covering four types of behaviors (written-verbal, visual, impersonation, and exclusion). The second-order confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that a "global," second-order measure of cyberbullying and cybervictimization fits the data well. Overall, the scales showed good validity (construct, concurrent, and convergent) and reliability (internal consistency and test-retest). In addition, using the global key question measure as a criterion, ROC analyses, determining the ability of a test to discriminate between groups, allowed us to identify cutoff points to classify respondents as involved/not involved starting from the continuum measure derived from the scales.

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Cyberbullying is a ubiquitous topic when considering young people and internet and communication technologies (ICTs). For interventional purposes, it is essential to take into account the perspective of adolescents. This is the reason why our main focus is (1) investigating the role of different criteria in the perceived severity of cyberbullying incidents, and (2) examining the differences between countries in the perceived severity of cyberbullying. The sample consisted of 1,964 adolescents (48.2% girls) from middle and high schools of four different countries, i.e., Estonia, Italy, Germany, and Turkey. The participants' age ranged from 12 to 20 years old with a mean age of 14.49 (SD = 1.66) years. To assess perceived severity, participants rated a set of 128 scenarios, which systematically included one or more of five criteria (intentionality, repetition, imbalance of power, public vs. private, and anonymity) and represented four types of cyberbullying behaviors (Written—Verbal, Visual, Exclusion, Impersonation). The role of different criteria was analyzed using the Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM). Results showed a similar structure across the four countries (invariant except for the latent factors' means). Further, criteria of imbalance of power and, to a lesser extent, intentionality, anonymity, and repetition always in combination, were found to be the most important criteria to define the severity of cyberbullying. Differences between countries highlighted specific features of Turkish students, who perceived all scenarios as more severe than adolescents from other countries and were more sensitive to imbalance of power. German and Italian students showed an opposite perception of anonymity combined with intentionality. For Italian participants, an anonymous attack was less threatening than for participants of other countries, whereas for German students anonymity caused more insecurity and fear. In addition, Italian adolescents were more perceptive of the criterion of intentionality. Finally, Estonian adolescents did not show strong differences in their factor scores compared to adolescents from the other countries.

Victims of cyberbullying report a number of undesirable outcomes regarding their well-being, especially those who are not able to successfully cope with cyber victimization. Research on coping with cyberbullying has identified a number of different coping strategies that seem to be differentially adaptive in cases of cyber victimization. However, knowledge regarding the effectiveness of these strategies is scarce. This scarcity is partially due to the lack of valid and reliable instruments for the assessment of coping strategies in the context of cyber victimization. The present study outlines the development of the Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CWCBQ) and tests of its reliability and