This study aims to analyse the role of moral emotions and reasoning in relation to children's behaviour in a bullying situation. On the basis of a peer nomination questionnaire [Salmivalli et al., 1996;Sutton and Smith, 1999], children from three different cities (Seville, Florence, and Cosenza) were assigned to one of three different status groups: bullies, victims, or outsiders. Subsequently they were interviewed about their feelings in relation to the task of putting themselves in the role of the bully in a bullying scenario. Specifically, emotions such as guilt and shame, expressed in a sense of moral responsibility, and indifference and pride, expressed in an attitude of moral disengagement, were investigated. Results showed significant differences between bullies, victims, and outsiders, with regard to moral disengagement, at both the affective and cognitive levels. Across the three cities, bullies, as compared to victims and outsiders, showed a higher level of disengagement emotions and motives when they were asked to put themselves in the role of bully. At a more detailed level, analyses of specific mechanisms of moral disengagement revealed that bullies possessed a main profile of egocentric reasoning. Besides the differences between bullies and victims, cross-cultural differences were also present. Compared to children from Seville, children from the south of Italy (Cosenza) attributed higher disengagement to the bullies. Findings are discussed in relation to specific cultural characteristics of this area. Aggr. Behav. 29:515-530,

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Mixed-gender friendships, romantic relationships, and sexual behaviors increase during adolescence as a normal part of development. However, some studies have revealed potential risks to these types of social relationships. Different authors have indicated that dating violence among adolescents is an issue for concern. To date, there has been little research on this topic cross-nationally. This study examined and compared the prevalence and characteristics of physical dating violence among young people aged between 15 and 18 years in England and Spain (N = 200 in Spain, N = 199 in England), and how being involved (or not) in this violence relates to romantic relationship quality. Results indicated that approximately 23% of young people reported victimization and 30% reported perpetrating physical dating violence. In both countries, most of those involved in physical dating violence reported involvement in reciprocal violence (displaying both aggression and victimization). Those young people involved in dating violence reported higher levels on scales assessing negative aspects of relationship quality compared with those not involved, but there were no significant differences in positive aspects of relationship quality. Furthermore, different patterns appeared relating to the severity of violence and country. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and practice.

The phenomenon of adolescent sexual harassment is a topic that has taken on special relevance in recent decades. However, general consensus regarding its nature, prevalence and dimensions has yet to emerge. This study used a representative sample of 3,489 Andalusian adolescents from the second stage of Compulsory Secondary Education (E.S.O.) and the Spanish Baccalaureate (Bachillerato), and it is primarily focused on two main objectives: to test the factor structure of the “sexual harassment” scale in boys and girls, and to analyze the prevalence of hte sexual harassment among adolescent students. Descriptive analyses and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed, allowing us to explore the nature of the phenomenon and to describe its prevalence. The results obtained revealed a two-dimensional structure of this scale in both boys and girls: one dimension reflecting visual-verbal forms of sexual harassment and the second dimension including physical forms. Regarding to prevalence, the outcomes shown a high prevalence of sexual harassment involvement across both sexes during adolescence. However, boys were more involved in victimization and aggression than girls. The importance of analyzing the phenomenon in greater depth is also highlighted.

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Background/Objective: The study of sexual cyberbehaviour in adolescence has received much attention in recent years, because of the risks associated with exposure to pornography, unwanted sexual solicitations, and gender-based sexual harassment. The prevalence of this phenomenon varies from study to study due to a lack of consensus around how to define and measure peer sexual cybervictimization. This study aims to contribute to this research topic by developing and validating a measure of peer sexual cybervictimization among adolescents. Method: 601 adolescents (mean age 14.06) from two Spanish cities participated in this study. Cross-validation was performed using EFA and CFA. In a second step, a multi-group analysis was conducted to compare the equivalence of the measure by gender. Results: The results confirmed a second-order model comprising two first-order factors: Ambiguous sexual Cybervictimization and Personal sexual Cybervictimization. The model was invariant by gender. Descriptive analyses showed significant differences in Ambiguous sexual aybervictimization, this being more frequent in boys than in girls. Prevalence rates varied from 17 to 26%, with less involvement observed in the Personal dimension. Conclusions: This work proposes a valid and gender invariant measure to analyze peer sexual cybervictimization in adolescence.