Attitudes towards cyber risks - Implicit & self-report measures. The Happy Onlife edutainment experience of secondary school children

The Happy Onlife experience has contributed to children’s right to be heard in matters affecting them in their digital interactions and lives. Happy Onlife has been considered as effective awareness raising and learning tool regarding cyber security issues by its end-users, namely students, teachers, parents and educators. By playing with Happy Onlife game, children could naturally self-disclose and express their emotions, needs, understanding and sometimes worries and doubts. Indeed, self-reporting provides valuable insights for a wide range of research, policy and educational questions, however it can be susceptible to self-presentation and socially desirable responding. To overcome these limitations, implicit measures were considered to complement experimental research about children’s attitude towards cyber risks. The work described in this document aims at evaluating the effect of the Happy Onlife tool on attitudes towards cyber risk of children aged 10-12, from Time T1 to Time T2, before and after using Happy Onlife edutainment. The first research aim is to test the Happy Onlife edutainment reliability as a learning tool for enhancing digital competences with a focus on cyber security, data protection, privacy, online communication, netiquette and digital identity management. Moreover, a second purpose is the contribution to the development and validation of a new implicit measure of cyber risk propensity for children (10-12 years old). A third aim is to investigate the relationship between implicit risk attitudes and explicit risk-taking behaviour. In this pilot research all explicit and implicit measures showed adequate reliability. There was a significant effect pre and post Happy Onlife gaming experience. Current results suggest that the Cyber Security Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a reliable and valid method and may be a useful tool to be added to self-report batteries for cyber risk propensity assessment in children. The Cyber Security Implicit Association Test could be considered for future and wider research on risk-taking behaviour by citizens of all ages. The experiment protocol can be improved, however this contribution could be taken into consideration for the study and implementation of European cyber security strategies and policies to limit online threats and risks.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

How many cyberbullying(s)? A non-unitary perspective for offensive online behaviours

Research has usually considered cyberbullying as a unitary phenomenon. Thus, it has been neglected to explore whether the specific online aggressive behaviours relate differentially to demographic features of the perpetrators of online aggressive actions, their personality characteristics, or to the ways in which they interact with the Internet. To bridge this gap, a study was conducted through a questionnaire administered online to 1228 Italian high-school students (Female: 61.1%; 14-15 yo: 48.%; 16-17 yo: 29.1%; 18-20 yo: 20.4%, 21-25 yo: 1.6%; Northern Italy: 4.1%; Central Italy: 59.2%; Southern Italy: 36.4%). The questionnaire, in addition to items about the use of social media, mechanisms of Moral Disengagement and personality characteristics of the participants in the study, also included a scale for the measurement of cyberbullying through the reference to six aggressive behaviours. The results indicate that cyberbullying can be considered as a non-unitary phenomenon in which the different aggressive behaviours can be related to different individual characteristics such as gender, personality traits and the different ways of interacting with social media. Moreover, the existence of two components of cyberbullying has been highlighted, one related to virtual offensive actions directly aimed at a victim, the other to indirect actions, more likely conducted involving bystanders. These findings open important perspectives for understanding, preventing, and mitigating cyberbullying among adolescents

Protective Role of Self-Regulatory Efficacy: A Moderated Mediation Model on the Influence of Impulsivity on Cyberbullying through Moral Disengagement

During online interactions, adolescents are often exposed to deviant opportunities. In this context, the capacity to regulate one’s behavior is essential to prevent cyberbullying. Among adolescents, this online aggressive behavior is a growing phenomenon, and its deleterious effects on teenagers’ mental health are well known. The present work argues the importance of self-regulatory capabilities under deviant peer pressure in preventing cyberbullying. In particular, focusing on two relevant risk factors, i.e., impulsivity and moral disengagement, we examine (1) the mediation role of moral disengagement in the process leading to cyberbullying from impulsivity; (2) the buffering effect of the perceived self-regulatory capability to resist deviant peer pressure in mitigating the effect of these impulsive and social–cognitive dimensions on cyberbullying. Moderated mediation analysis was performed on a sample of 856 adolescents; the results confirm that the perceived self-regulatory capability to resist peer pressure effectively mitigates the indirect effect of impulsivity through moral disengagement on cyberbullying. The practical implications of designing interventions to make adolescents more aware and self-regulated in their online social lives to counter cyberbullying are discussed

Self-disclosure to the best friend: Friendship quality and internalized sexual stigma in Italian lesbian and gay adolescents

This study is the first contribution to the understanding of gender differences in best friendship patterns of adolescents sexual minorities. We explored friendship patterns, self-disclosure, and internalized sexual stigma in an Italian sample of lesbian (N = 202) and gay (N = 201) adolescents (aged 14-22 years). We found gender differences in cross-sex and cross-orientation patterns of best friendship. Gay men (52%) reported more cross-sex friendships than lesbians (20%). The 52% of participants had cross-orientation friendships, and no differences were found between lesbians and gay men. Lesbian and gay men with a cross-orientation best friend showed a lower level of internalized sexual stigma. Gay men with cross-orientation friendship showed a low level of internalized sexual stigma and less conflict with a best friend. For gay men and lesbian participants, self-disclosure to the best friend was better predicted by internalized sexual stigma and self-disclosure. Future studies may provide direct comparisons between heterosexual and sexual minority individuals. (C) 2011 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Alexithymia increases the discordance between implicit and explicit self-esteem

Recent studies have stressed the importance of affective information in the translation of implicit/associative evaluations into an explicit/propositional format. Accordingly, we predicted that alexithymia (as an inability to process emotions explicitly) increases implicit vs. explicit self-esteem (SE) discordance. Subjects were 310 university students with mean age 20.5. Four multiple regression analyses with interaction were conducted on self-reported measures of SE, using SE-IAT (Self-Esteem Implicit Association Test) and TAS-20 (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) scale and subscales scores as predictors (Alexithymia total score; Difficulty Identifying Feelings - DIF; Difficulty Describing Feelings - DDF and Externally Oriented Thinking - EOT). In the first regression the interaction term was significant and in the expected direction, confirming that the alexithymia total score increases implicit-explicit SE discordance. With the TAS-20 subscales, only DIF and DDF, but not EOT showed the expected impact on implicit-explicit SE consistency. Some implications in a clinical perspective are discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved