Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in Adolescent Cyberaggressors and Cybervictims

Abstract

<jats:p>The main objective of the present research was to examine the role played by emotional intelligence in its three dimensions—emotional attention, emotional clarity, and emotion regulation—and by empathy in its four dimensions—perspective-taking, empathic understanding, empathic stress, and empathic joy—in cyber violence, both in aggressors and victims. A total sample of 1318 adolescents (47% boys; aged between 11 and 17 years), enrolled in four secondary compulsory education schools in Spain, participated in the study. The results indicated that, regarding emotional intelligence, cyberaggressors showed statistically significant differences in the dimension of emotion regulation. Participation in violent online behaviors is associated with a lower capacity to regulate emotions; cybervictims showed statistically significant differences in the three dimensions of emotional intelligence. Regarding empathy, cyberaggressors obtained statistically significant group differences in three of these dimensions: perspective-taking, empathetic joy, and empathic stress. Finally, the empathy dimensions for the cybervictimization groups did not show significant mean differences, indicating that there was no statistical relationship between the degree of cybervictimization and the individual’s empathy. These findings stress the relevance of emotion regulation in cyberviolence in students in adolescence and allow us to understand the different roles it plays for offenders and victims.</jats:p>

A Closer Look at the Emotional Intelligence Construct: How Do Emotional Intelligence Facets Relate to Life Satisfaction in Students Involved in Bullying and Cyberbullying?

“…For instance, deficits in managing anger and frustration may make them more likely to express aggressive behaviours [ 31 , 36 ]. However, contrary to the recent study by Segura and colleagues [ 32 ], these deficits in emotion regulation were not found for cyberbullying aggressors in comparison to the other roles. By contrast, our results are in line with those of Estévez and colleagues [ 36 ], who found that cyberaggressors did not show lower scores in emotion regulation.…”

“…Unexpectedly, cybervictims were found to report higher levels of other-emotion appraisal compared to bully–victims and aggressors. These results are in line with Segura and colleagues [ 32 ], who found that cybervictims presented high emotional attention to their own emotions. However, results show that cybervictims present a higher perception of others’ emotions than other groups involved in cyberbullying.…”

“…As mentioned, bully–victims and pure victims generally presented lower emotional and psychological adjustment in comparison with the uninvolved students [ 13 , 14 ]. It is plausible that the bully–victims group indicates similar EI deficits to pure victims groups due to the levels of victimisation, specifically in terms of the reduced ability to understand and manage their own emotions [ 12 , 29 , 32 ].…”

“…On the one hand, aggressors who bully in both traditional bullying and cyberbullying have been found to report more difficulties in the dimensions of understanding and regulating emotions [ 31 ]. However, Segura and colleagues [ 32 ] found no deficits in the dimensions of mood attention and emotional clarity among cyberaggressors. On the other hand, pure victims of both phenomena were found to indicate reduced emotional adjustment in comparison to the uninvolved, with lower attention, emotional clarity and regulation of emotions [ 31 ].…”

Ciberacoso Y Recursos Personales en Adolescentes: Las Competencias Emocionales Y La Gratitud Como Factores De Protección Ante Las Conductas De Ciberagresión

“…Específicamente, entre los ciberagresores se encuentran bajos niveles de amabilidad, responsabilidad y empatía (Garaigordobil, 2019;Segura et al, 2020), mostrando también, menor regulación de las emociones (Cañas et al, 2020;Segura et al, 2020). En contraposición, presentan mayor sentimiento de soledad (Cañas et al, 2020), niveles más altos de estrés en la escuela y síntomas de ansiedad, mayores problemas de atención e hiperactividad (Garaigordobil y Machimbarrena, 2019) y más comportamientos violentos (Garaigordobil y Machimbarrena, 2019;Iranzo et al, 2019).…”