Sebastian Wachs | Universitaet Potsdam (original) (raw)

Papers by Sebastian Wachs

Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung

ZusammenfassungHatespeech ist ein gesellschaftliches Phänomen, das auch die Lebenswelt Schule bet... more ZusammenfassungHatespeech ist ein gesellschaftliches Phänomen, das auch die Lebenswelt Schule betrifft. Was jedoch pädagogisches Schulpersonal unter Hatespeech versteht, ist unklar und daher Thema der vorliegenden Interviewstudie mit Lehrkräften (n = 18) und Sozialpädagog_innen (n = 16). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Hatespeech als Herabsetzung verschiedener strukturell unterdrückter Gruppen verstanden wird (z. B. Transpersonen, Homosexuelle, jüdische Personen). Die Befragten erkennen subtilere Formen von Hatespeech oft nicht als Problem an und verstehen Hatespeech vorranging als Online-Phänomen, obwohl auch Vorfälle in Schulen berichtet werden. Es lässt sich schlussfolgern, dass pädagogisches Schulpersonal für Offline-Hatespeech und subtilere Formen sensibilisiert werden muss, um seine Interventionsbereitschaft zu steigern.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence

Although hate speech is widely recognized as an online phenomenon, very few studies have investig... more Although hate speech is widely recognized as an online phenomenon, very few studies have investigated hate speech among adolescents in offline settings (e.g., schools). At the same time, not much is known about countering hate speech (counterspeech) among adolescents and which factors are associated with it. To this end, the present study used the socio-ecological framework to investigate the direct and indirect links among one contextual factor (i.e., classroom climate) and two intrapersonal factors (i.e., empathy for victims of hate speech, self-efficacy regarding intervention in hate speech) to understand counterspeech among adolescents. The sample is based on self-reports of 3,225 students in Grades 7 to 9 (51.7% self-identified as female) from 36 schools in Germany and Switzerland. Self-report questionnaires were administered to measure classroom climate, empathy, self-efficacy, and counterspeech. After controlling for adolescents’ grade, gender, immigrant background, and socio...

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

Little is known about the current state of research on the involvement of young people in hate sp... more Little is known about the current state of research on the involvement of young people in hate speech. Thus, this systematic review presents findings on a) the prevalence of hate speech among children and adolescents and on hate speech definitions that guide prevalence assessments for this population; and b) the theoretical and empirical overlap of hate speech with related concepts. This review was guided by the Cochrane approach. To be included, publications were required to deal with real-life experiences of hate speech, to provide empirical data on prevalence for samples aged 5 to 21 years and they had to be published in academic formats. Included publications were full-text coded using two raters (κ = .80) and their quality was assessed. The string-guided electronic search (ERIC, SocInfo, Psycinfo, Psyndex) yielded 1,850 publications. Eighteen publications based on 10 studies met the inclusion criteria and their findings were systematized. Twelve publications were of medium qual...

Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Currently, there is a lack of empirically evaluated prevention programs targeting hate speech amo... more Currently, there is a lack of empirically evaluated prevention programs targeting hate speech among adolescents. This is problematic because hate speech jeopardizes adolescents’ well-being and social integration. To this end, this study aims to evaluate the short-term effects of the newly developed anti-hate speech prevention program, “HateLess. Together against Hatred”, on adolescents’ empathy, self-efficacy, and counter-speech. Eight hundred and twenty adolescents between 12 and 16 (M = 13.27, SD = 1.04) from 11 German schools participated in this study. More specifically, 567 adolescents participated in the one-week prevention program, and 253 participants were assigned to the control group. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that HateLess was successful, as there was a significant increase in empathy, self-efficacy, and counter-speech in the intervention group from the pretest (T1) to the posttest (T2) one month after the intervention. In contrast, no changes were found among adole...

Journal of Children and Media

Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag informiert über 14 deutschsprachige Programme zur Präventi... more ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag informiert über 14 deutschsprachige Programme zur Prävention und Intervention bei Hatespeech unter Kindern und Jugendlichen (Jahrgangsstufen 5–12). Inhalte und Durchführungsmodalitäten der Programme sowie Ergebnisse einer kriteriengeleiteten Qualitätseinschätzung anhand von fünf Kriterien werden im Hinblick auf deren Anwendung in der schulischen Praxis beschrieben und erörtert. Der Überblick über Schwerpunkte, Stärken und Entwicklungspotentiale schulbezogener Hatespeech-Programme ermöglicht Leser*innen eine informierte Entscheidung über den Einsatz der Programme in der Schule sowie in der offenen Kinder- und Jugendarbeit.

Edition Rechtsextremismus, 2019

Rechtsextremismus ist eine Herausforderung fur die Schule. Der Beitrag benennt dazu verschiedene ... more Rechtsextremismus ist eine Herausforderung fur die Schule. Der Beitrag benennt dazu verschiedene Dimensionen in der schulischen Praxis und verweist sowohl auf politische Einstellungen von Schuler*innen als auch die strukturellen Ambivalenzen der Institution Schule. Es werden direkte und indirekte Strategien des Umgangs mit Rechtsextremismus in der Schule vorgestellt und ubergreifende Schlussfolgerungen formuliert.

Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development

The present study examined the moderating role of parents’ victimization status during adolescenc... more The present study examined the moderating role of parents’ victimization status during adolescence in the associations between parenting styles, depression, and anxiety among relationally victimize...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

The present study proposes and tests pathways by which racial discrimination might be positively ... more The present study proposes and tests pathways by which racial discrimination might be positively related to bullying victimization among Black and White adolescents. Data were derived from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, a national survey that provides data on children’s physical and mental health and their families. Data were collected from households with one or more children between June 2016 to February 2017. A letter was sent to randomly selected households, who were invited to participate in the survey. The caregivers consisted of 66.9% females and 33.1% males for the White sample, whose mean age was 47.51 (SD = 7.26), and 76.8% females and 23.2% males for the Black sample, whose mean age was 47.61 (SD = 9.71). In terms of the adolescents, 49.0% were females among the White sample, whose mean age was 14.73 (SD = 1.69). For Black adolescents, 47.9% were females and the mean age was 14.67(SD = 1.66). Measures for the study included bullying perpetration, racial di...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Cyberhate represents a risk to adolescents’ development and peaceful coexistence in democratic so... more Cyberhate represents a risk to adolescents’ development and peaceful coexistence in democratic societies. Yet, not much is known about the relationship between adolescents’ ability to cope with cyberhate and their cyberhate involvement. To fill current gaps in the literature and inform the development of media education programs, the present study investigated various coping strategies in a hypothetical cyberhate scenario as correlates for being cyberhate victims, perpetrators, and both victim–perpetrators. The sample consisted of 6829 adolescents aged 12–18 years old (Mage = 14.93, SD = 1.64; girls: 50.4%, boys: 48.9%, and 0.7% did not indicate their gender) from Asia, Europe, and North America. Results showed that adolescents who endorsed distal advice or endorsed technical coping showed a lower likelihood to be victims, perpetrators, or victim–perpetrators. In contrast, if adolescents felt helpless or endorsed retaliation to cope with cyberhate, they showed higher odds of being i...

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

Comunicar, 2021

Adolescents around the world are increasingly exposed to cyberhate. More knowledge is needed to u... more Adolescents around the world are increasingly exposed to cyberhate. More knowledge is needed to understand how adolescents cope with cyberhate and how they can be supported when exposed. To this end, the present study investigated the associations between parental mediation of Internet use and adolescents’ problem-focused coping strategies for hypothetical cyberhate victimization while considering family support as a moderator of these relationships. The sample consisted of self-reports of 5,960 adolescents between 12-18 years old (M=14.94; SD=1.61; females: 50.7%) from Cyprus, Germany, Greece, India, Spain, South Korea, and Thailand. A structural equation model was used to investigate the relationship among parental mediation, family support, and coping with cyberhate. Findings showed a positive relationship between instructive parental mediation and adolescents’ problem-focused coping strategies, and a negative relationship between restrictive parental mediation and adolescents’ c...

Comunicar, 2022

Hate speech has become a widespread phenomenon, however, it remains largely unclear why adolescen... more Hate speech has become a widespread phenomenon, however, it remains largely unclear why adolescents engage in it and which factors are associated with their motivations for perpetrating hate speech. To this end, we developed the multidimensional “Motivations for Hate Speech Perpetration Scale” (MHATE) and evaluated the psychometric properties. We also explored the associations between social norms and adolescents’ motivations for hate speech perpetration. The sample consisted of 346 adolescents from Switzerland (54.6% boys; Mage=14; SD=0.96) who reported engagement in hate speech as perpetrators. The analyses revealed good psychometric properties for the MHATE, including good internal consistency. The most frequently endorsed subscale was revenge, followed by ideology, group conformity, status enhancement, exhilaration, and power. The results also showed that descriptive norms and peer pressure were related to a wide range of different motivations for perpetrating hate speech. Injun...

PLOS ONE, 2021

The sudden switch to distance education to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fund... more The sudden switch to distance education to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered adolescents’ lives around the globe. The present research aims to identify psychological characteristics that relate to adolescents’ well-being in terms of positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation, and key characteristics of their learning behavior in a situation of unplanned, involuntary distance education. Following Self-Determination Theory, experienced competence, autonomy, and relatedness were assumed to relate to active learning behavior (i.e., engagement and persistence), and negatively relate to passive learning behavior (i.e., procrastination), mediated via positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation. Data were collected via online questionnaires in altogether eight countries from Europe, Asia, and North America (N = 25,305) and comparable results across countries were expected. Experienced competence was consistently found to relate to positiv...

PLOS ONE, 2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher educational institutions worldwide switched to emergency dis... more Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher educational institutions worldwide switched to emergency distance learning in early 2020. The less structured environment of distance learning forced students to regulate their learning and motivation more independently. According to self-determination theory (SDT), satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and social relatedness affects intrinsic motivation, which in turn relates to more active or passive learning behavior. As the social context plays a major role for basic need satisfaction, distance learning may impair basic need satisfaction and thus intrinsic motivation and learning behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between basic need satisfaction and procrastination and persistence in the context of emergency distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in a cross-sectional study. We also investigated the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in this relationship. Furth...

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop inse... more As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers (i.e., social status insecurity). These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 (49.2% girls; Mage = 12.44 years; age range from 11 to 14 years) in the 7th or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate....

Personality and Individual Differences, 2019

The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential moderating role of online disinhibi... more The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential moderating role of online disinhibition in the associations between adolescents' callous-unemotional traits (callousness, uncaring, unemotional) and anonymous and non-anonymous cyberbullying. To this end, 1047 (49.2% female) 7th and 8th graders completed questionnaires on their face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying, callous-unemotional traits, and online disinhibition. The findings revealed that increases in uncaring were more associated with self-reported non-anonymous and anonymous cyberbullying at higher levels of online disinhibition. The findings are discussed in the context of the characteristics associated with callous-unemotional traits, and how these characteristics increase adolescents' risk of cyberbullying perpetration. Recommendations are made for tailoring intervention programs to consider adolescents' personality traits.

Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung

ZusammenfassungHatespeech ist ein gesellschaftliches Phänomen, das auch die Lebenswelt Schule bet... more ZusammenfassungHatespeech ist ein gesellschaftliches Phänomen, das auch die Lebenswelt Schule betrifft. Was jedoch pädagogisches Schulpersonal unter Hatespeech versteht, ist unklar und daher Thema der vorliegenden Interviewstudie mit Lehrkräften (n = 18) und Sozialpädagog_innen (n = 16). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Hatespeech als Herabsetzung verschiedener strukturell unterdrückter Gruppen verstanden wird (z. B. Transpersonen, Homosexuelle, jüdische Personen). Die Befragten erkennen subtilere Formen von Hatespeech oft nicht als Problem an und verstehen Hatespeech vorranging als Online-Phänomen, obwohl auch Vorfälle in Schulen berichtet werden. Es lässt sich schlussfolgern, dass pädagogisches Schulpersonal für Offline-Hatespeech und subtilere Formen sensibilisiert werden muss, um seine Interventionsbereitschaft zu steigern.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence

Although hate speech is widely recognized as an online phenomenon, very few studies have investig... more Although hate speech is widely recognized as an online phenomenon, very few studies have investigated hate speech among adolescents in offline settings (e.g., schools). At the same time, not much is known about countering hate speech (counterspeech) among adolescents and which factors are associated with it. To this end, the present study used the socio-ecological framework to investigate the direct and indirect links among one contextual factor (i.e., classroom climate) and two intrapersonal factors (i.e., empathy for victims of hate speech, self-efficacy regarding intervention in hate speech) to understand counterspeech among adolescents. The sample is based on self-reports of 3,225 students in Grades 7 to 9 (51.7% self-identified as female) from 36 schools in Germany and Switzerland. Self-report questionnaires were administered to measure classroom climate, empathy, self-efficacy, and counterspeech. After controlling for adolescents’ grade, gender, immigrant background, and socio...

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

Little is known about the current state of research on the involvement of young people in hate sp... more Little is known about the current state of research on the involvement of young people in hate speech. Thus, this systematic review presents findings on a) the prevalence of hate speech among children and adolescents and on hate speech definitions that guide prevalence assessments for this population; and b) the theoretical and empirical overlap of hate speech with related concepts. This review was guided by the Cochrane approach. To be included, publications were required to deal with real-life experiences of hate speech, to provide empirical data on prevalence for samples aged 5 to 21 years and they had to be published in academic formats. Included publications were full-text coded using two raters (κ = .80) and their quality was assessed. The string-guided electronic search (ERIC, SocInfo, Psycinfo, Psyndex) yielded 1,850 publications. Eighteen publications based on 10 studies met the inclusion criteria and their findings were systematized. Twelve publications were of medium qual...

Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Currently, there is a lack of empirically evaluated prevention programs targeting hate speech amo... more Currently, there is a lack of empirically evaluated prevention programs targeting hate speech among adolescents. This is problematic because hate speech jeopardizes adolescents’ well-being and social integration. To this end, this study aims to evaluate the short-term effects of the newly developed anti-hate speech prevention program, “HateLess. Together against Hatred”, on adolescents’ empathy, self-efficacy, and counter-speech. Eight hundred and twenty adolescents between 12 and 16 (M = 13.27, SD = 1.04) from 11 German schools participated in this study. More specifically, 567 adolescents participated in the one-week prevention program, and 253 participants were assigned to the control group. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that HateLess was successful, as there was a significant increase in empathy, self-efficacy, and counter-speech in the intervention group from the pretest (T1) to the posttest (T2) one month after the intervention. In contrast, no changes were found among adole...

Journal of Children and Media

Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag informiert über 14 deutschsprachige Programme zur Präventi... more ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag informiert über 14 deutschsprachige Programme zur Prävention und Intervention bei Hatespeech unter Kindern und Jugendlichen (Jahrgangsstufen 5–12). Inhalte und Durchführungsmodalitäten der Programme sowie Ergebnisse einer kriteriengeleiteten Qualitätseinschätzung anhand von fünf Kriterien werden im Hinblick auf deren Anwendung in der schulischen Praxis beschrieben und erörtert. Der Überblick über Schwerpunkte, Stärken und Entwicklungspotentiale schulbezogener Hatespeech-Programme ermöglicht Leser*innen eine informierte Entscheidung über den Einsatz der Programme in der Schule sowie in der offenen Kinder- und Jugendarbeit.

Edition Rechtsextremismus, 2019

Rechtsextremismus ist eine Herausforderung fur die Schule. Der Beitrag benennt dazu verschiedene ... more Rechtsextremismus ist eine Herausforderung fur die Schule. Der Beitrag benennt dazu verschiedene Dimensionen in der schulischen Praxis und verweist sowohl auf politische Einstellungen von Schuler*innen als auch die strukturellen Ambivalenzen der Institution Schule. Es werden direkte und indirekte Strategien des Umgangs mit Rechtsextremismus in der Schule vorgestellt und ubergreifende Schlussfolgerungen formuliert.

Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development

The present study examined the moderating role of parents’ victimization status during adolescenc... more The present study examined the moderating role of parents’ victimization status during adolescence in the associations between parenting styles, depression, and anxiety among relationally victimize...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

The present study proposes and tests pathways by which racial discrimination might be positively ... more The present study proposes and tests pathways by which racial discrimination might be positively related to bullying victimization among Black and White adolescents. Data were derived from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, a national survey that provides data on children’s physical and mental health and their families. Data were collected from households with one or more children between June 2016 to February 2017. A letter was sent to randomly selected households, who were invited to participate in the survey. The caregivers consisted of 66.9% females and 33.1% males for the White sample, whose mean age was 47.51 (SD = 7.26), and 76.8% females and 23.2% males for the Black sample, whose mean age was 47.61 (SD = 9.71). In terms of the adolescents, 49.0% were females among the White sample, whose mean age was 14.73 (SD = 1.69). For Black adolescents, 47.9% were females and the mean age was 14.67(SD = 1.66). Measures for the study included bullying perpetration, racial di...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Cyberhate represents a risk to adolescents’ development and peaceful coexistence in democratic so... more Cyberhate represents a risk to adolescents’ development and peaceful coexistence in democratic societies. Yet, not much is known about the relationship between adolescents’ ability to cope with cyberhate and their cyberhate involvement. To fill current gaps in the literature and inform the development of media education programs, the present study investigated various coping strategies in a hypothetical cyberhate scenario as correlates for being cyberhate victims, perpetrators, and both victim–perpetrators. The sample consisted of 6829 adolescents aged 12–18 years old (Mage = 14.93, SD = 1.64; girls: 50.4%, boys: 48.9%, and 0.7% did not indicate their gender) from Asia, Europe, and North America. Results showed that adolescents who endorsed distal advice or endorsed technical coping showed a lower likelihood to be victims, perpetrators, or victim–perpetrators. In contrast, if adolescents felt helpless or endorsed retaliation to cope with cyberhate, they showed higher odds of being i...

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

Comunicar, 2021

Adolescents around the world are increasingly exposed to cyberhate. More knowledge is needed to u... more Adolescents around the world are increasingly exposed to cyberhate. More knowledge is needed to understand how adolescents cope with cyberhate and how they can be supported when exposed. To this end, the present study investigated the associations between parental mediation of Internet use and adolescents’ problem-focused coping strategies for hypothetical cyberhate victimization while considering family support as a moderator of these relationships. The sample consisted of self-reports of 5,960 adolescents between 12-18 years old (M=14.94; SD=1.61; females: 50.7%) from Cyprus, Germany, Greece, India, Spain, South Korea, and Thailand. A structural equation model was used to investigate the relationship among parental mediation, family support, and coping with cyberhate. Findings showed a positive relationship between instructive parental mediation and adolescents’ problem-focused coping strategies, and a negative relationship between restrictive parental mediation and adolescents’ c...

Comunicar, 2022

Hate speech has become a widespread phenomenon, however, it remains largely unclear why adolescen... more Hate speech has become a widespread phenomenon, however, it remains largely unclear why adolescents engage in it and which factors are associated with their motivations for perpetrating hate speech. To this end, we developed the multidimensional “Motivations for Hate Speech Perpetration Scale” (MHATE) and evaluated the psychometric properties. We also explored the associations between social norms and adolescents’ motivations for hate speech perpetration. The sample consisted of 346 adolescents from Switzerland (54.6% boys; Mage=14; SD=0.96) who reported engagement in hate speech as perpetrators. The analyses revealed good psychometric properties for the MHATE, including good internal consistency. The most frequently endorsed subscale was revenge, followed by ideology, group conformity, status enhancement, exhilaration, and power. The results also showed that descriptive norms and peer pressure were related to a wide range of different motivations for perpetrating hate speech. Injun...

PLOS ONE, 2021

The sudden switch to distance education to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fund... more The sudden switch to distance education to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered adolescents’ lives around the globe. The present research aims to identify psychological characteristics that relate to adolescents’ well-being in terms of positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation, and key characteristics of their learning behavior in a situation of unplanned, involuntary distance education. Following Self-Determination Theory, experienced competence, autonomy, and relatedness were assumed to relate to active learning behavior (i.e., engagement and persistence), and negatively relate to passive learning behavior (i.e., procrastination), mediated via positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation. Data were collected via online questionnaires in altogether eight countries from Europe, Asia, and North America (N = 25,305) and comparable results across countries were expected. Experienced competence was consistently found to relate to positiv...

PLOS ONE, 2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher educational institutions worldwide switched to emergency dis... more Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher educational institutions worldwide switched to emergency distance learning in early 2020. The less structured environment of distance learning forced students to regulate their learning and motivation more independently. According to self-determination theory (SDT), satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and social relatedness affects intrinsic motivation, which in turn relates to more active or passive learning behavior. As the social context plays a major role for basic need satisfaction, distance learning may impair basic need satisfaction and thus intrinsic motivation and learning behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between basic need satisfaction and procrastination and persistence in the context of emergency distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in a cross-sectional study. We also investigated the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in this relationship. Furth...

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop inse... more As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers (i.e., social status insecurity). These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 (49.2% girls; Mage = 12.44 years; age range from 11 to 14 years) in the 7th or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate....

Personality and Individual Differences, 2019

The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential moderating role of online disinhibi... more The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential moderating role of online disinhibition in the associations between adolescents' callous-unemotional traits (callousness, uncaring, unemotional) and anonymous and non-anonymous cyberbullying. To this end, 1047 (49.2% female) 7th and 8th graders completed questionnaires on their face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying, callous-unemotional traits, and online disinhibition. The findings revealed that increases in uncaring were more associated with self-reported non-anonymous and anonymous cyberbullying at higher levels of online disinhibition. The findings are discussed in the context of the characteristics associated with callous-unemotional traits, and how these characteristics increase adolescents' risk of cyberbullying perpetration. Recommendations are made for tailoring intervention programs to consider adolescents' personality traits.