This document discusses cyberbullying and strategies to address it. It defines cyberbullying and notes that unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying can continue at home and have an unlimited audience. Victims of cyberbullying are at risk for issues like depression, anxiety, and poor school performance. The document recommends that schools work to promote empathy, limit-setting, and social/emotional skills to prevent cyberbullying, and that psychologists support students' well-being and inclusion. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration between teachers, psychologists, and parents to address cyberbullying and build a supportive learning environment.

2. Joint staff
training event

3. Cyberbullying and mobbing
in Internet

4. Let's talk about!

5. What is cyberbullying?
A form of voluntary abuse,
repeated over time, implemented
through an electronic instrument,
perpetuated against an individual
or a group with
the goal of hurting and making the
victim of this behavior
uncomfortable, who cannot defend
himself. (Smith et al., 2006).

7. Bullying versus cyberbullying:
While traditional bullying is a phenomenon limited to
certain times of the day, such as school hours, in
cyberbullying attacks always continue even at home, so
that the temporal dimension
becomes potentially
unlimited.

8. In a short time the victims
can see their damaged
reputation
in a very large community !!!

10. How is it generated?
What dynamics are at the base?
• Bullying begins with the group overcoming limits
and tolerating this act.
• Generally there is a main author and some
gregarious helpers, who affirm their value within the
group only by denigrating others.
• Often there is a majority of silent witnesses who do
not express their opinion, do not support the victim
and do not confront the authors.

11. Cyberbullying is practiced
directly and indirectly
• Messages, images or other contents are created
and disseminated.
• It tries to influence chat-goers against a person.
• The person is ignored, excluded, disparaged.

12. Boundaries become
blurred and dangerous
• Sexting
• Cyberbullying
• Pedophilia Online

13. Willard taxonomy (types of
behavior)
• Flaming: violent and vulgar messages that aim to provoke
contrasts and verbal battles in the forums.
• Harassment: the repeated sending of offensive and
unpleasant messages.
• Denigration:insulting or defaming someone online
through rumors, gossip and lies, usually offensive and
cruel, aimed at damaging a person's reputation and
relationships.

14. • Impersonation: in this case the attacker obtains the
personal information and access data (nickname,
password, etc.) of a victim's account, with the aim of
taking possession of it and damaging its reputation.
• Outing and Trickering: spreading someone's secrets,
uncomfortable information or personal images online;
push a person, through deception, to reveal embarrassing
and confidential information and then make it public on
the net.
• Exclusion: intentionally excluding someone from an
online group (chats, friends lists, thematic forums, etc.).

15. • Cyberstalking: repeated sending of intimidating messages
containing threats and offenses.

16. Victims and Aggressors: Risk
factors for the development of
psychopathologies
Bully: It is characterized by the lack of empathy
and poor respect for social norms. Young bullies are
more easily involved in problematic behaviors
related to the sphere of hetero-aggression and in
forms of transgression, ranging from alcohol and
drug abuse to criminal conduct.

17. Victim: it can present different types of disorders,
such as excessive passivity in interpersonal
relationships and progressive social isolation.
Being the target of bullying, repeatedly over time,
denotes a form of victimization that can worsen up
to the implementation of self-aggressive behaviors,
such as attacks on your body and, in the most
extreme cases, self-destructive behaviors such as
suicide (Petrone, Troiano, 2008).

18. Particularities of cyberbullying:
Cyberbullies are often unable to understand the
effect of their actions and the consequences on the
victim. This "moral disengagement", accompanied
by the anonymity of one's online actions, amplifies
the bully's aggressiveness and at the same time
feeds a real process of dissociation between online
and offline life.
(Genta, Brighi, Guarini, 2009).

19. • The anonymity of the attacker,
• The silence of the victim,
• The embarrassment caused by a potentially
unlimited audience …
…The consequences on the victim…
They contribute to make the
phenomenon particularly worrying!

20. The behavioral consequences found in the
victims are:
• more absenteeism in school
• drop in school performance
On a psychological level:
• depression,
• social anxiety,
• low self-esteem.

21. What do we offer?
Take action to prevent and defuse the phenomenon!
How?
Working psychologically on
EMOTIONS, EMPATHY, LIMIT

22. ... School task!
To promote an environment conductive to learning
To strengthen students' social and relational skills
To recognize early manifestations of behavioral
problems
To support teachers in confronting new forms of
difficulty
To promote educational collaboration with parents

23. … The psychologist's task at school!
To support students' evolutionary process
To promote reflective and relational skills
To plan decisive interventions in critical phases
To inform and raise awareness on emerging issues
To prevent various forms of discomfort
To mediate between the different actors of the context
To promote well-being and inclusion
To support the functions of teachers and parents

24. The school, through the synergistic work
between the teachers and the psychologist,
can support students in the development of
emotional intelligence, in the discovery of
sexuality and emotional relationships.
They can teach how to use the potential of
the web so that the network does not become
a trap but turns out to be a resource.

25. … Build and design …
Emotion
education
Bullying and
cyberbullying
Culture of
differences
Education in
affectivity and
sexuality
Effective
communication

26. We work TOGETHER to prevent and
defuse the phenomenon
We raise strong children to
become adults capable of
defending themselves without
resorting to violence tomorrow.
Dott.ssa Anna Sara Cutolo