Wise Interventions for Adolescents and Young People in the Digital Society
Phase: NA
Conditions: Cyberbullying, Grooming, Risk Behavior
Sponsor: University of Deusto

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
STUDY TITLE: 
 
WISE INTERVENTIONS FOR ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE DIGITAL 
SOCIETY 
 
 
PROJECT NUMBER: 
 
PR[18]_SOC_0096 
 
(BBVA Foundation) 
 
 
 
MAY, 2020 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
BACKGROUND  
 
From an evolutionary perspective, adolescence is a period that involves 
important transitions and learning opportunities. That is why it is probably at this stage 
that immersion in digital society takes place more prominently. Adolescents and young 
people learn and develop new competencies and facets in the digital society. Hence, a 
large part of their social relationships takes place through social media. 
Digital society is full of positive opportunities for the emotional and social 
development of adolescents and young people. They can develop positive interactions 
through prosocial behaviors, empathy, and social support towards others (Wright & Li, 
2011). Recent studies have found that adolescents’ prosocial behavior – both online and 
offline –is predominantly relational and directed towards others (van Rijsewijk et al., 
2016). In this way, both modes of prosocial behavior share a similar pattern (Wright & 
Li, 2011). Although knowledge about the digital facet of prosocial behavior is currently 
scarce, some studies have highlighted the relevant implications that the development 
of online prosocial behaviors could entail at the individual, interpersonal, and social 
levels. Thus, it has been suggested that online prosocial behavior could increase 
relationships and improve their quality, fostering adolescent self-esteem and well-being 
(Valkenburg & Peter, 2011). 
Although digital society offers great opportunities, at the same time it is not 
without potential risks, especially in adolescence, a stage of psychological vulnerability 
for risky behaviors. Thus, some of the problems that occur in offline social relations, such 
as bullying and dating abuse, extend to the digital society. Like traditional bullying, 
online forms of bullying negatively affect the health and quality of life of the victims 
(Kowalski et al., 2014). Although the forms of offline and online psychological abuse 
coexist in relationships, there are a few factors that suggest that they are different 
problems. For example, online abuse may manifest permanently on the Internet, and 
abusive messages and images may be forwarded by third parties, implying some 
revictimization (Stonard et al., 2014). Once an image, video, or information is 
disseminated on the Internet by the perpetrator, it can remain in cyberspace indefinitely 
(Gámez‐Guadix et al., 2015). In fact, it is almost impossible to remove some contents 
that have been disseminated over the Internet, as many people can store them. This 
public nature of cyber abuse, which implies that the aggression can spread and reach 
many people, can make the humiliation especially harmful for the victim (Peskin et al., 
2017). Finally, victimization and online bullying are mainly indirect, rather than face-to-
face (Smith, 2012). The aggressor does not see the victim's reaction immediately, which 
can facilitate insensitivity and lack of empathy towards the victim. 
In addition, specific risks such as grooming and sexting, which can have very 
negative consequences for the adolescents and young people involved, have been 
created in the context of digital society. Grooming is a serious social problem, which is 
considered a criminal offense in Spain. It involves a process by which an adult, using 

 
digital means, tricks a minor to obtain sexual material (images, videos) from them or to 
sexually abuse them directly. Studies with adolescents aged 10 to 17 years indicate a 
prevalence of the problem between 5 and 9% (Bergen et al., 2014). Sexting refers to the 
act of sending photographs and videos with some level of sexual content, taken or 
recorded by the protagonist, through digital means. Often, this exchange occurs without 
the people, especially the younger ones, being truly aware of the consequences of this 
action or what might happen if the image reaches third parties or is made public. In 
Spain, a sexting prevalence rate of 13.5% has been found (Gámez‐Guadix, de 
Santisteban, & Resett, 2017). 
A common characteristic of several online risks is the high reciprocity between 
victimization and behavior performance. Thus, the association between cyberbullying 
and dating violence victimization and perpetration is usually high (Royuela-Colomer et 
al. 2018). In the case of grooming, there is usually a high association between 
experiencing sexual solicitation, in which the adolescent is contacted by an adult who 
asks them to send materials such as photos or videos of a sexual nature, and the 
behaviors of establishing risky interactions with the requesting adult (Gámez-Guadix et 
al., 2018). In recent years, a number of preventive interventions have been developed 
to reduce risky behaviors in the digital society. Most have focused on cyberbullying (e.g., 
Garaigordobil & Martínez‐Valderrey, 2015; Gradinger et al., 2016), with fewer measures 
aimed at other risks such as grooming (Gámez‐Guadix et al., 2018). These interventions 
present some areas for improvement that are challenges for scientific psychology. The 
area of improvement is not specific to these interventions, but to all preventive 
interventions aimed at adolescents in general. Thus, according to important and 
rigorous meta-analytical studies, the effectiveness of these interventions is extremely 
limited. For example, in a review of 22 studies that examined the effects of interventions 
on bullying, only 11 studies (50%) showed significant effects on its reduction (Evans et 
al., 2014). 
 
Why do interventions for adolescents and young people fail? 
 
Based on the results of some meta-analyses, a student's degree of development 
can act as an important variable that moderates the impact of intervention programs 
(e.g., Kärnä et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2015; Yeager et al., 2015). However, there is some 
debate about how this moderation takes place. Some authors conclude that anti-
bullying programs and programs to reduce other risky behaviors are more effective 
among adolescents than among children (e.g, da Silva et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2015; Ttofi 
& Farrington, 2011). In contrast, other reviews and meta-analyses have concluded that 
the effects of the interventions are low for adolescents and older youth. For example, 
through hierarchical meta-analysis, Yeager et al. (2015) found that traditional anti-
bullying interventions were effective from childhood to early adolescence. They also 
found that there was a decrease in their effectiveness with age until reaching a null 

 
effect in the case of adolescents (second grade of Compulsory Secondary Education 
[CSE] and higher courses). They therefore concluded that the effectiveness of traditional 
anti-bullying programs is limited as of adolescence, just at a time when these programs 
are extremely necessary. 
Many universal preventive interventions are based on decision-making theories 
and generating change through thoughtful knowledge. They draw on the premise that 
if adolescents are provided with aspects such as risk information, as well as skills training 
and education in appropriate values, behavioral change will be facilitated. However, 
some features of adolescence can cause these approaches to fail. Compared to children, 
adolescents are more sensitive to feeling respected and to the acknowledgment of their 
status and autonomy (Yeager et al., 2018). Therefore, if adolescents perceive that adults 
are trying to manipulate them or introduce patterns of behavior that threaten their 
autonomy, they will often resist. In contrast, younger children voluntarily accept adult 
authority and curricular activities (Andreou et al., 2007). In support of this conclusion, a 
national probabilistic survey of youth in the United States found no reduction in the 
perpetration of bullying in older children and adolescents, even though they were the 
target of most of the interventions (Finkelhor et al., 2014). The authors interpreted the 
lack of effect of the interventions for older participants as a reflection of their mistrust 
and lower motivation for participating in these interventions. This would explain the 
paradoxical effects of some universal interventions aimed at adolescents in other areas. 
For example, some programs aimed at preventing obesity and promoting sports have 
shown the opposite effect, such that the recipients of these interventions increased 
their weight and reduced their sports practice (Stice et al., 2006). 
 
Wise interventions to improve relationships in the digital society 
 
Very recently, interest in scientific social psychology has grown due to a new 
approach to interventions, which have been called "wise interventions". This approach 
involves a set of rigorous techniques, based on theory and research, that address 
specific psychological processes to help people thrive in various life environments (for a 
review, see Walton & Wilson, 2018). 
Wise interventions emphasize the subjective creation of meanings, how people 
interpret themselves and social situations, and, in doing so, can effectively change 
behavior in recursively over time (Walton, 2014). These types of interventions have been 
applied to problems that can have a significant cost at the personal, social, and economic 
levels. Indeed, in recent years, a proliferation of wise interventions has addressed 
countless social and personal problems. Many of these interventions have outstanding 
results because they tend to be very short in time and produce lasting changes in 
people's behavior. Thus, some wise interventions have been shown to improve 
academic performance (Brisson et al., 2017), social integration of young people from 
ethnic minorities (Brannon & Walton, 2013 ), and reduce depression (Miu & Yeager, 
2015) and aggressive behavior (Calvete et al., 2018; Fernández‐González et al., 2018). 

 
Wise interventions do not address a lack of capacity or risky behaviors directly. 
Instead, they assume that, for most people and situations, there is a significant margin 
for improvement, that people can modify their behavior and that situations offer 
opportunities, which are often not exploited by people. This type of intervention is of 
great interest in adolescence, as they can be designed so they are perceived as 
respectful towards the students' autonomy and status, so that the students will realize 
that they make their own decisions (Yeager et al., 2018). In fact, the results obtained 
with these types of interventions in adolescent behaviors are hugely promising. For 
example, Yeager and collaborators (Miu & Yeager, 2015; Yeager, Trzesniewski et al., 
2013) designed a universal brief intervention aimed at changing implicit beliefs about 
adolescent personality. Specifically, the intervention focused on teaching that 
personality can change. The key elements of the intervention were as follows: (a) the 
students' active role, which facilitates deeper processing of the message; (b) the 
intervention is not presented to the students to change their behavior; in this way, the 
students do not feel that they are being manipulated, which reduces their resistance to 
the intervention; (c) the intervention has long-term effects due to recursive processes 
that influence the effects that accumulate over time. Students generally forget the 
message and details of the intervention, but this recursive nature triggers other social, 
psychological, and cognitive mechanisms over time. 
These types of interventions have been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety 
and depression in young people (e.g. Miu & Yeager, 2015; Schleider & Weisz, 2018; 
Yeager et al., 2014) and peer-to-peer bullying behavior (Yeager, Miu et al., 2013).  
 
GOALS AND HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY 
 
Previous findings suggest that wise interventions could be used to improve the 
behavior of adolescents and young people in the digital society, such that prosocial 
behaviors of empathy and support are increased and improved, and risky behaviors on 
the internet are reduced. The main objective of this project is to design and evaluate the 
effectiveness of a wise intervention aimed at online behaviors in adolescents and young 
people. Secondary objectives are (1) to assess the moderating role of gender and the 
degree of evolutionary development of adolescents and young people, and (2) to 
evaluate potential mediating mechanisms for the effectiveness of the interventions. 
The main hypothesis is that a wise intervention will reduce the frequency of 
negative social behaviors (bullying, grooming, sexting) in the digital society. Given the 
high reciprocity between victimization and perpetration of risky behaviors, it is also 
expected that the intervention will reduce this reciprocity. That is, the young people 
who receive the intervention will react to a lesser extent with risky behaviors when they 
are victimized. 
Regarding the role of the developmental degree, the results of previous studies 
are inconsistent, with some pointing to greater effectiveness in adolescents than in 

 
children (e.g., Lee et al., 2015) and others pointing in the opposite direction (e.g., Yeager 
et al., 2018). To provide new empirical evidence to help clarify the findings of previous 
studies is of great importance for the proper planning of when to implement preventive 
interventions in the digital society, as previous studies with wise interventions have 
been conducted mostly in offline contexts. In addition, gender is expected to moderate 
the effectiveness of the interventions, such that they will be more effective for behaviors 
that are more prominent in each gender, as meta-analytical studies indicate that, for 
some psychological problems, preventive interventions are more effective in the most 
vulnerable groups (Stice et al., 2009). 
As for potential mediators, attitudes (e.g., justification of violence, empathy 
towards the victim, etc.) and intentions towards online risky behaviors are expected to 
act as mechanisms for change. 
METHODOLOGY 
 
Design 
 
A randomized double-blind clinical trial with parallel groups will be conducted. 
Individual randomization will be performed, so that, at random, half of the participants 
will be assigned to the wise intervention (Condition 1) and the remaining half to 
Condition 2 (control anti-stress–educational intervention). Both modalities of 
intervention will be carried out online through Qualtrics. Participants will be students 
from 1st grade to 2nd grade of CSE, aged between 11 and 19 years. The final sample will 
be around 1000 adolescents and young people. Participants will complete an online 
evaluation protocol through Qualtrics including different questionnaires at three 
measurement times: (1) pretest (one week before the intervention), (2) posttest 
(immediately after the intervention), (3) at the 3-month follow-up, and (4) the 6-month 
follow-up. All studies will be conducted with the approval of the Ethics Committee of 
the University of Deusto and confidentiality will be guaranteed by anonymity. Informed 
consent from the parents and adolescents will be required.  
 
Participants 
 
Recruitment will be carried out through schools (including levels from secondary 
education, high school, vocational training, and university studies). We will invite 
approximately 1000 adolescents and young people from schools in Spain. The 
proportion of participants will be balanced according to gender and educational level, 
as the role of both variables will be examined as potential moderators of the 
effectiveness of treatment. 
 
Interventions 
 

 
Two intervention models of similar duration (approximately 1 hour) will be used, 
such that the wise intervention will be compared to a standard prevention intervention. 
 
1. Wise Intervention: The intervention to be designed to promote prosocial 
behavior and reduce online risks and will be based on four general types of 
change strategies: (1) scientific knowledge, (2) generation of new meanings, (3) 
commitment through action, and (4) active reflection.  It includes two 
components: a self-affirmation activity and an ITP intervention. The SA 
component includes a list of values so that they could choose the two or three 
most important for them. Next, they are asked to write why those selected 
values are the most important to them. The ITP component include activities 
such as reading scientific information about social behavior and its role in 
people's well-being, the meaning and value of online risk behaviors through 
stories and videos of the experiences of other young people of their age, and 
self-persuasion exercises that involve an active commitment to change. 
2. Standard preventive intervention: It will consist of an educational intervention 
that will provide a number of strategies to manage everyday conflicts among 
adolescents. This intervention will teach them new ways to manage these 
difficulties through different actions (relaxation, distraction, sports, etc.). Finally, 
they are asked to plan the strategies they will use in the future in the face of 
some difficulties and to recommend some guidelines for another adolescent who 
may be going through a similar situation. 
 
Measures 
 
The perpetration and victimization of cyberbullying will be evaluated by the 
Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CBQ; Calvete et al., 2010; Gámez‐Guadix et al., 2014), 
which measures the frequency with which adolescents have been victims of or have 
perpetrated different behaviors associated with cyberbullying. The scale includes 18 
items. The psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CBQ have previously 
been analyzed in adolescents, and the results showed adequate factorial and 
convergent validity, in addition to acceptable internal consistency (Calvete et al., 2010). 
Online Grooming will be evaluated through the Questionnaire for Online Sexual 
Solicitation and Interaction of Minors with Adults (Gámez‐Guadix, De Santisteban, & 
Alcázar, 2017). This instrument measures two subescales: sexual requests and 
interactions that are part of the beginning, process and/or outcome of online grooming. 
Adolescents and youth are asked to indicate how often they have experienced a certain 
application or sexual interaction on a 4-point Likert scale: 0 (never), 1 (once or twice), 2 
(3-5 times), and 3 (6 or more times). This instrument consists of 10 items. The 
psychometric properties of the questionnaire were analyzed in a previous study, and 
both scales had good psychometric properties in the Spanish sample of adolescents, 

 
including factorial content, concurrent validity, and reliability (Gámez‐Guadix, De 
Santisteban, & Alcázar, 2017). 
Sexting  behavior will be evaluated by an adaptation of the questionnaire 
developed by Gámez‐Guadix et al. (2015). The modified questionnaire has 3 items 
("Have you sent information, photos, or videos with intimate or sexual content about 
yourself?") referring to the partner, an acquaintance, and someone you've met online 
but still do not know in person. A scale with 5 response options is used: 0 (never), 1 (1 
or 2 times), 2 (3 or 4 times), 3 (5 or 6 times), and 4 (7 or more times). The reliability 
obtained for this modified version is adequate (Machimbarrena et al., 2018). 
The online prosocial behavior will be evaluated by four adapted items from 
the Online Prosocial Behavior Scale (OPBS; Erreygers, Vandebosch, Vranjes, Baillien y De 
Witte, 2017). A scale with 5 response options is used ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (every 
day). The internal consistency for this scale is adequate (Erreygers et al., 2018). 
 
Cyber dating abuse will be assessed by a reduced version of the Cyber Dating 
Abuse Questionnaire (CDAQ; Borrajo et al., 2015) made up of four bidireccional items 
(perpretation/victimization) that evaluate the frequency with which adolescents have 
been victims or have perpetrated behaviors related to dating violence. Items are rated 
on a four-point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (almost always). This questionnaire will 
be answered only by the adolescents who have or have had a partner. The results of the 
psychometric properties of the CDAQ are adequate (Borrajo et al., 2015).  
Entity and incremental theories will be evaluated using eight items (Levy, 
Stroessner, & Dweck, 1998) adapted to the situations of bullying in schools (eg: “bullies 
and victims are types of people who cannot really change”). Items are rated on a six-
point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The reliability 
obtained for this scale in Spanish adolescents is adequate (Cronbach α = .83). 
 
Depression will be assessed using the reduced version of the Center for 
Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D; Rueda-Jaimes et al., 2009). This instrument 
evaluates symptoms of depression through 10 items, with a four-point response scale 
ranging from 0 (practically never) to 3 (almost all the time). The items that were 
validated  in a Spanish sample were used (Losada et al., 2012).  
Ad hoc measures developed by the research team will be added for the 
assessment of attitudes towards cyberbullying, attitudes towards different courses of 
action, and the anticipation of reactions and behaviors when the adolescent is a witness 
of cyberbullying. This type of scales has been used previously with adolescent samples 
(DeSmet et al., 2016; Heirman & Walrave, 2012). For the assessment of the attitude 
towards cyberbullying, the participants will classify the following situation of 
cyberbullying through adjectives using the semantic differential technique with a 
response range of 7 points: “I think that sending humiliating messages or photos about 
someone my age via the internet or mobile is…”. To assess attitudes towards different 
courses of action when the adolescent witnesses cyberbullying, participants will rate 
four different ways to react to cyberbullying through semantic differential items. Some 

 
examples of situations and items: “Show support or give some advice to the person they 
are bullying”; “Forward those photos and messages to others”; Item 1: Good – Bad; Item 
2: Easy – Difficult. The anticipation of reactions and behaviors when the adolescent is 
a witness will be evaluated through seven items on a five-point response scale ranging 
from 0 (totally disagree) to 3 (totally agree). Some examples of items are: “I'd think they 
must have done something to deserve it," "I'd tell some adult what's going on”.  
 
Ethical considerations  
 
This study aims to develop and implement interventions that will be beneficial 
for the participating adolescents and other people in the future, by helping to increase 
their psychological well-being. Through randomization, the principle of justice will be 
respected, allowing all participants to have similar opportunities to receive the 
intervention. Gender will be considered and a similar number of male and female 
participants will be included in each condition.  
The risks are minimal and limited to answering psychological tests on stressors, 
psychological symptoms, and cognitive styles. Previous experience with the same 
questionnaires indicates that the risk is minimal. Adolescents can also decide to end 
their participation at any moment. Researchers collecting data will be trained to attend 
to any difficulty that could emerge while participants are responding to the 
questionnaires. The researchers will give an alternative task (e.g., educational readings) 
to those participants who decide to end their participation.  
Informed consent forms will be sent to parents or legal guardians and 
adolescents will also receive information.  
After completing measures, adolescents will be provided with information on 
services for adolescents (e.g., phone number of attention to adolescents). From an 
ethical perspective, the most important care aspect is the protection of information. We 
will follow the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, Organic Law 15/99 of 13 
December of Personal Data Protection, and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the 
protection of individuals concerning the processing of personal data and the free 
movement of such data. No identification data, such as names or surnames, will be used; 
instead, we will use a numeric code to match measures across times and sources. Thus, 
each adolescent, and only they, will know their code. We will also follow the procedure 
for data protection that the University of Deusto has registered in the National Data 
Protection Agency. The project has been approved by the Ethics in Research Committee 
of the University of Deusto.  
 
Statistical analysis 
 
We will use several statistical analysis strategies, including the Hierarchical Linear 
Modeling with HLM 7.03 (Raudenbush et al., 2011), using the Full Information Maximum 

 
Likelihood (FIML) estimation method. Level 1 will include repeated measures of 
dependent variables (cyberbullying, cyber dating abuse, grooming, sexting). Level 2 will 
include the experimental condition, using dummy variables, together with gender and 
educational level, as well as the terms of interaction between experimental conditions 
and those variables. The third level will include the average level of risky behaviors in 
the participant's classroom. Analyses will also be conducted to determine whether the 
intervention reduces reciprocity between victimization and perpetration of risky 
behaviors. The mediation analysis will assess whether the change in the mediators 
explains some of the effects of the intervention on risky behaviors. 
 
 
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