Grooming and emotional intelligence in adolescents. Can emotional development in school prevent this type of cyber-bullying?

Abstract

The management of computer tools and emotional skills are an essential part of comprehensive integral education in highs school, according to national and international organizations. In theory, jointly developed within the school environment, they can act as a protective factor against phenomena such as cyberbullying, sexting and grooming. In the last one construct, the groomer takes advantage of the vulnerability and crisis of an adolescent to manipulate him for sexual purposes. Based on the above, it could be inferred that there is a link between this form of bullying and the development of socio-affective skills, however, so far there are no empirical studies that delve into this relationship. Therefore, the objective of the research focused on identifying the correlation between grooming and emotional intelligence (EI). In order to achieve this, the TMMS-24 and CCRDG-24 were applied to determine the different risk behaviors that promote grooming in a sample of 200 Mexican high school students aged between 14 and 16 years. In the results, numerous grooming risk behaviors and areas of improvement in EI were found. At the same time, correlations were detected between cybersecurity and excessive awareness of emotions. It is suggested to emphasize emotional education and cybersecurity in all the actors of the teaching-learning process.