CYBERBULLY BOY: MAIN CHARACTERISTICS FROM ADOLESCENTS' POINT OF VIEW

The article describes the results of a research aimed to trace the identikit of boys who acted as cyberbullies. 927 (M = 473, F = 452) students aged between 11 and 18 (Mage = 14,10; SD = 1.49) filled out a questionnaire composed by 15 open questions regarding cyberbullies’ tastes, acquaintances, ways of acting and express, fears and amusements. Data collected showed a male cyberbullies’ profile, which was discussed in classrooms with the participants to obtain a best representation of the phenomena. From the teenagers’ point of view, the male cyberbully is a boy like many others in terms of tastes, clothes, food, music, preferred TV series and sports. However, he would have a complicated family, a friendship relationship with adolescents similar to him (Male friends = 34,3%, Female friends = 16,7%) or close to the world of violence, crime and drugs (Male friends = 37,6%, Female friends = 30,9%), a past as a bullied child, and bad examples as a source of inspiration, which led him to fall into a deep state of loneliness and to commit cyberbullying, in the most popular social network, hidden by an anonymous profile (71,8%).