1. Cybergrooming –
Risk factors, coping strategies and
associations with cyberbullying
Dipl. Päd. Sebastian Wachs
Acknowledgment: Prof. Dr. K.D. Wolf
International Conference on Cyberbullying,
Paris, June 2012

2. Overview
• Background
• Method
• Results
• Conclusions/Outlook
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

3. Background of the Study
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

4. Background
Cybergrooming (CYBGR)
“Establishing a trust-based relationship between
minors and usually adults using ICTs to
systematically solicit and exploit the minors for
sexual purposes.” (Wachs, Wolf and Pan, in review)
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

5. Background
Research Questions
RQ1: Which factors shape the risk to become
a victim of CYBGR?
RQ2: Are cyberbullied students more likely to be
cybergroomed?
RQ3: How students cope with CYBGR and
which strategy seems to be effective?
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

6. Background
Associations between CYBGR and CYBB
• Use of ICTs
• Repetition
• Intentional
aggressive acts
Cybergrooming • Social
Cyberbullying
Relationship
• Imbalance of
power
• Role Association?
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

7. Method
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

8. Method
Participants
• Self-reports from 518 students
• 5th to 10th Grades (11-17 yr) from 4 German
schools
• 49.0 % of the participants was male and
50.8 % was female; 0.2 % did not answer
• from a region with a high proportion of
immigrant families, and a relatively poor
urban economic situation.
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

9. Method
Procedure
• Online Survey
• Computer Assisted Personal Interview
• participants sat at a PC in
school computer rooms
and entered the answers
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

10. Method
Questionnaire
‘A cybergroomer is a person who is at least 7 years
older than you and who you know over a longer time
exclusively through online communication. At the
beginning, the cybergroomer seems to be interested in
your daily life problems, but after a certain time s/he
appears to be interested in sexual topics and in the
exchange of sexual fantasies and/or nude material
(pictures or video chats).’ Used Definition
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

11. Method
Questionnaire
‘How often did you have contact with a
cybergroomer within the last twelve
month?’
Never Once a Once a Once a Several
year month week times a
week
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

12. Method
Questionnaire
Items for assessing (cyber-)bullying and coping
strategies partly following the ‘Mobbing Questionnaire
for students' (Jäger et al. 2007)
Cyberbullying 4 Items each Never, Once or twice, Twice or
side thrice, About once a week or
Several times a week
Coping 10 Items Yes, A little bit, Almost no, No
Strategies
ICTs Usage and access to PC or Internet at home, ownership of mobile
Access phone or smartphone, amount of ICTs usage
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

13. Results
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

14. Results
Prevalence Rate Victims of CYBGR: 6.5 %
(n=34)
4.6 %
10.4 %
79% 21% 1.9 %
4.3 %
once a year once a month
At least once a year Never once a week several times a week
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

15. Results
Prevalence rate for CYBGR is
significantly…
higher for girls (8.7% vs. 4.3%), t(514) = 3.28, p = .001.
lower for adolescents who are not willing to
meet strangers (4.4% vs. 15.5%), t(514) = 4.91,
p = <.001.
lower for adolescents who do not discuss
problems with strangers (5.6% vs.
11.4%), t(514) = 3.93, p < .001.
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

16. Results
RQ 1: Which factors shape the risk to be
cybergroomed?
 Willingness to discuss  Access to Internet at home
 problems with strangers  Ownership of mobile phone
 Willingness
Coefficients to meet  Ownership
Estimate Std. of smartphone
t-
strangers  Amount of internet usage
Error value
 Being cyberbullied
(Intercept) ***  0.041
1.43 Access to PC at home
34.49
Being cybervictim *** 0.46 0.085 5.42
Being a girl *** 0.28 0.083 3.46
 Migration background
Not willing to meet strangers *** -0.43 0.106 -4.10
F(3, 512) = 23.39, R2=0.12, p <  Grade
.001. * p ≤ .05;** p ≤.01;*** p ≤.001
 Gender
Tab 1: Model 1 (3 predictors) beta coefficients for standardized variables
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

17. Results
RQ 2: Are cyberbullied students more likely to
be cybergroomed?
Variable O.R. C.I.
Being a girl*** 2.35 1.1–5.2
Being cyberbullied*** 1.75 1.2–2.4
Not willing to meet strangers *** 0.30 0.14–0.65
*p ≤ .05; **p ≤.01; ***p ≤.001 95 % confidence interval
Tab. 2: Results of simple binary logistic regression for Model 1
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

18. Results
RQ 3: How students cope with cybergrooming?
The first three factors of
variability summarise 62.1 %
of the total inertia.

19. Results
RQ 3: How students cope with cybergrooming?
Coefficients Estimate Std. t
Error value
(Intercept) 1.43023 0.03734 38.305
Cognitive-techn. Coping*** 0.33223 0.07537 4.408
Being a girl*** 0.32686 0.07514 4.350
Being cyberbullied*** 0.32565 0.07812 4.168
Not willing to meet strangers* -0.24815 0.09742 -2.547
Aggressive Coping*** -0.76518 0.07775 -9.841
F(2, 512) = 60.71, p < .001, = 0.19 * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤.01; *** p ≤.001
Tab. 4: Model 2 (5 predictors) beta coefficients
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

20. Results
RQ 3: How students cope with cybergrooming?
Variable O.R. C.I.
Being a girl*** 3.37 1.4–8.6
Being Cyberbullied*** 1.88 1.0–3.2
Cognitive-techn. Coping*** 1.48 0.8–2.4
Willingness to meet strangers: No *** 0.39 0.2–0.9
Aggressive Coping*** 0.30 0.2–0.5
*p ≤ .05;** p ≤.01;*** p ≤.001 95 % confidence interval
Tab. 5: Results of simple binary logistic regression for Model 2
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

21. Conclusions and
Outlook on future research
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

22. Conclusion
• Identified risk factors: being a girl, willingness
to meet strangers and being cyberbullied
• Coping strategies seem to make a difference:
– aggressive coping protects and
– technical-cognitive coping increases the risk
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

23. Outlook future research
• Validated instruments with consistent
definition, measuring and period of time
• Longitudinal studies (causality and directions)
• Special risk groups (LGBT and children with
special needs) need more research attention
• Traditionally
bullied, cyberbullied, cybergroomed?
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012

24. Thank you for your
attention!
Dipl. Päd. Sebastian Wachs
Division Education and Socialisation
University of Bremen, Germany
s.wachs@uni-bremen.de
International Conference on Cyberbullying, Paris, June 2012