Defending peers who have been bullied is often thought to put defenders at risk of becoming victimized themselves. The study investigated the concurrent and prospective associations between defending and (peer- and self-reported) victimization, and examined popularity and classroom norms as potential moderators. Participants included 4085 Finnish…

This study tested a person-group dissimilarity model for the relation between peer preference on the one hand, and bullying and victimization on the other. This model accounts for both individual and group (i.e., classroom) factors and postulates that children will be rejected by their peers when they display behaviors that deviate from the group…