This study examines the relationships between peer victimization, peer relations and depression among adolescents, with a focus on the moderating roles of peer rejection, peer acceptance and reciprocal friendships on the association between peer victimization and depression. A sample of 605 adolescents (average age 13.5 years) completed measures…

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…

Highly responsive teachers tend to foster behaviors that are low in conflict and high in prosociality, among their students, leading to a positive classroom climate and to a decrease in bullying victimization. However, little is known about the interaction between teacher responsiveness and both student-teacher, and student-student relationship…

Existing literature has mostly explained the occurrence of bullying victimization by individual socioemotional maladjustment. Instead, this study tested the person-group dissimilarity model (Wright et al., "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology," 50: 523-536, 1986) by examining whether individuals' deviation from developmentally…

We explored factors predicting repeated or hazardous alcohol use among autistic and non-autistic U.S. youth ages 16 to 20 years. Autistic (n = 94) and non-autistic (n = 92) youth completed an online survey. By design, half of each group reported past-year alcohol use. We compared drinking patterns for autistic and non-autistic youth, and within…

Witnessing peer victimization is an emotionally salient event, particularly for youth. Given that emotions influence how youth respond to social situations, the emotional experiences of bystanders may influence how they respond to peer victimization. In particular, different defending behaviors may be motivated by different emotional processes…

Defending a victimized peer is a socially risky behavior that may require high peer status and may depend on how popular or disliked bullies are in the classroom (i.e., within-classroom correlations between bullying and status). Past research has investigated defending as a unidimensional construct, though it can involve confronting the bully…

Social rejection is an undesirable phenomenon with serious present and future implications for children who experience it. Growing rates of social rejection and bullying in elementary-school children, especially on social networks, have been examined mostly from a pathological perspective focused on the rejected child or rejecting group. This…

Bullying is a goal-directed behavior that has long been in the spotlight of worldwide school mental health programs and research. However, the role of popularity goals in bullying and its potential mechanisms are unclear for adolescents in a non-Western cultural context. Based on 333 Chinese adolescents (52% female), the current study was the…

The aim of our study was to explore students' bystander roles in peer bullying considering the interaction between their individual and contextual characteristics. We included social status goals (popularity, social preference and social insecurity), moral disengagement and peer support as key variables for differentiating bystander behaviour. Our…

Aim: With the visibility of transgender individuals increasing, together with the awareness of associated challenges, it is important that research looks to understand the experiences of this population. This study explores the views and experiences of transgender pupils attending secondary school, with a focus on the factors participants report…

There are limited studies involving preschool children and phenomena such as harassment, bullying, exclusion and rejection. This study explores the relations between 4- to 6-year-old children's experiences of being frequently harassed in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions, their overall feeling of subjective…

Most research on peer victimization has focused on Western samples, but in recent years peer victimization in China has become more prevalent. As a result, limited information is available on how peer victimization, school climate, peer preference, and adjustment difficulties impact Chinese middle school students. This cross-sectional study…

The interactions between individual factors (i.e., cognitive empathy, affective empathy) and situational factors (i.e., perceived popularity of a bully) in predicting passive bystanding or defending of the victim in a bullying situation were examined. A total of 522 Korean secondary school students answered survey questions and responded to…

The main aim of this study was to examine one potential mediator of the prospective association between depressive symptoms and peer victimization: sadness rumination. Data were collected from 302 early adolescents (M[subscript age] = 10.53, SD =0.16; 55.3% girls), at two waves, 1-year spaced, using self-reports. Depressive symptoms preceded…