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…

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…

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…

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…

Previous research has shown that group processes are particularly pertinent to children's bullying, and who they socially exclude and include. This paper looks at how children's responses to social exclusion change according to their friends' group-based emotions. Children aged 8-11 years (N = 77) read stories about a friendship group to which…

Although a number of social--cognitive and contextual correlates of defending against bullying have been identified, research on the personality traits associated with defending have yielded weak and inconsistent results. The current study provided a novel examination as to whether a tendency toward social withdrawal is associated with less…

Prior research links need for approval (NFA; the extent to which self-worth is contingent on peer approval or disapproval) to critical developmental outcomes, but little is known about how NFA develops over time or within social contexts. To address this gap, the present study used a sophisticated analytic approach (autoregressive latent…

This study assessed the prevalence of verbally being put down by others and intrapersonal and normative factors associated with being put down by others among middle and high school students. Students (N = 1,027) completed the Adolescent Health Risk Behavior Survey. Over 16% of participants reported being put down at school. Students who…

Social norms are vital for the functioning of adolescent peer groups; they can protect the well-being of groups and individual members, often by deterring harmful behaviors, such as aggression, through enforcement mechanisms like peer victimization; in adolescent peer groups, those who violate aggression norms are often subject to victimization.…