Poster #224 - Self- and Peer-Identified Victims: Their Social Roles, Reputations, and Peer Group Characteristics

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Youth with divergent self- and peer-reports of victimization differ meaningfully on psychological, social, and academic outcomes depending on whether they are identified as convergent victims (high self- and peer-reports), self-identified victims (low peer-, high self-reports), peer-identified victims (high peer-, low self-reports), or nonvictims (low self- and peer-reports (Graham & Juvonen, 1998; Scholte et al., 2013). According to the social dynamics and social ecological perspectives of bullying (Farmer & Xie, 2007; Swearer & Espelage, 2004), victimization goes beyond the boundaries of the bully-victim dyad and should instead be viewed as a group phenomenon (Salmivalli, 2010) that includes social dynamic processes reflecting students’ social roles and reputations in the peer network as well as their peer group memberships. Whereas considerable research has looked at the peer social dynamics of bullies, victims, and bully-victims, less is known about the social dynamics of youth with divergent self- and peer-reports of victimization. Such information is critical to our ability to identify these victims with distinct support needs and to our understanding of the dynamics that contribute to victimization experiences. To address this gap in the literature, this study examined differences in victim groups’ reputations and peer group characteristics.
Participants include 1,360 students from 5th grade classrooms (52.8% girls, 53.1% ethnic majority/White) in rural United States locales. Self-reported victimization was measured with the item “How often have you been bullied since school started” (1 = never, 4 = one or more times a day). Peer-reported victimization was measured by the item “picked on” collected through peer nominations. Other peer nominations to capture reputations included: cooperative, friendly, popular, liked most and liked least, cool, leader, trendsetter, athletic, bully, fights, starts rumors, gets their way, disruptive, gets in trouble, shy, sad, good student, and seeks help. Peer group membership was collected using the Social Cognitive Mapping procedure where participants write down the names of “kids who hang around together a lot.” Responses are aggregated together to create a matrix of youth who are in the same peer group. Peer group characteristics were calculated as the average behavior or reputation of group members.
Four victim groups were first identified using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA): convergent victims (n = 49), peer-identified victims (n = 109), self-identified victims (n = 352), and nonvictims (n = 850). We used multilevel mixed-effects linear regression to examine differences victims’ reputations using maximum likelihood estimation, controlling for gender and ethnicity (see Table 1). Results revealed that nonvictims were significantly more popular, cool, athletic, and more likely to be nominated as trendsetters than all other victim groups (ps < .05). Interestingly, there was no difference in victim groups’ nominations for being a bully, fighting, starting rumors, or getting their way. Convergent victims and peer-identified victims were nominated as more disruptive, shy, sad, help seeking, and less friendly compared to self-identified victims and nonvictims. Future analyses will compare the characteristics of victims’ peer groups including how aggressive they are, the average victimization experience of other peer group members, and group similarity in victim status.

Authors

• Molly Dawes, University of South Carolina
  Presenting Author

• Kate E Norwalk, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chin-Chih Chen, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jill Hamm, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Thomas Farmer, College of William & Mary
  Non-Presenting Author