Poster #227 - Relational Victimization and Childhood Depressive Symptoms: Does Classroom Prosocial Behavior Matter?

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Background: Relational victimization has been associated with childhood depressive symptoms (Rudolph et al., 2011; Crick et al., 1998). Relational victimization occurs often in school. However, the influences of the classroom context on the impact of individual exposure to relational victimization on depressive symptom development remains uncertain. Studies showed that the fitness between a classroom norm (prevalence of bullying) and personal experiences (being bullied) could alleviate children’s distress (Morrow, et al., 2018; Schacter & Juvonen, 2018; Huitsing et al., 2012). However, with evidence predominantly focused on negative norms, effects of positive classrooms norms (e.g. prosocial behavior) are unknown. Theoretically, a prosocial classroom could protect relationally bullied children by providing a supportive social network (Hupcey, 1998; Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). However, being bullied in an overall prosocial classroom may also signal the bullied child that his/her behavior is beyond the classroom norm and excebate their distress (Lerner, et al., 1985; Taylor, et al., 1990). The present study, therefore, examined the potential influence of the classroom norm of prosocial behavior on the link between relational victimization and development of depressive symptom among children.
Methods: Children from 19 classes (N = 327, 45.6% boys) were assessed in 5th grade and 6th grade with a 6-month interval (classroom size M = 18 children, range 6–31). Relational victimization was assessed using peer nomination (Cullerton-Sen & Crick 2005). Depressive symptoms were assessed using teacher and peer report. The classroom descriptive norm of prosocial behavior was computed by averaging the peer-reported prosocial behavior scores of all children within a class. A multilevel random effect cross-lagged model was used to study the association between relational-victimization and the development of depressive symptoms (level 1) and the moderating effect of classroom prosocial norms (level 2; see Figure 1).
Results: Relational bullying-victimization predicted increases in depressive symptoms six month later (B = 1.31, SE = 0.38, p = .001). However, this link was significantly moderated by the classroom norm of prosocial behavior (B = 1.09, SE = 0.28, p < .001). The region of classroom prosocial norm, when the association between relational victimization and depressive symptom development was significant, is [-0.28SD, +∞]. This indicated that the predictive association of relational victimization to depressive symptoms becomes significant when the classroom prosocial behavior is at a level of -0.28 SD, and that this association gets stronger as classroom prosocial behavior increases from -0.28 SD (Figure 2). When classroom prosocial behavior is below -0.28 SD, relational victimization does not significantly predict depressive symptom development.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that when classrooms prosocial behavior increases, children who are nonetheless bullied are at risk of developing childhood symptoms of depression. This implies that classroom-based interventions aimed at facilitating prosocial classroom norms should not only focus on the overall improvement of prosocial behaviors in classes, but especially consider individual children who are left out even though the classroom as a whole is prosocial.

Authors

• Jin He, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
  Presenting Author

• Joanne Marieke Buil, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author

• Pol van Lier, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author