Poster #224 - Collectivism Influences the Moderating Effect of Self-Continuity on the link between Victimization and Depressed Affect

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Rationale: Peer victimization is consistently associated with depressive symptoms during early adolescence. A recent study demonstrated the buffering effect of self-continuity in this association (Santo et al., 2018). Self-continuity reflects the degree to which a person feels that they remain the same over time, regardless of how specific things about them may change. To date, no study has yet to explore these associations using a cross-cultural approach. The current study was designed to assess the moderating effect of self-continuity on the link between peer victimization and depressed affect. We expected that higher self-continuity would buffer the effects of peer victimization. Next, individualism and collectivism in the various samples were included to test the hypothesis that higher collectivism and lower individualism would strengthen the effects of self-continuity.

Method: Data were collected from 735 (54.6% boys) early adolescents (mean age =10.78, S.D. = .95) from Montreal, Canada (n = 179), Curitiba, Brazil (n = 297) and Bogota, Colombia (n = 259). We used same-sex peer nominations (Masten, Morison & Pellegrini, 1985) of victimization (“Others treat them badly”, α(2 items)=.82) and depressed affect (“Someone who is usually sad”, α(2 items)=.75). We also measured self-continuity (“I will be the same person in five years that I am today”; α(3 items)=.78), and self-discontinuity (“I change more than I stay the same”; α(3 items)=.60). Self-reports of classroom individualism (α(3 items)=.72) and collectivism (α(3 items)=.76) were also collected and aggregated to the level of the same sex peer group (n=60). Tests of measurement invariance were conducted to ensure that the continuity/discontinuity and individualism/collectivism were comparable across setting. Multi-level modeling was used to examine how peer victimization was associated to depressed affect in addition to the moderating effect of self-continuity and discontinuity. More importantly, these analyses allowed us to identify differences in the effects at the level of the same-sex peer group (including gender and place testing) and account for those differences using individualism and collectivism.

Results: ANOVA results showed that same-sex peer groups from Curitiba reported significantly higher individualism than the sample from Montreal and higher collectivism than those from Montreal and Bogota. The intra-class correlation revealed that 55.19% of the variability in depressed affect nominations was at the same-sex peer group level.
Within-subject analyses revealed that peer victimization was significantly positively associated with depressed affect reducing prediction error by 19.87%. A number of differences in the effect of peer victimization emerged at the same-sex peer group level. Namely, the association between victimization and depressed affect was stronger among groups from Bogota (Figure 1). Interestingly, the buffering effect of self-continuity was stronger among same-sex peer groups low in individualism.

Discussion: The hypotheses were supported in that peer victimization was associated with depressed affect. Moreover, the moderating role of self-continuity and discontinuity varied as a function of same-sex peer group individualism and collectivism (after controlling for differences across samples). These findings suggest that cultural variability in collectivism may serve to explain the differences seen in the association between victimization and depression among those high in discontinuity.

Authors

• Mary Josephine Carney, Ave Maria University
  Presenting Author

• Josafa Da Cunha, Universidade Federal do Paraná
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lina Saldarriaga, Universidad de Los Andes
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexa Martin-Storey, Université de Sherbrooke
  Non-Presenting Author

• Holly Recchia, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jonathan Santo, University of Nebraska Omaha
  Non-Presenting Author

• William M. Bukowski, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author