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Poster #90 - Who cares about you when you’re young? Social support attenuates the association between victimization and academic difficulties

Sat, March 23, 2:30 to 3:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

The present study examines the association between peer victimization and academic adjustment among emerging adults. Specifically, it investigates how the availability of social support from friends, parents and teachers may moderate the association between victimization in school adjustment. Participants were 376 emerging adults (Mean age = 22.1 years; S.D. =3.1), mostly females (64.9%), self-reported as white (69.4%), brown (20.5%), black (8.2%) and Asian (1.3%). First, we created the latent factor of victimization as a predictor of academic difficulties. The latent factor was comprised of the measures of discrimination, victimization at university, victimization by peers, bullied, cyber victimization and a sum of the various forms of abuse). All of the indicators loaded positively and significantly onto the factor (standardized factor loadings ranged from .40 to .63). As expected, victimization was a positive correlate of academic difficulties (β = .33, S.E. = .06, z = 5.69, p < .05) .The latent factor of victimization accounted for 11.11% of the variability in academic difficulties. The resulting model was a good fit to the data (χ2(14) = 15.39, p > .05, CFI = .99, RMSEA = .02, SRMR = .03). We then added the latent factor of social support as an additional predictor of academic difficulties. The latent factor was comprised of the measures of family support, friend support, significant other support and positive treatment from peers. All of the indicators loaded positively and significantly onto the factor (standardized factor loadings ranged from .50 to .79). Not surprisingly, social support was a negative correlate of academic difficulties (β = -.23, S.E. = .06, z = 3.99, p < .05) above and beyond the effect of victimization. Adding the latent factor of social support explained an additional 4.79% of the variability in academic difficulties. The resulting model was a good fit to the data (χ2(42) = 87.12, p < .05, CFI = .92, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .06). Next, the effects of the covariates (age, gender, the non white dummy variable and year of study) were included as correlates of academic difficulties. Only gender was a significant predictor with women reporting more academic difficulties than men. The covariates accounted for an additional 4.34% of the variability in academic difficulties. Though the model fit depreciated somewhat, likely due to the non-significant effects of the added covariates, it remained acceptable (χ2(82) = 204.41, p < .05, CFI = .83, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .07). In the final model, the latent interaction between victimization and social support was added as a predictor of academic difficulties. As hypothesized, the negative between social support and academic difficulties was stronger among those low in victimization (figure 1). The addition of the interaction reduced variability in academic difficulties by an additional 4.14% (22.88% all told). Final model estimates are presented in figure 2. Discussion acknowledges the limitations of the study, while highlighting potential avenues for future studies.

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