Conflict with Peers Moderates Longitudinal Associations between Adjustment Problems and Victimization

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

Victimized children are at risk for a host of adjustment difficulties (Hawker & Boulton, 2000). But what predicts victimization? Are some children more apt to be victimized than others? We know that depression and disruptiveness are correlated with victimization, concurrently and longitudinally (Paul & Cillessen, 2003; Cillessen & Lansu, 2015). Less is known about factors that moderate these associations. The present study examines conflict as a potential amplifier, on the assumption that quarrelsome children may be more likely to draw unwelcome attention to themselves, from bullies and bystanders (Laursen & Adams, 2018).
Participants included 353 (181 girls, 172 boys) students attending a public primary school representative of the state of Florida in terms of ethnicity and family income. Students were in the 3rd (8-9 years-old), 4th (9-11 years-old), and 5th (10-11 years-old) grade.
Surveys were administered in class twice, 8 weeks apart. Number of peer conflicts was assessed using cued and uncued questionnaires (Dirghangi, Laursen, Puder, Bjorklund & DeLay, 2014), asking participants to describe the number of conflicts they had with each classmate on the day of data collection overall (uncued) or over 5 specific issues (cued). Conflict scores were summed and standardized. Disruptiveness (“Someone who gets in trouble at school“) was assessed with an unlimited peer nomination procedure (Paul & Cillessen, 2003). Participants completed an 7-item self-report of victimization (Crick & Grotpeter, 1996) and an 10 item self-report of depressive symptoms (Goodman, 1997).
The analyses were designed to examine whether the number of peer conflicts moderated longitudinal associations between initial disruptiveness and initial depressive symptoms, and increases in peer victimization. We conducted a longitudinal moderated path analysis in a structural equation modeling framework with Mplus v8.2 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2018). Multiple-group analyses failed to reveal differences in patterns of association between cued and uncued conflicts, so paths were contrained to be equal across questionnaires.
Figure 1 depicts the results. Time 1 depressive symptoms and Time 1 number of peer conflicts were both positively associated with Time 2 victimization; Time 1 disruptiveness was negatively associated with Time 2 victimization. There were statistically significant interactions between Time 1 depressive symptoms and Time 1 number of conflicts in the prediction of Time 2 victimization and between Time 1 disruptiveness and Time 1 number of conflicts in the prediction of Time 2 victimization.
Figure 2 presents results from follow-up simple slopes analyses (Aiken et al., 1991). Higher initial depressive symptoms and higher initial disruptiveness were associated with greater subsequent increases in peer victimization for children reporting above average conflict with peers but not for children reporting below average conflict with peers.
We conclude that conflict amplifies peer difficulties associated with depressive symptoms and disruptive behavior. Children with adjustment problems may lack the social and emotional skills necssary to effectively deal with conflict (Laursen & Hafen, 2010), particularly frequent conflict, which may draw unwelcome attention to adjustment problems and heightened scrutiny from those who take advantage of them.

Authors

• Michael Joseph Yoho, Florida Atlantic University
  Presenting Author

• Brett Laursen, Florida Atlantic University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sharon Faur, Florida Atlantic University
  Non-Presenting Author