Peer victimization and self-concept among Brazilian adolescents

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

Rationale: Relationships with other people at school are a fundamental context for adolescents’ development. It is important to consider that, in some cases, these interactions can also be marked by acts of aggression and peer victimization, causing harm for the construction of different aspects of adolescents’ self (Chu et al., 2019). Self-concept is defined as a construct that addresses a person's self-perceptions about their own abilities in different areas of life. Further studies are needed to investigate the association between situations of violence that occur in Brazilian schools and the process of developing students' beliefs about themselves. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between aggression, victimization among peers and self-concept (cognitive, social, physical and global) of Brazilian adolescents.

Method: Participants were 706 Brazilian adolescents (Mage = 13.39, SD = 1.94; 52.8% girls; 55.1% white) who during the year 2017 were enrolled in public schools in Brazil. During data collection, students answered a questionnaire consisting of cognitive (α = 0.78), social (α = 0.77), physical (α = 0.88) and global self-concept (α = 0, 72), aggression (α = 0.83) and peer victimization (α = 0.85). After data processing, descriptive analyzes and structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed to evaluate the data distribution and to test the main hypotheses of the study. For testing the hypotheses via SEM, the latent variable (LV) “aggression” was formed from the components of direct aggression (three items) and relational (three items), while the LV “peer victimization” was composed of six items. In addition, self-concept was also inserted as a latent variable, formed by the dimensions: cognitive (three items), social (four items), physical (five items) and global self-concept (three items).

Results: According to figure 1, results revealed that peer victimization was a negative and significant predictor of self-concept (B = -0.339, p = 0.06 p <0.01), especially in the global (r = 0.90) and social dimensions (r = 0.72), but also in the physical (r = 0.51) and cognitive (0.35) areas, which means that as the adolescent suffers more victimization, their scores of self-concept decrease. On the other hand, aggression was not significantly associated with self-concept, but it was positively correlated with victimization (r = 0.52), indicating that adolescents who are involved in a type of victimization / aggression are more likely to live other types, and enter this cycle where roles are switched.

Discussion: Results underline the importance of adolescents 'relationships with other people, specifically peer victimization, which can significantly influence adolescents' self-concept.

Authors

• Bianca Nicz Ricci, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR)
  Presenting Author

• Josafá M. Da Cunha, Federal University of Parana
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matheus do Nascimento Batista, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR)
  Non-Presenting Author