Poster #102 - Examining Adolescent Peer Victimization, Emotion Regulation, and Mental Health Using Path Analysis

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Background. Peer victimization, a severe form of peer stress, threatens mental health in adolescents in a variety of ways (Fisher et al., 2016; Huang, 2020). Specifically, past research has consistently found that peer victimization is associated with increased internalizing and externalizing problems (Reijntjes et al., 2011; Zhu et al., 2016) and decreased life satisfaction (Kerr et al., 2011; Sumter et al., 2012). To reduce the negative mental health impact of peer victimization, it is critical to understand the mechanism fundamental to this relation. One factor that has been shown as an important factor in the process of coping with stress is emotion regulation (Trompeter et al., 2018). Two emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, have been commonly researched. Cognitive reappraisal is the act of rethinking a situation to elicit an emotion that is less impactful on the individual, whereas expressive suppression refers to inhibiting the expression of one’s emotions (Gullone & Taffe, 2012). Reappraisal has been found to be more consistently beneficial compared to suppression (Chervonsky & Hunt, 2019; McRae et al., 2012). However, it is not clear how these emotion regulation strategies work in the context of peer victimization to affect mental health.
According to different theoretical models (the victim schema model, Rosen et al., 2009; and cognitive behavioral theory, Ferraz de Camargo & Rice, 2020), we hypothesize emotion regulation strategies will have mediating and moderating effects in the relation between peer victimization and mental health. All models were tested through path analyses.
Method. Participants were 386 students (57.5% female; diverse ethnicities) in grades nine through twelve from a mid-south city in the United States. Peer victimization and global life satisfaction were measured by the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents (Thomas et al., 2019) and the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS: Seligson, Huebner, & Valois, 2003), respectively. Two subscales from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman et al., 1998) were used to measure internalizing and externalizing problems. Both emotion regulation strategies were assessed by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (Gullone & Taffe, 2012). The Cronbach’s alphas of these measures based on the current sample ranged from .71 to .87.
Results and conclusion. Main analyses are performed in Mplus 8.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). Model fit of the initial model was acceptable. Regression results indicated that peer victimization significantly predicted life satisfaction (β= -0.22, p < .05), internalizing problems (β= 0.38, p < .001), and externalizing problems (β= 1.20, p < .001). Expressive suppression significantly predicted life satisfaction (β= -0.72, p < .001), externalizing problems (β= 0.86, p < .001, and internalizing problems (β= -0.49, p < .001)). While cognitive reappraisal negatively predicted life satisfaction (β= -0.23, p < .05). Taken together, peer victimization has a detrimental effect on mental health in high school students, and two emotion regulation strategies have varying effects on mental health among adolescents. Moderation and mediation results along with the conclusion on the plausible mechanisms will be reported at the time of the presentation.

Authors

• Kelsey Walker, University of Memphis
  Presenting Author

• Xu Jiang, Temple University