Poster #239 - Connecting Online and Offline Social Skills to Adolescents’ Peer Relationships and Self-Worth

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

A significant amount of adolescents’ interpersonal interactions take place through social media. The contextual differences and varied affordances of social media environments can change behaviors and impact outcomes in a way that does not necessarily mirror the offline context. There is a need for research that extends knowledge about social competence in online spaces by exploring how it is similar or different from the offline context and how it impacts self-worth, especially for youth who experience peer victimization (Reich 2017; Valkenburg and Peter 2008). This study explores how social competence offline and online may mediate the relationship between peer victimization and self-worth in adolescents. By considering both contexts separately, the underlying assumption that there are important differences between the two contexts and that these differences have a unique impact on teens who experience peer victimization was tested. Specific objectives include: 1) How do online and offline social competence relate to other measures of social functioning? 2) Do offline and online social competence and online behaviors mediate the relationship between peer problems and psychological adjustment?
303 adolescents (Mage= 15.83) were recruited from three high school in Wisconsin during 2017. The data collection included online surveys where teens reported about their peer-victimization experiences, social skills, perceptions of peers’ acceptance offline and social media acceptance using peer nominations, social media behaviors, and self-worth.
Question 1. We investigated whether online and offline social skills were associated with each other, peer reports, and peer victimization. As depicted in the bivariate correlations in Table 1, Offline social skills were positively correlated with online social skills (r=.18, p<.01), indicating that the two constructs are related but not the same. Offline social skills were positively correlated with acceptance (r=.16, p<.05) and popularity (r=.16, p<.05). Online social skills were positively correlated with social media acceptance (r=.15, p<.05). Peer victimization was negatively correlated with offline social skills (r=-.21, p<.01), online social skills (r=-.18, p<.01), and acceptance (r=-.17, p<.01), but was not significantly correlated with social media acceptance (r=-.05, ns). The pattern of correlations between the constructs of social media status and the traditional peer status constructs diverged in expected ways. Social media acceptance was positively associated with peer acceptance (r=.55, p<.001), but not with popularity (r=.05, ns). Social media impact was positively associated with popularity (r=.62, p<.001), but not with peer acceptance (r=.05, ns).
Question 2. We investigated whether offline and online social competence and online behaviors mediate the relationship between peer problems and psychological adjustment using path analysis. Path analysis indicated that the hypothesized model (Figure 1) fit the data X2(20) =36.735, p=.03, CFI =.94, RMSEA =.04, RMSEA 90% CI = .017-.078. The model supports the hypothesis that peer victimization predicts offline and online social skills, partially supports the hypothesis that peer victimization is related to intensified maladaptive online behaviors and, supports the hypothesis that more online safety behaviors are related to more online social skills and better self-worth. However, online social competence nor online behaviors fully mediate the relationship between peer victimization and self-worth.

Authors

• Felice Resnik, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Amy Bellmore, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author