Poster #225 - Peer Rejection of Victimized Early Adolescents: Protective Effects of Classroom Defending

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Peer rejection has been found an important negative consequence of victimization in bullying incidents, but little is known about what characteristics of classroom ecology buffer the effects of victimization on peer rejection. Classroom-level defending of victimized peers (classroom defending) has been called into question, because defending shared among classmates has been suggested as an adaptive characteristic of classroom peer ecologies (Juvonen et al., 2016). Defending, that includes primarily behaviors such as challenging the bullies or comforting the victims, helps not only to stop bullying, but also to improve adjustment of the victims (Salmivalli, 2010). To expand the existing knowledge, the present study aimed to elucidate whether classroom defending attenuate peer rejection of victimized students. The study builds on a theoretical assumption that while bullying communicates to the victim and other students that the victim is disliked and deserves to be treated badly and avoided (Buhs et al., 2006), defending communicates quite the opposite messages. Moreover, defending, especially if shared among classmates, helps to diminish bullying evoked group pressure to exclude the victim from positive peer interactions (Thornberg, 2015). To examine whether victims of bullying get less rejected by peers in classrooms with high levels of defending, we predicted peer rejection increase (between Time 1 and Time 2) from status and changes of victimization and classroom defending, along with their interactions. Peer rejection at Time 1 and gender of participants (with female gender set as 1) were controlled. The primary hypotheses of the present study were: (1) that classroom defending at Time 1 attenuates the positive effect of victimization at Time 1 on peer rejection increase and (2) that classroom defending increase attenuates the positive effect of victimization increase on peer rejection increase. To test these hypotheses, a sample of 751 early adolescents was assessed at two time points. The participants (50.6% girls; Mage at Time 1= 12 years and 11 months, SD = 5 months) attended 39 classrooms of 20 randomly selected schools. Participants filled out a set of valid and reliable peer-report and self-report instruments at the beginning of their seventh grade and after a six-month interval. Two-level models (with students and classrooms as the levels) showed that victimization at Time 1 and victimization increase had positive main effects on peer rejection increase. Our primary hypotheses were only partially confirmed. The interactive effect between victimization at Time 1 and classroom defending at Time 1 failed to reach statistical significance. However, a significant interactive effect between victimization increase and classroom defending increase suggested that students whose victimization increased were less rejected in classrooms where this process was accompanied by increase in classroom levels of defending. The results need further confirmation with other age ranges and broader sets of classroom variables, but they suggest that adverse consequences of victimization for status among peers can be attenuated by favorable classroom context, specifically by high levels of defending victimized peers. The outcomes support the importance of anti-bullying programs that aim to encourage defending (Polanin et al., 2012).

Author

• Lenka Kollerova, Czech Academy of Sciences
  Presenting Author