Adolescent Peer Victimization and Parental Emotion Socialization: A Longitudinal Study

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Peer victimization (PV) includes physical (e.g., being hit) and relational victimization (e.g., being teased or excluded; Crick & Bigbee, 1998). Both types are related to negative outcomes (Hawker & Boulton, 2000). When interacting with peers, adolescents’ emotional skills foster appropriate reactions to social situations, which often relates to less PV (Trentacosta & Fine, 2010). Parental emotion socialization (ES) is crucial for children’s developing understanding of their own emotions as well as others’ (Klimes-Dougan et al., 2007), and thus may serve as a potential protective factor of PV. The current study explored longitudinal relations of parental ES and adolescents’ PV in early adolescence. Based on previous research (e.g., Kochenderfer-Ladd, & Skinner, 2002; Stadler et al., 2010), sex, parental education, and bullying perpetration were included as moderators.
Participants were 87 adolescents (M age=14.23, SD=.50) who participated in the Spring of 8th grade (n=87; 50 girls), Fall of 9th grade (n=57; 36 girls), and Fall of 10th grade (n=42; 23 girls) with their parents (predominantly mothers, mostly Caucasian, most with a college degree). At each time point, adolescents reported their parents’ supportive and unsupportive ES responses (O’Neal & Magai, 2005) and their PV and bullying behavior (Espelage & Holt, 2001; Orpinas, 1993). Using HLM, unconditional growth models examined change over time in all study variables, and linear growth models examined bidirectional links between parental ES and adolescent PV.
As Table 1 shows, boys reported a higher level of physical PV than girls at T1. Adolescent sex and bullying perpetration moderated the association of parental supportive ES and relational PV. Boys’ relational PV stayed stable, whereas girls with more parental supportive ES reported decreasing relational PV over time. Youth who reported perpetrating bullying reported less relational PV than those who did not when they experienced more parental supportive ES over time. Adolescents who experienced more parental unsupportive ES reported more relational PV over time. This effect was stronger for boys than girls, and weaker for adolescents who reported perpetrating bullying than for those who reported no bullying perpetration.
Results of conditional models examining effects of PV on parental supportive and unsupportive ES are reported in Table 2. Increases in relational victimization were associated with both more supportive and more unsupportive ES over time. The effect on parental supportive ES was moderated by adolescent sex. Increases in relational victimization were associated with more supportive parental ES for boys and less supportive ES for girls over time. The effect on parental unsupportive ES was moderated by adolescent bullying perpetration. Compared with adolescents who reported perpetrating bullying, those with no bullying reported more parental unsupportive ES when they experienced more relational PV over time.
Overall, youth who perpetrate bullying appear to experience weaker bidirectional parent and peer influences. Results suggest that adolescent girls and boys may benefit differently from parents’ emotional socialization in relation to their experiences of relational PV. Sons may benefit when parents avoid unsupportive ES, whereas daughters may benefit when parents maintain supportive ES.

Authors

• Danhua Zhu, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Miller-Slough, East Tennessee State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Pamela Watkins Garner, George Mason University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie C Dunsmore, University of Houston
  Non-Presenting Author