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Loneliness and Social Functioning in Adolescent Peer Victimization

Thu, April 8, 12:55 to 1:55pm EDT (12:55 to 1:55pm EDT), Virtual

Abstract

Background
Interpersonal adversity such as peer victimization has a major impact on children’s and adolescents’ development and well-being and has long-lasting consequences that can lead to short and long-term adjustment difficulties in multiple domains (Arseneault, 2018; McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015).
Among such socio-emotional difficulties, research has consistently shown that loneliness is a strong correlate of peer victimization across cultures and development, particularly during adolescence, regardless of the measurements (i.e., self- versus peer reports) used to investigate this relationship (Boivin & Hymel, 1997; Card & Hodges, 2009; Ribeiro et al., 2019; Woodhouse et al., 2012).
Being victimized by peers appears to encourage anxiously withdrawn behaviors, which in turn may impact on the opportunities youths have to interact within the peer group and develop significant relationships (Haynie et al., 2001; Leary et al., 2006; Schwartz et al., 2001; Veenstra et al., 2005). Thus, it is understandable that many victimized children (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996) and adolescents (Storch & Masia-Warner, 2004) report experiencing elevated levels of loneliness (Crick & Bigbee, 1998; Liu et al., 2018; Nansel et al., 2001).
Very few studies have explored the impact of the family environment on peer victimized children’s psychosocial adjustment. The existing research (Gerard & Buehler, 1999; Guedes et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2001; Lucia & Breslau, 2006) suggests that a lack of open communication, affection, support and secure attachment to mothers and fathers may not only increase the risk for peer victimization at school, but also affect youths’ psychological adjustment, exacerbating, for example, feelings of loneliness (Johnson et al., 2001; Larose & Boivin, 1998; Marturano et al., 2005).

The present study
We used a multidimensional peer-nomination measure (Extended Class Play; Burgess et al., 2003; Correia et al., 2014) to identify three groups: 1) victimized adolescents with anxious-withdrawn behaviors in the peer group, 2) victimized adolescents who did not exhibit anxious-withdrawn behaviors, and 3) non-victimized adolescents. We compared these groups on their peer-reported social functioning (anxious withdrawal, peer victimization, peer exclusion, aggression, prosocial behavior and popularity) and on their self-reported feelings of social and emotional loneliness with peers and family, the two major contexts of youths’ socialization (Relational Provision Loneliness Questionnaire; Hayden-Thomson, 1989).
Participants were N=440 (230 girls) youths (M = 13.14 years, SD = 1.26) attending public schools in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal.

Results
A series of multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) revealed that:
• Anxiously withdrawn victims were viewed by peers as more excluded, less aggressive, less prosocial and less popular than non-withdrawn victims and non-victims.
• Nonanxiously withdrawn victims were considered more excluded than non-victims, and more aggressive than both anxiously withdrawn victims and non-victims.
• Anxiously withdrawn victims reported feeling less integrated and intimate with their peers than non-withdrawn victims and non-victims, which is indicative of greater feelings of social and emotional loneliness at school.
• Youths did not report feeling lonely in their family environment.

Conclusion
Our findings thus provide further evidence that victimized youths constitute a heterogeneous group, which differ in the way they behave toward their peers and experience loneliness.

Authors