|
Article Excerpt
This study was conducted to assess whether friendship quality and gender moderate the association between peer victimization and internalizing distress. Third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children (N = 670; 315 girls, 355 boys) completed self-report measures of friendship quality, relational and overt physical victimization, anxiety, and depression. Results indicated that several aspects of positive friendship quality, including help and security, serve as effective buffers against both relational and overt victimization. These results were found for girls only and for both anxiety and depression. Results highlight the importance of positive friendship features as protective factors in the link between victimization and internalizing distress.
**********
Victimization is a common and serious part of children's peer interactions (e.g., Craig, 1998; Espelage & Swearer, 2004; Olweus, 1991). In the largest-scale study of bullying in the United States (Nanel, Overpeck, Pilla, Ruan, Simons-Morton, & Scheidt, 2001), 17% of sixth- through tenth-graders reported that they experienced victimization by their peers. Other studies indicate that approximately 10-15% of students are regularly victimized in school (e.g., Boulton & Smith, 1994; Kochenderfer-Ladd & Wardrop, 2001). Although the consequences of victimization are fairly well established (see Espelage & Swearer, 2004; Juvonen & Graham, 2001), there is less evidence to suggest how children may be protected from the negative consequences of victimization. The current study examines friendship quality as a buffer to the internalizing distress that boys and girls may face as a result of peer victimization.
An important positive function of children's friendships is to serve a protective role. Sullivan (1953) contended that establishing a close, supportive, collaborative friendship could compensate for negative experiences in relationships at earlier points in development, such as the parent-child relationship. Hartup (Hartup, 1992; Hartup & Stevens, 1997) suggests that friends can serve as emotional resources. For instance, friends help one another cope with stress, particularly strain concerning relationships. In addition, friends are important for dealing with potentially negative normative (e.g., school transitions) and nonnormative (e.g., parental divorce) events. Friends may serve this protective function through many processes, such as providing a sense of security, promoting effective problem solving, serving as a source of information, and being a trusted confidant. Despite theoretical speculation about this critical function of friendships and knowledge about the negative outcomes associated with peer victimization, relatively few empirical studies have addressed the potential buffering role of friendship in the context of peer victimization (for exceptions, see Bukowski, Sippola, & Boivin, 1995; Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997; Kochendeffer & Ladd, 1997; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999).
The current study examines whether positive friendships serve as a buffer against symptoms of anxiety and depression that result from peer victimization. In addition, because of the distinction between relational and overt physical victimization and the possibility that boys and girls may experience these two types of victimization differently (for a review, see Underwood, 2003), a primary question is whether gender moderates the associations among relational and overt victimization, friendship quality, and anxiety and depression.
Types of Peer Victimization and Internalizing Symptoms
Current conceptualizations of aggression and victimization suggest a distinction between overt physical aggression (e.g., hitting, kicking, punching) and relational or social aggression, which involves attempts to harm another's self-esteem or relationships in the peer group (e.g., social exclusion, manipulating friendships, social rejection). There is substantially more empirical research investigating the negative effects of victimization from overt physical aggression than from relational aggression. Nevertheless, relational aggression is perceived by children to be just as damaging as physical aggression (Crick & Grotpeter, 1996; Paquette & Underwood, 1999). In one of the earliest studies of relational victimization, Crick and Grotpeter (1996) found that being the target of relational aggression explained additional variance in loneliness, depression, social avoidance, and social anxiety after accounting for overt victimization. More recent findings also support the conclusion that relational victimization contributes independently to maladjustment (e.g., Crick & Bigbee, 1998; Crick & Nelson, 2002; Galen & Underwood, 1997; Paquette & Underwood, 1999).
Given the differences between overt physical and relational aggression, the type of victimization children experience may lead to different outcomes. Kochenderfer-Ladd and Ladd (2001) distinguish between the messages conveyed to victims of different forms of peer harassment. They propose that physical aggression sends the message that victims are weak, vulnerable, and unable to protect themselves. As a result, victims of overt physical aggression may be especially likely to fear peers at school and think of school as an unsafe place. These attributions and feelings may lead to anxiety and social avoidance (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Ladd, 2001). In contrast, relational aggression, which targets children's social relationships, may specifically suggest to victims that they do not fit in, are disliked, and are not worthwhile members of the social group. These messages may translate more directly to feelings of low self-esteem, loneliness, and depression.
Hawker and Boulton (2001) apply social rank theory (e.g., Gardner, 1982; Gilbert, 1992) to peer victimization and make similar predictions about differential associations between types of victimization and specific forms of maladjustment. Social rank theory contends that depression and other internalizing problems are associated with both feelings of powerlessness and feelings of not belonging. Hawker and Boulton (2001) suggest that children who are victims of overt physical aggression have low resource-holding potential (i.e., physical prowess and ability to successfully use physical aggression), which helps determine social power in children's peer groups. Applying social rank theory, Hawker and Boulton (2001) suggest that relational victimization directly affects children's feelings of belongingness rather than their resource-holding potential, which is affected by overt physical victimization. Social rank theory further indicates that depression is maintained in part by attacks on belongingness more so than by attacks on resource-holding potential. Thus, depression is expected to be more strongly associated with relational victimization than with overt physical victimization, as Hawker & Boulton (2001) found.
The current study further tests this hypothesis by examining both overt and relational forms of victimization in relation to anxiety and depression. It is predicted that overt victimization will be more strongly associated with anxiety and that relational victimization will be more strongly associated with depression. In addition, social anxiety and worry represent two different types of anxiety. Social anxiety indicates specific distress from and avoidance of social experiences, whereas worry indicates more general anxious apprehension. Thus, the quality of a child's friendships and the experience of peer victimization are expected to impact social anxiety most directly. This hypothesis is consistent with Roth, Coles, and Heimberg's (2002) findings that retrospective reports of childhood victimization were more strongly associated with social anxiety than worry.
Friendship As a Buffer for the Negative Effects of Peer Victimization
Within the peer victimization literature, there is growing evidence that having a friend may provide a buffer against the negative effects of victimization. For example, Mouttapa, Valente, Gallaher, Rohrbach, and Unger (2004) reported a negative relationship between the number of friendship nominations children received and their experience of physical and verbal victimization. In short-term longitudinal investigations, having a best friend was associated with a decrease in overall victimization over the course of a year (e.g., Boulton, Trueman, Chau, Whitehand, & Amatya, 1999; Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999).
Often, however, having a friend is confounded with having a high-quality supportive friendship, yet the quality of the friendship makes independent contributions to children's adjustment (Erdley, Nangle, Newman, & Carpenter, 2001; Hartup, 1996; Parker & Asher, 1993). Friendship quality may be especially important when considering whether friendships provide a buffer against the negative effects of victimization, as it is anticipated that only high-quality friendships would serve this function. High-quality friendships are those in which there are many positive features (e.g., companionship, security and trust, help and support,...
|
