Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations Between Psychosocial Risk Factors and Peer Victimization Among Elementary School Children

Introduction:  Peer victimization affects a considerable number of youth worldwide. Several decades of research point to a number of consequences for those involved. Evidence on traditional forms of victimization (verbal, relational, and physical) has identified individual and ecological risk factors, including internalizing disorders, low self-esteem, poor relationships with peers, and low connection to school. However, less in known about the ways in which risk factors may differ by the form of peer victimization, especially with the emergence of cyber forms of victimization in recent years. Although research examining cyber aggression has increased rapidly in the past decade, surprisingly few longitudinal studies to date have investigated this form of victimization, particularly for children under 10 years of age. Yet recent evidence suggests that cyber victimization is a salient problem for elementary school aged children that cannot be ignored. To that end, the present study examines concurrent and longitudinal associations between psychosocial risk factors and verbal, relational, physical, and cyber forms of victimization among a sample of 3^rd – 5^th grade students.

Methods: A total of 455 students participated in the study from three elementary schools (50.7% female; M age = 9.8, SD = .89). Participants completed measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms, self-esteem, perception of peers, social acceptance, school connection, aggressive behavior, and frequency of peer victimization exposure in fall 2014 (T1) and spring 2015 (T2). Separate path models were run in Mplus 7.3 where psychosocial risk factors, gender, and age from T1 were regressed onto verbal, relational, physical, and cyber victimization at T1 and T2 to examine concurrent and longitudinal associations, using the CLUSTER command to account for clustering at the school level. 

Results: Results reveal different patterns of risk by the form of victimization highlighting risk factors for exposure to peer victimization may differ based on the form of the behavior. Patterns also differed slightly for concurrent as compared to longitudinal associations. For example, when examining cyber, self-esteem and perception of peers predicted T1 victimization but only anxiety predicted T2 victimization. Several gender and age differences were also found.

Conclusions: Importantly, these findings extend the research on risk factors for peer victimization, notably by including cyber, which has seldom been the focus of longitudinal research among elementary school children. Results suggest different targets for prevention and intervention may exist by form. Recommendations for developing and testing such strategies will be discussed.