Children's treatment by peers: Victims of relational and overt aggression

Abstract

Past research on peer victimization has focused on maltreatment through overtly aggressive behaviors. Although a relational form of aggression has been identified in recent research, studies of the victims of relational aggression have not yet been conducted. The present research was designed as a first attempt to address this issue. Four goals were pursued (n = 474; third- through sixth-grade children): (a) development of a self-report measure of victimization through relational and overt aggression; (b) assessment of the relation between overt victimization and relational victimization; (c) assessment of gender, grade, and sociometric status group differences in victimization; and (d) evaluation of the relation between victimization and social-psychological adjustment. Results showed that the newly developed victimization measure had favorable psychometric properties and that most of the identified victims were the targets of cither relational or overt aggression, but not both. Further, rejected children were more relationally and overtly victimized than their better accepted peers, and boys were more overtly victimized than girls. Finally, relational victimization, overt victimization, and the lack of prosocial treatment by peers were all significantly related to social-psychological adjustment difficulties (e.g., depression, loneliness).

A review of sex differences in peer relationship processes: Potential trade-offs for the emotional and behavioral development of girls and boys.

“…Although some studies suggest that relational/social victimization is more common among girls than boys (e.g., Crick & Bigbee, 1998;Schafer, Werner, & Crick, 2002), many studies indicate no sex difference (e.g., Baldry & Winkel, 2003;Crick & Grotpeter, 1996;Prinstein, Boergers, & Vernberg, 2001 Another set of studies examines stress specifically in the context of dyadic friendships. Studies of middle childhood and adolescent youth generally are consistent in indicating that girls and boys report similar levels of conflict in their friendships (Bukowski et al, 1994;Furman & Buhrmester, 1985;Lempers & Clark-Lempers, 1993;Parker & Asher, 1993;Rose & Asher, 1999 although at least one study favored boys (Patterson et al, 1990) and one favored girls (Forteza, Snyder, Palos, & Tapia, 1996).…”

Children draw more affiliative pictures following priming with third-party ostracism.

“…It is well-documented that even these young children experience loneliness and exclusion (e.g., Crick et al, 1996) and prior experimental work has shown that they are sensitive to ostracism primes (Over & Carpenter, 2009;Watson-Jones et al, 2014). Using this age range also enabled a preliminary investigation into when children's understanding of, and responses to, ostracism emerge developmentally.…”

Understanding Mechanisms of Change in the Development of Antisocial Behavior: The Impact of a Universal Intervention

“…Children's self-reports of victimization of overt and relational bullying at age 11 years were obtained with the Social Experience Questionnaire (SEQ; Crick & Grotpeter, 1996). The SEQ consists of the scales Relational Victimization (e.g., How often does another kid say they won't like you unless you do what they want you to do?)…”