Differences in Aggression and Alcohol Use among Youth with Varying Levels of Victimization and Popularity Status

Abstract

Awareness that high-status adolescents can be targets of aggression has grown in recent years. However, questions remain about the associations of the confluence of victimization and popularity with adjustment. The current study fills this gap by examining the joint and unique effects of victimization and popularity on aggression and alcohol use. Participants were 804 Dutch adolescents (50.2% boys, Mage = 13.65) who were followed for one year. High-status victims were more aggressive and drank more alcohol than lower-status victims. High-status victims were also more proactively and indirectly aggressive and self-reported more bullying than high-status non-victims. Thus, the findings demonstrated a conjoined risk of victimization and popularity for some types of aggression.

Bullying and Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization: Prospective Within-Person Associations

“…Role inversion indicates a process in which those involved in one role are more likely to become involved in the other role: victimization may subsequently become perpetrators, and vice versa (Falla et al, 2022 ; Lee et al, 2021 ; Pabian & Vandebosch, 2016 ). Perpetrators of bullying may unknowingly make enemies of people more powerful than themselves, thereby becoming targets of bullying (Malamut et al, 2022 ). Victims of bullying may come to learn that perpetration is a path toward perceived popularity (if not peer acceptance; Strindberg et al, 2020 ) and begin bullying other less powerful them themselves.…”