Does being defended relate to decreases in victimization and improved psychosocial adjustment among victims?

Abstract

School bullying is a clear violation of children's rights to a safe education and is a major concern among school professionals and parents. Many antibullying interventions focus on enhancing peer defending of victims to combat bullying and to promote victims' psychosocial functioning. However, longitudinal studies on the effects of being defended on (a) diminishing victimization and (b) enhancing victims' psychosocial adjustment are lacking, and the role of the broader peer context has been largely unexplored. Therefore, this study examined whether being defended decreases victimization and improves victims' psychosocial adjustment, and whether defending peer norms moderate these effects. Data were derived from a nationwide Dutch study on the effectiveness of antibullying interventions, with N = 5,415 students (M age = 9.93; 48.3% girls) from 238 classrooms (54.2% control classrooms) in 68 elementary schools. Findings indicate that victims with at least one defender at the start of the school year (Time 1) experienced higher feelings of belonging at the end of the school year (Time 2) compared with nondefended victims, but experienced lower feelings of belonging compared with nonvictims. Defended victims did not differ from nondefended victims in self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and severity of victimization at Time 2. Nonvictims were significantly better adjusted than defended and nondefended victims regarding these outcomes. Descriptive and popularity norms for defending did not moderate the links between being defended and victims' adjustment and severity of victimization at Time 2. Thus, being defended only partly relieves victims' plight, irrespective of how normative defending behaviors are in classrooms. Educational Impact and Implications StatementBullying is a pervasive problem among school-aged youth, with disastrous effects on victims' psychosocial functioning. The recognition that bullying is a group process has led many interventions to promote peer defending (e.g., standing up against bullies, consoling victims) in the hope that it stops bullying and improves victims' psychosocial adjustment. But does being defended actually help victims? The current study indicates that being defended only partly relieves victims' plight by increasing their feelings of belongingness to the peer group. Being defended did not reduce victimization and depressive feelings, nor promoted victims' selfesteem. Thus, the beneficial effects of being defended may be more limited than currently assumed, and more research is needed on whether and how the effectiveness of peer defending can be increased.

Bullying Prevention in Adolescence: Solutions and New Challenges from the Past Decade

“…Strikingly, a third of victims with a support group even reported that their victimization levels had increased—despite having more defenders ( van der Ploeg et al, 2016 ). A longitudinal study indicated that defended and non-defended victims (at the start of the school year) had comparable levels of victimization at the end of the school year ( Laninga-Wijnen, van den Berg, Garandeau, Mulder, & de Castro, in press ).…”

The dynamic associations between social dominance goals and bullying from middle to late childhood: The moderating role of classroom bystander behaviors.

“…On the other hand, although bystander interventions have been encouraged in antibullying programs (Salmivalli, 2014), recent evidence has put into question the capacity of defending behavior to decrease bullying and improve victims’ psychosocial functioning (Healy, 2020; Laninga-Wijnen et al, 2022). Our results showed that classroom defending behaviors mitigated the association between social dominance goals and bullying.…”

Does defending affect adolescents' peer status, or vice versa? Testing the moderating effects of empathy, gender, and anti‐bullying norms

“…Even though defending may be helpful for victims of bullying (Laninga‐Wijnen et al, 2022; Sainio et al, 2011), it is thus far unclear whether bully‐directed forms of defending place defenders themselves at risk. These types of defending go against the goals and behaviors of powerful bullies, and therefore may require a high peer status and be potentially costly in terms of status.…”

“…To ensure reliability and validity of peer‐nomination scores, we selected classrooms with at least 10 participating students at all waves ( n = 4376; cf. Laninga‐Wijnen et al, 2022) and with a participation rate of at least 40%, resulting in a sample of 3680 students in 211 classrooms (including 112 seventh‐grade classrooms). Participants were on average 13.94 years of age (SD = 0.74), 53.0% identified themselves as girls, and the majority of participants were born in Finland (83.9%).…”