Is preventing peer victimization sufficient? The role of prosocial peer group treatment in children's socioemotional development

Abstract

Despite extensive research on the harmful effects of peer victimization, little is known about whether prosocial treatment from peers contributes to healthy socioemotional development. To address this issue, 366 third and fourth graders (170 boys; M age 5 9.34) were followed over three time points. Children completed measures of prosocial peer treatment, peer victimization, depressive affect, and friendship quality. Teacher-reports of depressive affect and peerreports of aggression, victimization, and friendships were also obtained. Controlling for peer victimization, number of friends, and friendship quality, prosocial peer treatment negatively predicted depressive affect. For boys, prosocial peer treatment mediated the association between victimization and teacher-reported depressive affect. These findings underscore the importance of prosocial peer group treatment and the need to broaden the goals of anti-bullying interventions to include the promotion of positive peer interactions. K E Y W O R D S aggression, depression, peers/peer relations, prosocial behavior, victimization

Receiving Prosocial Behavior: Examining the Reciprocal Associations between Positive Peer Treatment and Psychosocial and Behavioral Outcomes

“…The dearth of research in this area is surprising as it is actually more common for children and young adolescents to report positive than negative interactions with friends and peers (Sandstrom & Cillessen, ). Moreover, there is some evidence showing that young adolescents are impacted uniquely when they receive positive treatment from their peers (e.g., Bowker, ; Troop‐Gordon & Unjhem, ). The current study focuses on one specific type of positive peer experience, positive peer treatment (i.e., receiving positive behavior from many peers; also referred to as positive peer group treatment and prosocial peer group treatment; Bowker, , Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ).…”

“…Moreover, there is some evidence showing that young adolescents are impacted uniquely when they receive positive treatment from their peers (e.g., Bowker, ; Troop‐Gordon & Unjhem, ). The current study focuses on one specific type of positive peer experience, positive peer treatment (i.e., receiving positive behavior from many peers; also referred to as positive peer group treatment and prosocial peer group treatment; Bowker, , Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ). Unlike individual prosocial behavior (when adolescents themselves engage in altruistic, kind, caring, or cooperative behaviors that are intended to benefit others; Eisenberg & Fabes, ) and support received within dyadic friendships (or friendships between two youth), positive peer treatment involves being the recipient of kind and nice behaviors from many peers (Bowker, ).…”

“…Positive peer treatment has been investigated previously for its associations with several psychosocial and behavioral outcomes during childhood and adolescence (i.e., lower levels of victimization and depressive symptoms, higher prosocial behavior; e.g., Blake, Kim, Sohn McCormick, & Hayes, ; Crick, Grotpeter, & Rockhill, ; Storch, Brassard, & Masia‐Warner, ; Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ). Most of these studies, however, utilized cross‐sectional designs or only addressed unidirectional influences from positive peer treatment to the outcomes over time.…”

“…Moreover, some of these links may be bidirectional, such that positive peer treatment may be both a precursor and a consequence of several types of functioning. Informed by theory and past research (e.g., Bowker, ; Sullivan, ; Trivers, ; Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ), this study evaluates these potential prospective and bidirectional associations between positive peer treatment and four important facets of adolescent adjustment, popularity, social preference, prosocial behavior, and psychological well‐being. We focus on these associations during the early adolescent developmental period (10‐14 years), when both positive and negative peer experiences have a significant and increasingly large impact on psychosocial and behavioral adjustment and well‐being (Rubin et al, ).…”

“…There exist few longitudinal studies, but the results from two show that positive peer treatment predicts decreasing depressive affect (Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ) and loneliness over time (Griese & Buhs, ). Such findings underscore the importance of research on positive peer group treatment and may be explained by the “power” of kind and prosocial peer treatment to bolster positive beliefs of self‐worth and feelings of group belonging during a developmental period in which such peer group experiences are critically important (Crick et al, ; Sullivan, ; Troop‐Gordon & Unhjem, ). Therefore, we expect to find that positive peer treatment will predict decreases in psychological distress (a combined loneliness and depressive symptoms variable) over time in our study ( Hypothesis 3 ).…”