You've got a friend(ly school): Can school prosocial norms and friends similarly protect victims from distress?

Abstract

Testing the potential protective effects of school-level prosocial norms and having friends on peer victimization-related distress, this study examined whether one protective factor is particularly important in the absence of the other. An ethnically diverse sample (N 5 5,991) from 26 middle schools reported on peer prosocial behavior, social anxiety, loneliness, and perceived school safety; peer nominations assessed victimization and friends. Multilevel analyses revealed that sixth grade friendless victims felt significantly less anxious, lonely, and unsafe a year later in schools characterized by stronger peer prosocial norms (e.g., helping others). Additionally, victims in less prosocial schools experienced less social anxiety if they had at least one friend. The findings suggest that attending a school characterized by prosocial peer norms can compensate for high social risk (victimized and friendless) following the transition to middle school, and having friends is important for bullied youth in less prosocial school contexts. These results highlight the importance of simultaneously studying relational and school-level protective factors; implications for anti-bullying interventions are discussed. K E Y W O R D S adolescence, friendship, peers/peer relations, schools, victimization

How School Contexts Shape the Relations Among Adolescents’ Beliefs, Peer Victimization, and Depressive Symptoms

“…The negative effect of hostile environments is reflected in earlier research on bullying and peer aggression, showing the negative mental health consequences of witnessing bullying at school for nonvictim students (Rivers et al, 2009) and becoming more aggressive from being in an aggressive environment (Henry et al, 2000). Being in a hostile environment can thus elevate feelings of threat for those who are individually victimized (Schacter & Juvonen, 2018b), especially for those who already have deterministic beliefs that they are unable to escape victimization. By contrast, adolescents who endorse an incremental theory, believing that it is possible for their victimization to change, may not consider having more fellow victims as a potent threat.…”

“…From this perspective, being victimized in an unsafe, high-victimization environment is harmful because it creates the perception that escaping victimization is almost inevitable and that one needs to be constantly vigilant to a strong threat. It was shown that witnessing bullying at school predicted risks to mental health over and above direct experiences of victimization (Rivers, Poteat, Noret, & Ashurst, 2009), that schools in which aggression was considered more normative were linked to greater individual aggression (Henry et al, 2000), and that victims in schools with lower prosocial (i.e., helping each other) norms felt more distressed and perceived their school climate as more unsafe (Schacter & Juvonen, 2018b).…”

“Would You Be My Friend?”: Friendship Selection and Contagion Processes of Early Adolescents Who Experience Victimization

“…In the same line, future studies can examine classroom norms, for example, whether aggressive peers are popular in the classroom and whether students really act against victimization and defend each other in these situations. For instance, a recent study found that both prosocial school norms and having friends buffer against the negative effects of victimization (Schacter & Juvonen, 2018b). Finally, as girls often focus more on prosocial behaviors and boys behave more aggressively than girls, future studies might include interaction effects between students’ gender and friendships selection and influence processes.…”

The Role of Aggressive Peer Norms in Elementary School Children’s Perceptions of Classroom Peer Climate and School Adjustment

“…When aggression is endorsed by popular peers, students tend to be reluctant to behave against this norm nor do they feel the urge to intervene in bullying (Peets et al, 2015). This possibly enhances victims' feeling that nobody cares about them (Schacter & Juvonen, 2018). Consequently, victims may feel worse when aggressive popularity norms are higher (Hypothesis 2b).…”

“…It is possible that when aggression is endorsed by popular peers, students are less likely to behave against this norm, nor intervene in bullying (Peets et al, 2015)-perhaps because they fear becoming a victim themselves or because they view the aggressive behaviors in a positive light and therefore do not feel the need to intervene. This possibly enhances victims' feeling that nobody cares about them (Schacter & Juvonen, 2018), and hence, results in enhanced school maladjustment among victims.…”