This investigation's aims were to map prevalence, normative trends, and patterns of continuity or change in school-based peer victimization throughout formal schooling (i.e., Grades K-12), and ...determine whether specific victimization patterns (i.e., differential trajectories) were associated with children's academic performance. A sample of 383 children (193 girls) was followed from kindergarten (Mage = 5.50) through Grade 12 (Mage = 17.89), and measures of peer victimization, school engagement, academic self-perceptions, and achievement were repeatedly administered across this epoch. Although it was the norm for victimization prevalence and frequency to decline across formal schooling, 5 trajectory subtypes were identified, capturing differences in victimization frequency and continuity (i.e., high-chronic, moderate-emerging, early victims, low victims, and nonvictims). Consistent with a chronic stress hypothesis, high-chronic victimization consistently was related to lower-and often prolonged-disparities in school engagement, academic self-perceptions, and academic achievement. For other victimization subtypes, movement into victimization (i.e., moderate-emerging) was associated with lower or declining scores on academic indicators, and movement out of victimization (i.e., early victims) with higher or increasing scores on these indicators (i.e., "recovery"). Findings provide a more complete account of the overall prevalence, stability, and developmental course of school-based peer victimization than has been reported to date.
Findings yielded a comprehensive portrait of the predictive relations among children's aggressive or withdrawn behaviors, peer rejection, and psychological maladjustment across the 5-12 age period. ...Examination of peer rejection in different variable contexts and across repeated intervals throughout childhood revealed differences in the timing, strength, and consistency of this risk factor as a distinct (additive) predictor of externalizing versus internalizing problems. In conjunction with aggressive behavior, peer rejection proved to be a stronger additive predictor of externalizing problems during early rather than later childhood. Relative to withdrawn behavior, rejection's efficacy as a distinct predictor of internalizing problems was significant early in childhood and increased progressively thereafter. These additive path models fit the data better than did disorder-driven or transactional models.
A longitudinal investigation was conducted to explicate the network of associations between depressive symptoms and peer difficulties among 486 fourth through sixth graders (M = 9.93 years). Parent ...and teacher reports of depressive symptoms; peer, self, and teacher reports of victimization; and peer reports of peer acceptance were obtained. A systematic examination of nested structural equation models provided support for a symptoms-driven model whereby depressive symptoms contributed to peer difficulties; no evidence was found for interpersonal risk or transactional models. Analyses further revealed that victimization mediated the association between prior depressive symptoms and subsequent peer acceptance. Results extend knowledge about the temporal ordering of depressive symptoms and peer difficulties and elucidate one process through which depressive symptoms disrupt peer relationships.
Premises about the effects of early engagement on achievement were investigated with 383 children who were followed from ages 5.5 to 13.5. Change and continuity in behavioral (cooperative-resistant ...classroom participation) and emotional (school liking-avoidance) engagement were assessed during Grades 1-3 and were examined within variable- and person-oriented analyses as antecedents of scholastic progress from Grades 1 to 8. Findings corroborated the premises that change as well as continuity in early school engagement is predictive of children's long-term scholastic growth. Compared to children who participated cooperatively in classrooms, those who became increasingly resistant across the primary grades displayed lesser scholastic growth. Among children who manifested enduring engagement patterns, those who exhibited a combination of higher behavioral and emotional engagement across the primary grades made greater academic progress than those who displayed lower levels of these two forms of engagement. Overall, the results of this investigation were consistent with the school engagement hypothesis and extend what is known about the predictive contributions of early school engagement to children's achievement.
To investigate the developmental course of aggression and peer victimization in childhood and adolescence, distinct subgroups of children were identified based on similarities and differences in ...their physical, verbal and relational aggression, and victimization. Developmental continuity and change were assessed by examining transitions within and between subgroups from Grades 1 to 11. This longitudinal study consisted of 482 children (50% females) and was based on peer report data on multiple forms of aggression and peer victimization. Using person-centered methods including latent profile and latent transition analyses, most of the identified subgroups were distinguishable by their frequencies (i.e., levels) of aggression and victimization, rather than forms (physical, verbal, and relational), with the exception of 1 group that appeared to be more form-specific. Across subgroups, multiple developmental patterns emerged characterized as early and late-onset, social interactional continuity, desistance, and heterotypic pathways. Collectively, these pathways support the perspective that the development of aggression and peer victimization in childhood and adolescence is characterized by heterogeneity.
Abstract Study aims were to: (a) describe normative levels and person-oriented developmental trends in loneliness across adolescence, and (2) examine the association between loneliness and depressive ...symptoms during this same epoch. Participants included 478 youth (239 males and females; 80% Caucasian, 16% African American, and 4% other). Measures of loneliness and multiple indicators of depressive symptoms were gathered yearly across grades 6 through 12 (ages 12–18). Findings implied that most adolescents experience loneliness more strongly during early rather than later adolescence, but not all adolescents traverse the same loneliness trajectories. Youth followed one of five distinct trajectories, characterized as: (a) stable non-lonely, (b) stable low lonely, (c) stable high (chronic) lonely, (d) moderate decliners, and (e) steep decliners. Adolescents following stable high and moderate loneliness trajectories displayed the most depressive symptoms and, although informant differences were found, these youth also manifest the largest gains in depressive symptoms over time.
Childhood aggression-disruptiveness (AD), chronic peer rejection, and deviant friendships were examined as predictors of early-adolescent rule-breaking behaviors. Using a sample of 383 children (193 ...girls and 190 boys) who were followed from ages 6 to 14, peer rejection trajectories were identified and incorporated into a series of alternative models to assess how chronic peer rejection and deviant friendships mediate the association between stable childhood AD and early-adolescent rule breaking. There were multiple mediated pathways to rule breaking that included both behavioral and relational risk factors, and findings were consistent for boys and girls. Results have implications for better understanding the influence of multiple social processes in the continuity of antisocial behaviors from middle childhood to early adolescence.
This study examined the associations between children's co-occurring relational and physical aggression trajectories and their peer relations (i.e., peer rejection, peer acceptance, and reciprocated ...friendships) from late childhood (Grade 4; Mage = 10.0) to early adolescence (Grade 8; Mage = 13.9). Using a sample of 477 children (240 girls), the findings indicated there were multiple heterogeneous subgroups of children who followed distinct co-occurring aggression trajectories. For each of these subgroups, multiple indices of their relational development were assessed and findings revealed notable group differences. These results have implications about the potential costs and benefits of aggression, and how its associations with children's peer relationships may vary as a function of aggression subtype, developmental timing, and gender.
A diathesis-stress model was proposed in which the joint forces of individual vulnerability (anxious solitude) and interpersonal adversity (peer exclusion) predict depressive symptoms in children ...over time. Children's (N = 388; 50% female) social behavior, peer exclusion, and emotional adjustment were assessed at kindergarten entry and every spring thereafter through 4th grade, primarily by teacher report. Results indicated that anxious solitude and peer exclusion co-occur in children soon after kindergarten entry and that anxious solitary children who are excluded early on, in comparison with their nonexcluded anxious solitary counterparts, display greater stability in their subsequent display of anxious solitude. As hypothesized, the joint influence of anxious solitude and exclusion predicted the most elevated depressive symptom trajectories.
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