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This study aims to examine whether peer victimization predicted disordered eating behaviors during emerging adulthood, and if this relationship was mediated by perceived stress.

Participants included undergraduate females from a diverse university in the Southwestern USA who reported on their experiences of peer victimization, perceived stress and eating behaviors.

Mediation analysis revealed that perceived stress partially mediated the association between peer victimization and perceived stress. Peer victimization significantly predicted eating behaviors even after controlling for perceived stress. An exploratory analysis of the EAT-26 subscales was also conducted.

The present study adds to the literature on peer victimization, eating behaviors and stress by allowing researchers to understand the complexity of these relationships within an emerging adulthood population. The present results can assist individuals working with this population in interventions to prevent instances of victimization, reduce stress and provide psychoeducation for eating disorders.

The present study adds to the literature on peer victimization, eating behaviors and stress by allowing researchers to understand the complexity of these relationships within a college population.

The purpose of this paper is to compare rates of bullying and victimization between 50 adolescents in residential programs and 50 control adolescents in regular public schools. Individual (i.e. peer attachment) and contextual predictors (i.e. parenting styles, school belongingness) were also examined, and investigated in relation to bullying involvement.

Participants were matched based on ethnicity, gender (all male), and parents’ income. They completed questionnaires on their bullying involvement, peer attachment, perceived parenting styles of their parents, and school belongingness.

The findings revealed that adolescents from residential programs had higher rates of bullying and victimization, experienced more permissive parenting styles, had lower peer attachment, and poorer school belongingness when compared to control adolescents. The positive relationship between permissive parenting and bullying was stronger for boys from residential programs. In addition, peer attachment and school belongingness were more negatively related to bullying among control boys. Similar patterns were found for victimization. Differences were also found concerning the relationship of the individual and contextual predictors to adolescents’ bullying and victimization across the two groups.

These results underscore the importance of studying bullying and victimization among adolescents in secure settings, particularly residential programs.

Recent studies indicate that exposure to physical punishment is associated with both aggressive behavior and peer victimization at school. The purpose of this paper is to explore the bidirectional relationship between aggressive behavior and peer victimization as outcomes of physical punishment, as well as the role of depressive symptoms.

A sample of 2,424 Finnish upper primary school pupils (1,282 girls, 1,148 boys, mean age=14.2, SD=1.0) completed an online survey during class. Two conditional process models were applied using a macro for SPSS developed by Hayes (2012).

Exposure to physical punishment was found to be associated with both aggressive behavior and peer victimization at school. The effect on victimization was partially mediated by aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms, whereas the effect on aggressive behavior was partially mediated by peer victimization experiences but not by depressive symptoms. The relationship between physical punishment and peer victimization was somewhat stronger for girls than for boys, but this effect was not accounted for by gender differences in depressive symptoms or aggressive behavior.

Few studies to date have addressed the connection between aggressive behavior and peer victimization as outcomes of physical punishment. In addition, the study expands on the concept of “victim personality” by examining the mediating role of depressive symptoms. Methodologically, the study is an example of how the statistical software SPSS can be used for multiple mediation and conditional process analysis as an alternative to SEM analyses.

Children's responses to peer victimisation are thought to influence the duration of victimisation, yet research has not clearly indicated the best ways for young people to respond. In the current study, students (n = 403, mean age of nine years, 11 months, 55% female, 53% Caucasian) reported on their peer victimisation experiences and responses at the beginning and end of a school year. Teachers also reported on students' victimisation experiences. Cross‐lagged path analysis indicated a reciprocal association between externalising responses and victimisation. Victimisation early in the school year also resulted in increased internalising responses. Findings also suggest that coping responses are more reliably linked to subsequent victimisation rates in young people who are not yet experiencing high levels of victimisation.

In this study, we aimed at examining the unique and interactive effects of peer violence in cyberspace on adolescents’ emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment, as well as the mediational role of resilience in the link between adolescent’s pathogenic relational experiences and behavioral outcomes. Specifically, we intended to explore emotion differentiation and regulation in reaction to bullying perpetration and victimization and in terms of positive (proud, confident, good) and negative (ashamed, excited, guilty), Passive (sad, embarrassed, humiliated) and Reactive (angry, scared) emotions and how it impacted and predicted positive and negative outcomes.

A stratified convenient sample of 494 Italian students aged 13–19 years (M = 15.27, SD = 1.23) was selected to represent all different school types in Italy and the students were administered a self-report questionnaire on school bullying involvement. General Linear Models, ANOVA, and T-tests were employed to explore gender differences, the relationships between variables, and their contribution to the predictive model. A two-step Cluster analysis was used to profile adolescents based on patterns of resilience, health outcomes, and cyberbullying involvement.

Results showed significant gender differences, with females using internet and Facebook more than males and being more resilient, positive, and prosocial, but also responding to victimization with higher levels of alienation, anger, humiliation, and psychosomatic and emotional symptoms. Males perpetrated peer violence more than females, were less likely to be victimized, and were generally less emotionally impacted by it. Victimization rates (63.7%, n = 296) were higher than perpetration rates (51.7%, n = 233) and bully-victimization was prevalent (47.1%). Victims prevalently experienced passive emotions (sadness, humiliation, embarrassment) while perpetrators experienced negative ones (guilt and shame). Cluster analysis evidenced different pathways and trajectories of resilience and cyberbullying involvement: Resilient victims (RV), Healthy uninvolved (HU), Healthy Bullies (HB), Alienated Bully-Victims (ABV), and Resilient Bully-Victims (RBV). RV, HU, and HB resulted all well-adjusted, despite the different involvement in cyberbullying, and also RBV and despite the double involvement in cyberbullying, ABV were the only maladjusted and at-risk group in our sample characterized by very low Positivity, very low Resilience, and extremely high Alienation.

This study proposes a comprehensive, developmental, ecological, relational, and self-regulatory resilience approach to cyberbullying, which represents an innovative and advanced contribution to the literature with significant implication for research and practice. Fully understanding and measuring the emotional impact of cyber peer violence and resilience following cyberbullying victimization and perpetration can help in developing targeted interventions for both victims and bullies. This study highlighted the need for a self-regulatory model of resilience for modulating emotions, arousal, and behaviors across contexts, relationships, and difficulties. It also evidenced that moderate levels of resilience and positivity are sufficient to buffer youth from involvement in cyberbullying and to predict healthy adjustment and less pathological outcomes.

By profiling adolescents based on resilience levels, health outcomes, and cyberbullying involvement, we evidenced five distinct trajectories of risk evaluation for cyberbullying beyond participating roles. Our results confirmed the fundamental importance of assessing resilience and emotion regulatory resources together with peer violence involvement in identifying and targeting adolescents at risk.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered daily life for Gen Z. The purpose of this study was to examine parental perceptions of the pandemic’s effects on their children’s peer relationships. As children sought peer connection during the pandemic, technology usage soared. The second purpose of the current study was to assess how greater time on social media affected adjustment among Gen Z and whether this effect was mediated by experiences of cyber victimization.

In total, 250 U.S. parent-child dyads participated in the study. Parents reported on their children’s social media use and described how they believed the pandemic affected their children’s peer relationships. Child participants were transitioning to middle school and reported on cyber victimization and adjustment.

Thematic analysis of parental reflections revealed three themes: children spent more time online since the onset of the pandemic, there were negative implications of increased time online and there were positive and protective implications of being online. Analysis also indicated significant indirect effects of social media use on internalizing and externalizing problems through victimization.

Parents reported Gen Z continues to use electronic forms of communication and social media at high rates even after pandemic-related restrictions eased with some suggesting that their children prefer digital over face-to-face communication because they have become accustomed to this way of connecting and may find it easier than in-person interaction. Current findings highlight concerns about this increased time online as social media use negatively affected adjustment via cyber victimization.

Physical victimization at school is little studied in impoverished developing country contexts. Moreover, the role of school and classroom contexts as risk factors remains poorly understood.

The aim of the study is to investigate the prevalence of physical victimization in rural Chinese middle schools as well as the individual, teacher/classroom, and school-level risk factors associated with experiencing physical victimization.

We use two waves of longitudinal, representative survey data to perform a multilevel logistic regression analysis (MLRA) of physical victimization among middle school students from 100 villages in one of China’s poorest provinces. We focus on a subset of questionnaire items that were gathered from students when the sampled children were 13–16 years old. We also utilize student data from the first wave of the survey to control for prior internalizing problems and academic achievement. Finally, we link matched data collected from principal and teacher questionnaires to examine the risk factors for physical victimization associated with students’ microclimates and the wider school environment.

A substantial proportion of middle school students (40%) reported having been beaten by classmates. Elevated risk was found among males; students with prior poor performance in language; students with past internalizing problems; students of female teachers and teachers evaluated as low performing; students in disruptive classrooms; and students in classrooms undergoing mandated reforms.

These findings suggest that efforts to reduce school violence should not only focus on the deficits of individual students, but rather should target practices to alter the within school risk factors associated with microclimates.

The present study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Ad Health) to evaluate the effects of exposure to violent victimization in childhood on adolescent delinquency and subsequent adult criminality.

Using Longitudinal Latent Class Analysis (LLCA), the present study investigates whether there are distinct and diverse longitudinal delinquency trajectories among those exposed to violence in childhood.

Findings from the current study indicate that there are three distinct trajectories of delinquency and offending from age 14 to 27 for both males and females exposed to violence in childhood. Further, it appears that violent victimization in childhood bridges the gender gap in delinquency between males and females. Thus, childhood violent victimization, and the fact that females are victimized by parents/caregivers and romantic partners at higher rates than males, might be partially responsible in explaining the narrowing of the gender gap between male and female offending in the recent decades. At the same time, childhood violent victimization also seems to impact males and females in somewhat different ways. Practically, all female victims stop offending by their late 20s, whereas a fairly large proportion of males exposed to violent victimization in childhood steadily continue offending.

Although this study was able to identify the diverse impacts of violence exposure on engagement in subsequent delinquency, it did not examine the unique contributions of each type of violence on adolescent outcomes or the chronicity of exposure to each of these types of violent victimization. We were also not able to measure all types of violence experiences in childhood, such as exposure to parents’ or caregivers’ intimate partner violence.

While early prevention would be the most desirable option for both genders for the most optimal outcome, the retrospective intervention and treatment programs should be gender-specific. For males, they should heavily focus on providing alternative ways to cope with anger, impulse control and frustration, as well as teach empathy, cognitive problem solving skills, verbal communication skills, and tangible life and job skills. For females, most successful intervention and treatment programs may focus on helping the girls through a transition from adolescence to adulthood while providing mental health, medical, and family support services.

The paper uses a unique methodological approach to identify distinct and diverse longitudinal delinquency trajectories. The findings demonstrate how more resilient individuals (in terms of externalizing behaviors) can bring down the mean scores of delinquency even though many other individuals can be severely affected by violence exposure in childhood.

Bullying is a complex phenomenon that is grounded in intricate interactions between an individual and the social and environmental systems that surround the individual. At the present time, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted bully prevention legislation to reduce the prevalence among school-aged youth. Unfortunately, bullying is associated with adverse long- and short-term outcomes, where students with disabilities, including those with behavioral disabilities, may be at escalated risk for involvement and difficulty navigating the effects of prolonged exposure to bullying. Given the complexity of bullying, several participatory roles have been established to help guide identification and intervention delivery by recognizing the reciprocity between bullying and victimization. Most importantly, interventions should be situated within a multitired or component framework and grounded in skill development, where bully prevention programming is delivered to all students based on individual need. By recognizing the risk characteristics and understanding the various student profiles, especially as they related to youth with disabilities, schools can development, adopt, and implementing prevention programming that is designed to simultaneously increase academic, functional, and behavioral development, while decreasing bullying involvement.

This research examined some personal characteristics of victims of bullying in residential care for youth. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A total of 601 young people aged 11-21 from 22 residential facilities in Croatia completed an anonymous self-reported bullying questionnaire, the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Basic Empathy Scale and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale.

The results demonstrated that male and female victims lacked self-esteem, presented with neurotic personality traits and were likely to believe that bullying was just part of life in residential care. Female victims also presented with lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, while male victims were young and had a history of victimisation during their previous placement, in school and at the beginning of their current placements.

Victims in care might benefit from programmes addressing their low self-esteem, high neuroticism and attitudes approving of bullying. Male residential groups should not accommodate young boys together with older boys. New residents who have a history of victimisation during their previous placement and in school should be supervised more intensively but in a manner that does not increase their perception of being victimised.

The present study is the first work that examines individual characteristics of bullying victims in care institutions for young people. As such, the study offers some insights on how to protect residential care bullying victims.