This study examines the relationships between peer victimization, peer relations and depression among adolescents, with a focus on the moderating roles of peer rejection, peer acceptance and reciprocal friendships on the association between peer victimization and depression. A sample of 605 adolescents (average age 13.5 years) completed measures…

Victimization by bullying is often treated as a unitary construct, although there are multiple dimensions that are likely to affect the impact of the experience for the victim. Latent class analyses were used to identify classes of victimization by (a) form of bullying (seven categorical items), (b) perceptions of motivation for victimization (15…

This study aimed to examine the psychosocial predictors of peer bullying among middle school students. For this purpose, structural equation modeling (SEM), including peer bullying, school culture, parental rejection, basic psychological needs, and social emotional learning (SEL) skills, was tested. The data were collected from 565 middle school…

Peer victimisation during school years has been found to significantly shape the way students perceive themselves and how they enter into relationships with peers, thus impacting students' current and long-term wellbeing. However, victimisation has seldom been examined in university students. The present study aimed to investigate students'…

Existing literature has mostly explained the occurrence of bullying victimization by individual socioemotional maladjustment. Instead, this study tested the person-group dissimilarity model (Wright et al., "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology," 50: 523-536, 1986) by examining whether individuals' deviation from developmentally…

Understanding the factors that motivate defending behaviour from an early age is crucial in informing effective intervention in bullying. However, relatively little is known about the social, emotional, and cognitive factors that predict young children's involvement in defending behaviour. This study investigated the concurrent role of social…

Witnessing peer victimization is an emotionally salient event, particularly for youth. Given that emotions influence how youth respond to social situations, the emotional experiences of bystanders may influence how they respond to peer victimization. In particular, different defending behaviors may be motivated by different emotional processes…

Defending a victimized peer is a socially risky behavior that may require high peer status and may depend on how popular or disliked bullies are in the classroom (i.e., within-classroom correlations between bullying and status). Past research has investigated defending as a unidimensional construct, though it can involve confronting the bully…

Peer victimization is associated with unwanted outcomes including less school belongingness and lower academic ability and school achievement. This study expanded on previous research by investigating how a perception of defending by peers and teachers interacted with peer victimization to predict four aspects of student subjective wellbeing:…

Mental health is a significant concern among young people, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, mental health problems can significantly reduce student performance in school, including both engagement and achievement. Both mental health problems and reduced student performance often arise due to "peer victimization," which…

Background: Children who come from families on welfare or government assistance might be at risk for bullying involvement. As research has shown, children living in poverty and experiencing family economic hardship are significantly likely to be involved in bullying in school. Objective: This study investigates whether welfare assistance is…

Bystanders to bullying perpetration are considered an extremely important group to engage in bullying prevention and intervention. It is important to understand the key differences between students who are proactive bystanders, who try to stop the bullying and those bystanders who observe but take no action to help the student being bullied. Of…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has gradually implemented in Chinese schools and is considered as an effective way to improve students' performance. This research aimed to study the influence of SEL on students' bullying behavior, and the role that social and emotional competence (SEC) and peer relationship play in SEL and students' bullying.…

Most research on peer victimization has focused on Western samples, but in recent years peer victimization in China has become more prevalent. As a result, limited information is available on how peer victimization, school climate, peer preference, and adjustment difficulties impact Chinese middle school students. This cross-sectional study…

Previous research suggests both social contextual and individual difference variables contribute to chronic peer victimization. We tested whether two individual difference variables--anxiety sensitivity (AS) and internalizing symptoms (IS)--predicted persistent peer victimization in elementary school children. Participants were 677 fourth-grade…