Peer victimization

Characterized as a broad spectrum of social interactions whereby one individual experiences physical, emotional, social or psychological harm by one or more peers (Rosen et  al. 2009), peer victimization affects many children (Kochenderfer-Ladd and Ladd 2001) across all ethnic (Craig et al. 2009) and socioeconomic backgrounds (Card and Hodges 2008). Most frequent during early adolescence (see Troop-Gordon 2017 for review), peer victimization often occurs outside of school contexts (Turner et al. 2011) and becomes stable over time (Scholte et al. 2007). Peer victimization includes overt and relational forms of victimization (Crick and Grotpeter 1995, 1996), and children who are victimized are categorized as aggressive or passive victims (Olweus 1994). While general rates of peer victimization appear to similarly afect males and females (Kochenderfer-Ladd and Skinner 2002), males are more likely to experience overt victimization and females are more likely to experience relational victimization (Betts et al. 2015; Crick et al. 2002; Crick and Nelson 2002); both overt and relational forms of victimization are associated with concurrent socioemotional adjustment problems (Crick and Bigbee 1998). Peer victimization is an antecedent to (Bond et al. 2001; Gladstone et al. 2006), and consequence of (Reijntjes et al. 2010), poor emotional functioning. Prior studies suggest children who fail to manage their emotions may experience a greater frequency of victimization (Rosen et al. 2012), and peer victimization may impair a child’s ability to regulate their emotions (Stadler et al. 2010). Given evidence that internalizing and externalizing behaviors are behavioral expressions of defcits in emotion regulation (Zeman et al. 2002), internalizing and externalizing behaviors may play an important role in peer victimization among children. Indeed, peer victimization has been shown to be both a risk factor for (Reijntjes et al. 2010, 2011) and consequence associated with internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Hodges et al. 1999; Storch and Ledley 2005).