The Associations Between Peer Victimization And Internalizing Problem Behaviors In Mid-adolescence:A Longitudinal Study

Peer victimization has become frequent occurrences in recent years as reported in newspapers and other media,which has been drawing broad attention.It not only badly harms the physical and mental health of students,but also is serious unfavorable for the creating of the harmonious campus atmosphere and society.On this basis,it is of great practical significance to do the research on peer victimization.Previous studies focusing on peer victimization in childhood and early adolescence had shown that individuals were more likely to develop internalizing problem behaviors after being victimized.However,for high school students in their mid-adolescences,whether the negative effects of peer victimization on internalizing problem behaviors are consistent with previous studies needs further discussion.Meanwhile,whether the internalizing problem behaviors of the victim are the triggers for the victimization to some extent is still unknown and needs to be seen.In addition,there was a lack of in-depth exploration of the longitudinal mechanism of peer victimization and internalizing problem behaviors,and no research had revealed the key cognitive factors(such as perceived discrimination)in this relationship.Therefore,it is necessary to consider whether perceived discrimination plays a mediating role in the longitudinal relationship between the two variables.Finally,on the basis of the developmental contextualism,the ―situation‖ of an individual,including the developing social members,the individual himself,the physical environment and so on,forms a complex interaction system that affects the development of individuals,which may lead to developmental differences among individuals.Accordingly,it is necessary to consider the differences in the variables of individuals‘ backgrounds(gender,family economic status,family residence and family atmosphere)among the main variables and the relationships among them.Therefore,we thus recruited a total of 667 participants from one high school in Sichuan,China,adopting a self-administered questionnaire concerning peer victimization,perceived discrimination and internalizing problem behaviors and collecting three waves of data over the course of a year.SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 8.3were used for statistical analysis of the tracking data in this study.The results were as follows:(1)The overall level and the incidence of peer victimization were low,and the overall level of internalizing problem behavior was medium,and the incidence was high.(2)Girls‘ internalizing problem behaviors were higher than boys‘.Meanwhile,girls‘ internalizing problem behaviors showed an overall upward trend,but boys‘decreased at T2.Girls‘ internalizing problem behaviors at T2 and T3 were higher than boys‘.The internalizing problem behaviors of adolescents from poor families were on the rise as a whole.The internalizing problem behaviors of adolescents from non-poor families at T3 were higher than that at T2,and the internalizing problem behaviors of adolescents from poor families at T1 were higher than that of non-poor families.The internalizing problem behaviors of urban adolescents were higher than that of rural adolescents.Adolescents from quarrelsome families had higher levels of peer victimization and internalizing problem behaviors than those from harmonious families.(3)Peer victimization,perceived discrimination and internalizing problem behaviors were significantly positively correlated at three time points,and the three main variables were partially significantly correlated with gender,family economic status and family residence,and were significantly correlated with family atmosphere at three time points.(4)The internalizing problem behaviors significantly positively predicted subsequent peer victimization,while peer victimization could not significantly predict subsequent internalizing problem behavior,and the relationships above were consistent with gender,family economic status,family residence and family atmosphere.(5)Perceived discrimination played a mediating role in the longitudinal relationship between internalizing problem behaviors and peer victimization,and the mediating effect was consistent with gender,family economic status and family residence,but it was significantly different in family atmosphere.Perceived discrimination of adolescents from quarrelsome families had a greater effect on peer victimization than that of adolescents from harmonious families.