Prospective Associations between Peer Aggression and Victimization: The Moderating Roles of Physiological Stress Reactivity and Gender

Abstract

The present investigation examined whether heightened skin conductance reactivity (SCLR) to peer stress strengthened the prospective associations between physical and relational aggression and victimization, and whether associations were stronger for physical forms of aggression and victimization among boys and relational forms of aggression and victimization among girls. A total of 91 children [M age = 10.18 years, standard deviation (SD) = .68] were assessed twice over 1 year. At the first assessment, SCLR in response to recounting a relational stressor (e.g., exclusion; SCLR-R) and an instrumental stressor (e.g., property theft; SCLR-I), and teacher-reported aggression were measured. Parents reported on child victimization at both time points. Among youth with heightened SCLR-I, physical aggression was associated with increases in physical victimization for boys and decreases in physical victimization for girls. Among youth with heightened SCLR-R, relational aggression was associated with increases in physical victimization for girls only. Results were largely consistent with the hypothesis that aggressors with a propensity to exhibit negative displays of emotion, as indexed by heightened sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity to peer stress, may be especially likely to suffer peer victimization. Gender-specific effects highlight the importance of including both physical and relational forms of aggression and victimization to capture victimization risk among aggressive boys and girls.

Anxiety symptoms as a moderator of the reciprocal links between forms of aggression and peer victimization in middle childhood

“…These findings build on past work(Pitula et al, 2015;Zimmer-Gembeck & Duffy, 2014) and provide additional evidence that certain individual characteristics may influence relationally aggressive youth's subsequent risk for peer victimization. Overall, results provided support for the hypotheses that high levels of anxiety symptoms would exacerbate these bidirectional relations.…”

“…Whereas prior work has shown that relational aggression was only linked to higher peer victimization at high levels of intimacy avoidance (Zimmer-Gembeck & Duffy, 2014) and physiological stress reactivity (for girls only; Pitula et al, 2015), this is the first study to our knowledge to identify an individual characteristic that interacts with relational aggression to predict lower levels of peer victimization over time. Whereas prior work has shown that relational aggression was only linked to higher peer victimization at high levels of intimacy avoidance (Zimmer-Gembeck & Duffy, 2014) and physiological stress reactivity (for girls only; Pitula et al, 2015), this is the first study to our knowledge to identify an individual characteristic that interacts with relational aggression to predict lower levels of peer victimization over time.…”

“…Although other recent work has demonstrated that certain individual characteristics may influence the prospective relations between aggressive behavior and peer victimization (e.g., Cooley & Fite, 2016;Pitula et al, 2015;Zimmer-Gembeck & Duffy, 2014), this is the first investigation to our knowledge to identify a factor that influences both direction of effects. Although other recent work has demonstrated that certain individual characteristics may influence the prospective relations between aggressive behavior and peer victimization (e.g., Cooley & Fite, 2016;Pitula et al, 2015;Zimmer-Gembeck & Duffy, 2014), this is the first investigation to our knowledge to identify a factor that influences both direction of effects.…”

“…| DISCUSSIONGuided by a social information processing (SIP) theoretical framework, the current study extends previous research by evaluating whether anxiety symptoms moderated the reciprocal links between physical and relational forms of aggression and peer victimization over a 1-year period during middle childhood. Although many acts of relational aggression (e.g., gossip, rumor spreading) are covert in nature and can be perpetrated in the absence of direct confrontation,Pitula et al (2015) point out that However, the patterns of moderation differed according to specific forms of aggression, and no gender differences were observed.…”

Day‐to‐day friends’ victimization, aggression perpetration, and morning cortisol activity in late adolescents

“…In addition, we could not account for the effect of different types of victimization on aggression perpetration and the HPA axis. This is important given that divergent links have sometimes been found between HPA measures and relational versus physical aggression (Murray‐Close, Han, Cicchetti, Crick, & Rogosch, ; Pitula et al, ). Moreover, we do not know whether the target's aggression was directed toward the friend who previously was aggressive (i.e., retaliation), or to other nonaggressive friends (displacement of aggression).…”