Is Bullying Always about Status? Status Goals, Forms of Bullying, Popularity and Peer Rejection during Adolescence

Abstract

Bullying has been associated with status goals among peers, but this research has not distinguished among forms of bullying, nor included actual status or popularity among peers in an integrated analysis. To this aim, in concurrent correlational data, we examined adolescent status goals as predictors of peer-reported physical, verbal, exclusionary and electronic bullying, and these further as predictors of popularity and peer rejection (N = 256; 67.2% girls; M age = 12.2 years). We also explored potential indirect associations of status goals with popularity and peer rejection via forms of bullying. The findings indicated that verbal bullying was the most common form of bullying. Status goals were positively related to all but physical bullying, yet only verbal bullying partially mediated this association with popularity. Electronic bullying was unrelated to popularity and peer rejection, when controlling for other bullying forms (but was positively related to rejection at the bi-variate level). The findings underscore the importance of assessing bullying as a heterogeneous construct, as related goals and adjustment among peers may depend on its specific form.

Keywords:

• Bullying
• popularity
• peer rejection
• adolescence

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Tiina Ojanen

Tiina Ojanen is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Turku, Finland, and completed a post-doctoral research period at the University of Kansas, Department of Psychology. In the study of social development, her research focuses on social goals, the sense of self, forms and functions of aggression, bullying and adjustment among peers.

Danielle Findley-Van Nostrand

Danielle Findley-Van Nostrand is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Roanoke College in Virginia. Her Ph.D. is from the University of South Florida. Her interests lie in the domain of social development and include social behaviors, status among peers, and self-processes during adolescence and young adulthood.

Melanie L. McVean

Melanie McVean is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a School Social Worker with Hillsborough County Public Schools. She received her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include the cause and function of bullying behaviors and the impact of victimization on psychological well-being, both in person and online.