Moderators of the Link Between Social Preference and Persistent Peer Victimization for Elementary School Children

ABSTRACT

Objective

Current antibullying programs can reduce overall rates of victimization but appear to overlook processes that give rise to persistent peer victimization. Needed are studies that delineate the interplay between social contextual and individual difference variables that contribute to persistent peer victimization. We examined the extent to which two individual-difference variables – internalizing symptoms (IS) and anxiety sensitivity (AS) – moderated the link between children’s average social preference score across the school year and their status as persistent victims.

Method

Participants included 659 4^th-grade students (M_age = 9.31 years, SD = 0.50, 51.8% girls; 42.3% Latinx, 28.9% non-Hispanic White, 10.2% Pacific Islander, 7.7% Bi/Multiracial, 1.9% Black, 1.7% Asian, 1.7% Native American, and 3.4% unreported) from 10 public elementary schools in the U.S.

Results

As expected, higher social preference scores predicted a decreased likelihood of being persistently victimized. Conversely, IS and AS were positively linked to persistent victim status. AS significantly moderated the link between social preference and persistent victim status such that for children with high AS, compared to those with AS scores at or below the mean, the negative association between social preference and persistent victim status was attenuated.

Conclusions

Findings provide evidence that children who experience high levels of IS and AS are at risk for being persistently victimized by peers and that high AS could signal increased risk for persistent victimization even when children are generally liked by peers. We discuss the implications of these findings for efforts to develop focused interventions for chronically bullied children.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Springdale School District and its students and faculty for their cooperation and participation. We would also like to thank University of Padua Professor Gianluca Gini for his helpful comments on the Discussion section.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

Data can be made available upon reasonable request to the ninth author.

Supplementary Data

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2024.2330062.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grant from the Marie Wilson Howells Endowment in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Arkansas.