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Trajectories of Italian Children’s Peer Rejection: Associations with Aggression, Prosocial Behavior, Physical Attractiveness, and Adolescent Adjustment

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Abstract

In the present study, the predictors and outcomes associated with the trajectories of peer rejection were examined in a longitudinal sample of Italian children (338 boys, 269 girls) ages 10 to 14 years. Follow-up assessments included 60% of the original sample at age 16–17. Low, medium, and high rejection trajectory groups were identified using growth mixture models. Consistent with previous studies, we found that (a) being less prosocial and more physically aggressive at age 10 was characteristic of those children with the high rejection trajectory; (b) being less attractive was related to higher peer rejection from age 10 to 14; and (c) boys with a high rejection trajectory showed high levels of delinquency and anxiety-depression and low levels of academic aspiration at age 16–17, whereas girls with a high rejection trajectory showed low levels of academic aspiration and social competence at age 16–17. Our findings indicate the detrimental consequences of peer rejection on children’s development and adjustment and shed light on the mechanisms that contribute to maintaining or worsening (e.g., being attractive, prosocial, and aggressive) a child’s negative status (e.g., being rejected) within his or her peer group over time.

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Acknowledgments

Special appreciation is expressed to all the children and parents who made this study possible and to members of the Genzano Longitudinal Study for assistance with data collection. We thank Natalie D. Wilkens for her assistance with the interpretation of results for this article.

Funding

This research was partially supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and W.T. Grant Foundation to Albert Bandura, and from both the Italian Ministry of Education University and Research and the University of Rome “La Sapienza” to Gian Vittorio Caprara.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00175, Rome, Italy

    Laura Di Giunta, Concetta Pastorelli, Eriona Thartori, Anna Silvia Bombi & Emma Baumgartner

  2. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Richard A. Fabes & Carol Lynn Martin

  3. University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Craig K. Enders

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  1. Laura Di Giunta
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Correspondence to Laura Di Giunta.

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Di Giunta, L., Pastorelli, C., Thartori, E. et al. Trajectories of Italian Children’s Peer Rejection: Associations with Aggression, Prosocial Behavior, Physical Attractiveness, and Adolescent Adjustment. J Abnorm Child Psychol 46, 1021–1035 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0373-7

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