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Keep Your Friends Close: Exploring the Associations of Bullying, Peer Social Support, and Social Anxiety

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Abstract

The current study investigated the relationship between victimization experiences (including traditional and cyber-victimization) and social support from two different groups of peers (classmates and close friends) in relation to social anxiety during adolescence. Specifically, this study investigated the social deterioration hypothesis to understand whether the experience of victimization, both in person and online, would influence student perceptions of support from their general classmates and close friends and, whether through this relationship, influence student reports of social anxiety. Six hundred and sixty nine students completed the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS; Malecki, Demaray, & Elliott 2000), the Cyberbullying and Victimization Survey (CVS; Brown, Demaray, & Secord 2014), the Bullying Participant Behavior Questionnaire (BPBQ; Demaray, Summers, Jenkins, & Becker 2014), and the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS; La Greca and Lopez 1998). Results found support for the social deterioration hypothesis. In other words, student reports of victimization experiences were associated with reports of support from classmates. However, important gender differences in these relationships emerged, and greater support for this hypothesis was found for girls than for boys. Implications of the current study are discussed within the context of school-based mental health support services.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 04043, USA

    Samantha Coyle

  2. Northern Illinois University, Psychology Department, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Christine K. Malecki & Jonathan Emmons

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Correspondence to Samantha Coyle.

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Data were collected as part of a school-wide evaluation to inform school-wide social-emotional intervention planning. An opt-out procedure was used in which parents were sent a letter describing the data collection and provided with the opportunity to withdraw their child from participating by returning a passive consent form opting their child out of the data collection. Assent was obtained from all students before their participation. The de-identified data was approved by the University Institutional Review Board at Northern Illinois University after the school-wide evaluation report was complete.

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Coyle, S., Malecki, C.K. & Emmons, J. Keep Your Friends Close: Exploring the Associations of Bullying, Peer Social Support, and Social Anxiety. Contemp School Psychol 25, 230–242 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-019-00250-3

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