Do positive peer relations mitigate transactions between depressive symptoms and peer victimization in adolescence?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.04.003Get rights and content

Highlights

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    Positive peer relations buffer adolescents' risk for peer victimization.

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    Depression forecasted victimization for adolescents without but not with a friend.

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    High peer acceptance was protective for early but not late adolescents.

Abstract

This study's purpose was to evaluate whether two aspects of positive peer relations—having a friend and being well-liked—mitigate prospective transactions between depressive symptoms and peer victimization. Participants were early adolescents in fifth and sixth grades (N = 483; 50% girls; Mage in 5th grade spring = 11.10 years; SD = 0.40) and late adolescents in ninth and tenth grades (N = 444; 52% girls; Mage in 9th grade spring = 14.70 years; SD = 0.62). Data were collected in the spring annually. Depressive symptoms were assessed via parent-, teacher-, and self-reports (late adolescence only) and peer victimization by self-, peer-, and teacher-reports. Mutual friendship nominations and peer acceptance ratings indexed positive peer relations. Results showed that positive peer relations are protective: Depressive symptoms contributed to peer victimization for early and late adolescents without a friend; moreover, late adolescents high on acceptance were at decreased risk for peer victimization.

Section snippets

A transactional model of peer victimization and depressive symptoms

Interpersonal theories of depression posit that interpersonal dysfunction and depression are related in a transactional way (Coyne, 1976, Joiner et al., 1999). Coyne (1976, p. 187) referred to a “depressive social process” whereby depressed individuals display aversive symptoms that elicit nondepressed others' support and reassurance on the one hand, and social rejection on the other. Inconsistencies in these responses undermine depressed individuals' perceptions of their social competencies,

The protective role of positive peer relations

Models of youth resilience are predicated on the assumption that, even in the presence of significant adversity, features of the individual and/or environment may predispose youth to experience desirable outcomes (e.g., Cicchetti and Rogosch, 2009, Masten et al., 1999). Historical and contemporary theoretical perspectives that emphasize the significance of interpersonal fulfillment for adaptive development also acknowledge the potentially protective function of satisfying interpersonal

Purpose and hypotheses

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which positive peer relations mitigate transactions between depressive symptoms and peer victimization in early and late adolescence. On the basis of theory and accumulated evidence, we first hypothesized that depressive symptoms and peer victimization would be reciprocally related (i.e., depressive symptoms would both predict and be predicted by peer victimization). We evaluated this hypothesis by estimating two cross-lagged

Participants

Data for this study came from a longitudinal investigation of 483 youth (240 girls, 243 boys; Mage in spring of 5th grade =11.10 years; SD = 0.40) assessed when they were in the fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth grades. In the spring of fifth grade, the sample was primarily Caucasian (79.7%) and African American (16.0%) and included a small percentage of adolescents from Hispanic, mixed race, or other backgrounds (4.3%). Most participants (n =383) were recruited in 1992, at kindergarten entry. Surveys

Descriptive analyses

Correlations, means and standard deviations appear in Table 1 for grades five and six and in Table 2 for grades nine and ten. The stabilities of parent, teacher, and self (ninth to tenth grade) reports of depressive symptoms were moderate with parents showing somewhat greater consistency in ratings over time. Peer-report victimization was highly stable from fifth to sixth grades and from ninth to tenth grades, and teacher- and self-reports of victimization were moderately stable across these

Discussion

This study's results extend knowledge about risk and protective factors associated with peer victimization. Data supported a symptoms-driven model whereby depressive symptoms predicted adolescents' risk for peer victimization one year later, but not vice versa. This temporal pattern, which is consistent with one direction of effect specified within interpersonal theories of depression, emerged in both early (fifth to sixth grades) and late (ninth to tenth grades) adolescence and was somewhat at

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