The Effect of Peer Victimization on Social Behavior and Children's Ability to Negotiate Conflict

82 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.The present study investigated a model of stress-generation in which peer victimization, via its effects on children's psychological and social adjustment, influences the quality of children's social interactions. 206 children (103 dyads) completed measures of peer victimization, emotional distress, and social cognition, as well as participated in a conflict-negotiation task with a peer. As anticipated, victimized children were more likely than less victimized peers to exhibit socially maladaptive behavioral displays (e.g., conflict-negotiation competence and affect-regulation competence). Elucidating the process by which experiences with victimization lead to such maladaptive and potentially stress-inducing peer responses, a self-blaming attributional style was found to account for the association between victimization and less effective regulation of negative affect, and affect-regulation competence mediated the association between victimization and peer responses. Demonstrating the importance of sex, however, boys reported significantly greater emotional distress than girls when victimized. And finally, dyadic climate (i.e., conflictual and cooperative dyadic qualities) was found to significantly predict affect-regulation competence. These results contribute to empirical and theoretical work in the area of peer relation and stress-generation research by extending current understanding of individual- and dyadic-level correlates and processes of victimization.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD