About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 22. Social Relationships

Abstract

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Investigation from UNESCO showed that campus bullying is common around the world. A growing consensus among researchers recognizes bullying as a collective event involving various roles, in which defenders play an active role in supporting the victims and preventing the bullying (Salmivalli et al., 2011). Recently, researchers have gradually discovered that although defending behaviors can effectively protect or comfort victims, it is also a potential risky factor for defenders to experience social anxiety, depression, and aggressive behaviors (Evans et al., 2019; Jenkins & Frederick, 2017; Lambe et al., 2017; Malamut et al., 2021). As adolescents attach great importance on their peer relationships. Bullying victimization and peer liking were chosen to test the existence of the costs and mechanism. To explore the costs of defending behaviors and whether there are gender differences, this study applied a longitudinal tracking study design and used Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ; Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004) and two items of peer liking(Tian et al., 2017) to measure defending behaviors, bullying victimization, and peer liking. All variables were measured by peer nomination, and students were not allowed to nominate themselves. By cluster sampling, 3565 students from 8 schools (12.36 ± 0.50 years) were surveyed twice with a six months interval.
The cross-lagged panel models at two waves were established by Mplus to examine longitudinal effects. And then, models for boys and girls were set respectively to test the gender differences. The results showed that the T1 defending behaviors positively predicted T2 bullying victimization and negatively predicted T2 peer liking significantly. The gender difference test found that T1 defending behaviors had a positively influence on T2 bullying victimization among boys, but not on significant on T2 peer liking. In girls, the results were contrary, where T1 defending behaviors only significantly predicted T2 peer liking, but not predicted T2 bullying victimization. This result indicates that defending behavior will bring costs to defenders, leading to increased bullying victimization of boys and decreased peer liking in girls. This research helps to understand the potential risks of defending behaviors. Also, it reminds us not simply encouraging adolescents to defend others. More valid defending strategies and guidances should be taught in schools and familys.

Author information

Author	Role
Xiao Wei, Beijing Normal University	Presenting author
Yuke Xiong, Beijing Normal University	Non-presenting author
Liu Yang, Beijing Normal University	Non-presenting author
Ping Ren, Beijing Normal University	Non-presenting author

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