Adolescents frequently victimized by peers are two to three times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder than their non-victimized peers. However, the fine-grained mechanisms that explain how peer victimization confers risk for anxiety in adolescents’ daily lives are not well-understood. Leveraging an intensive longitudinal design, this study examined same- and cross-day links between peer victimization and anxiety, investigating social threat sensitivity as a potential underlying mechanism. One hundred ninety-five adolescents (Mage = 16.48, SDage = 0.35; 66% female, 27% male, 11% non-binary, identifying with another gender; 48% White, 20% Asian, 15% Black, 17% identifying with another race/ethnicity) completed brief daily assessments of peer victimization, social threat sensitivity, and anxious affect for 14 days. Multilevel analyses indicated that adolescents reported greater anxious affect on days when they experienced peer victimization compared to days without victimization. Although peer victimization did not predict anxious affect the following day, it was associated with increased anxious affect two days later. Social threat sensitivity significantly mediated the same-day, but not cross-day, association between peer victimization and anxious affect, controlling for prior-day threat sensitivity and anxiety. The findings suggest that heightened social vigilance partially accounts for anxious affect in adolescents facing peer victimization in daily life.

Although many studies have demonstrated associations between peer victimization and internalizing and externalizing problems that may be moderated by genes, it remains unclear whether these links also apply to the within-person level. The present study investigated within-person associations between peer victimization and internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as the moderating effect of between-person differences in the FKBP5 gene. A total of 915 Chinese youth (43.9% girls; Mage = 10.34 years, SD = 0.94) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study with six-month intervals. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to test the hypothesized moderation effects, enabling the examination of time-invariant moderators and the between × within interaction. Results revealed that peer victimization was bidirectionally associated with internalizing and externalizing problems at the within-person level. The FKBP5 gene moderated the within-person pathways from peer victimization to both internalizing and externalizing problems. These findings suggest that individuals with greater genetic susceptibility were more likely to develop internalizing and externalizing symptoms in response to peer victimization. These results highlight gene-environment interactions at the within-person level and underscore the importance of tailored interventions aimed at preventing internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits represent a risk factor for persistent, severe levels of externalizing problems. Irritability may predict the development of CU traits for some individuals, who are thought to acquire them in reaction to negative environmental experiences. Models on the development of CU traits have emphasized the socializing role of harsh parenting to the neglect of negative peer experiences. The present study 1) tested primary and alternative models of physical and relational peer victimization as socialization agents in relations between irritability and CU traits; and 2) considered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis functioning as a moderator of these associations. Gender moderation was also considered. Aims were tested from middle childhood to adolescence using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which includes a large national sample (N = 1,077) and multiple methods and informants for the constructs of interest. Positive associations between irritability, peer victimization, and CU traits were supported, with indirect effects on CU traits supported specifically from peer victimization through increases in irritability. Associations between relational victimization, irritability, and CU traits may be particularly salient for females, whose experiences have been neglected to date. However, effects were small, and replication efforts are needed.

Relatively little is known regarding factors that may mitigate the strength of the associations between forms of aggressive behavior and peer victimization. The goal of the current study was to investigate prosocial behavior as a moderator of these links over a 2-year period during middle childhood. Participants included 410 third-grade students (53% boys) and their homeroom teachers. Results indicated that prosocial behavior was associated with lower initial levels of victimization, whereas relational aggression was associated with higher initial levels of victimization. Physical aggression predicted more stable patterns of victimization over time, and prosocial behavior moderated the prospective link from relational aggression to peer victimization; specifically, relational aggression predicted decreases in victimization at higher levels of prosocial behavior and more stable patterns over time when levels of prosocial behavior were low. Further, gender differences were observed in the moderating effect of prosocial behavior on the prospective link from physical aggression to peer victimization, such that it served as a risk factor for boys and a protective factor for girls.

Peer victimization and depressive symptoms are highly relevant risks during adolescence. Understanding the dynamic patterns of interactions between peer victimization and depressive symptoms as well as gender differences in these variables can improve intervention strategies for adolescents navigating this critical transition period. In the present study, a large sample of Chinese adolescents reported peer victimization and depressive symptoms in four survey waves at six-month intervals. A total of 2534 adolescents (51.9% boys, M = 12.98 ± 0.60 years) were included in the latent change score (LCS) analysis. The results supported the reciprocal effects model obtained in the full sample. Changes in peer victimization were influenced by prior changes in depressive symptoms over time, and changes in depressive symptoms were influenced by prior levels of peer victimization. There were also gender differences, with boys exhibiting depressive symptom-driven effects on peer victimization, while girls exhibiting peer victimization-induced depressive symptoms. The dynamic relationships between peer victimization and depressive symptoms that promote and constrain each other in adolescents are elucidated in this study. Differentiating effects on boys and girls is crucial for enhancing the effectiveness of practical interventions.

Adolescence is a time of heightened vulnerability for both peer victimization (PV) and internalizing symptoms. While the positive association between them is well established, there is little understanding of the mechanisms underpinning this relationship. To address this gap, the current study aimed to investigate sleep hygiene and school night sleep duration as individual and sequential mediators of the relationship between PV and both depressive and social anxiety symptoms during pre- to mid-adolescence. The study drew upon a community sample of 528 Australian youth aged 10–12 years at baseline (Mage = 11.19, SD = .55; 51.1% boys) and data were collected over five annual measurement occasions. Direct and indirect longitudinal and bidirectional associations were examined using cross-lagged panel analysis. There was no evidence of sequential mediation through both sleep hygiene and sleep duration to depression and social anxiety. Instead, the findings show that sleep hygiene mediated the prospective association between PV and both depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and between PV and sleep duration. Overall, sleep hygiene represents a modifiable transdiagnostic factor that can be targeted to break the cycle of PV, inadequate sleep, and internalizing symptoms.

This study’s aim was to examine whether there are negative increasing cycles of peer victimization and rejection sensitivity over time. Drawing from Social Information Processing Theory, we hypothesized that victimization leads to higher levels of rejection sensitivity, which would put adolescents at risk for higher future victimization. Data were collected in a four-wave study with 233 Dutch adolescents starting secondary education (Mage = 12.7 years), and a three-wave study with 711 Australian adolescents in the last years of primary school (Mage = 10.8 years). Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to disentangle between-person from within-person effects. In each sample, a significant between-person association was found: adolescents with higher levels of victimization as compared to their peers also reported higher levels of rejection sensitivity. At the within-person level, all concurrent associations between individual fluctuations of victimization and rejection sensitivity were significant, but there were no significant cross-lagged effects (except in some sensitivity analyses). These findings demonstrate that victimization and rejection sensitivity are interrelated, but there may not be negative victimization-rejection sensitivity cycles during the early-middle adolescent years. Possibly, cycles establish earlier in life or results are due to shared underlying factors. Further research is needed examining different time lags between assessments, age groups, and contexts.

The aim of the current study was to examine whether self-control skills in childhood moderate the association between very preterm birth (<32 weeks of gestational age) and emotional problems and peer victimization in adolescence. We used data from four prospective cohort studies, which included 29,378 participants in total (N = 645 very preterm; N = 28,733 full-term). Self-control was mother-reported in childhood at 5–11 years whereas emotional problems and peer victimization were both self- and mother-reported at 12–17 years of age. Findings of individual participant data meta-analysis showed that self-control skills in childhood do not moderate the association between very preterm birth and adolescence emotional problems and peer victimization. It was shown that higher self-control skills in childhood predict lower emotional problems and peer victimization in adolescence similarly in very preterm and full-term borns.

Peer victimization is a developmentally salient stressor that elevates adolescents’ risk for anxiety disorders. However, modifiable mechanisms that explain this link and can be targeted via therapeutic interventions remain poorly understood. Drawing from psychobiological models implicating aberrant threat sensitivity in the development and maintenance of psychopathology, the current study investigated sensitivity to peer-related social threats as a mechanism underlying the association between peer victimization and anxiety. A sample of 197 dyads of early adolescents (Mage = 12.02; 46% female) and parents/guardians (Mage = 41.46; 90% female) completed online surveys assessing peer victimization, sensitivity to potential (i.e., ambiguous) social threats, and anxiety. Controlling for potentially confounding demographic and psychosocial factors, both self- and parent-reported peer victimization were positively associated with adolescent anxiety symptoms. Additionally, there were significant indirect effects from self- and parent-reported peer victimization to anxiety via social threat sensitivity. Supplemental analyses indicated unique effects of covert, but not overt, peer victimization on social threat sensitivity and anxiety. The findings provide initial evidence that peer victimization experiences lower adolescents’ threshold for interpreting threats in ambiguous social situations, which contributes to heightened anxiety. These results implicate social threat sensitivity as a potential therapeutic target for interrupting links from peer victimization to psychological distress.

Parenting practices and relationships with peers are crucial aspects of youth socialization. Although theoretically expected reciprocal associations between changes in maladaptive parenting and adolescent peer victimization exist, there is a lack of studies that examine this link and address the mediating mechanisms at the within-person level. This longitudinal study examined reciprocal relations between peer victimization and two types of maladaptive parenting including harsh punishment and psychological control, and the potential mediating roles of internalizing and externalizing problems within these relations, by disentangling between- and within-person effects. A total of 4,731 Chinese early adolescents (44.9% girls; Mage = 10.91 years, SD = 0.72) participated in a four-wave longitudinal study with 6-month intervals. The results of random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling showed: (a) harsh punishment did not directly predict peer victimization, and vice versa; (b) psychological control directly predicted peer victimization, and vice versa; (c) psychological control indirectly predicted peer victimization via internalizing problems, and peer victimization also indirectly predicted psychological control via internalizing problems. These findings provide evidence of a bidirectional spillover effect between psychological control and peer victimization at the within-person level, suggesting Chinese early adolescents may become caught in a vicious cycle directly or indirectly via their internalizing problems.

Children’s peer victimization trajectories and their longitudinal associations with externalizing and internalizing problems were investigated from Grades 2 to 5. Secondary data analysis was performed with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K-2011; n = 13,860, Mage = 8.1 years old in the spring of Grade 2; 51.1% male, 46.7% White, 13.2% African-American, 25.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.5% Asian, and 6.1% other or biracial). Children who experienced high and persistent levels of peer victimization (high-chronic victims) exhibited co-occurring externalizing and internalizing problems. Moreover, among high-chronic victims, boys had a more pronounced increase in their externalizing trajectories, and girls had greater increases in their social anxiety trajectories. In contrast, those with decreasing peer victimization across time exhibited signs of recovery, particularly with respect to their social anxiety. These findings elucidated how chronic, increasing, and decreasing victims exhibited distinct patterns in the co-occurring development of their externalizing and internalizing problems, and how findings varied depending on the form of problem behavior and by child sex.

The current longitudinal study examined how between-person (BP) differences and within-person (WP) fluctuations in adolescents’ peer victimization and schooling format across ninth grade related to changes in their internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 388 adolescents (61% female; Mage = 14.02) who completed three online surveys, administered 3 months apart, from November 2020 to May 2021. Multilevel modeling revealed BP (time-invariant) and WP (time-varying) effects of peer victimization and school instructional format (i.e., in-person; hybrid; online) on internalizing symptoms while accounting for potentially confounding demographic (e.g., gender) and contextual (e.g., COVID-19 positivity rates) factors. Results indicated that adolescents who experienced higher overall levels of peer victimization across the school year, compared to those who experienced lower victimization, reported more severe internalizing symptoms. Whereas relative WP increases in peer victimization predicted corresponding increases in adolescents’ depressive and somatic symptoms regardless of schooling format, WP increases in peer victimization only predicted elevated anxiety during months when students attended fully in-person, but not online, school. Adolescents who spent a greater proportion of their school year attending online school also reported less peer victimization across the year. Findings highlight WP fluctuations in the effects of peer victimization on internalizing and contextual variations depending on schooling format.

An accelerated longitudinal research design was used to examine heterogeneity in the developmental co-occurrence of peer relational victimization and aggression and of peer overt victimization and aggression from age 4.5 to 10.5 years. Data were gathered from four cohorts of children in kindergarten to Grade 3 (N = 503) on six occasions across 2 years. Psychopathology, peer, and social–cognitive factors were examined as predictors of the joint trajectories. Sequential process latent growth mixture models identified four distinct subgroups for the relational trajectories (co-occurring increasing aggression, co-occurring increasing victimization, high chronic victimization, typical low risk) and four distinct subgroups for the overt trajectories (co-occurring decelerating aggression, high chronic victimization, moderate chronic victimization, typical low risk). Membership in the co-occurring trajectories was associated with psychopathology and membership in the chronic victimization trajectories was related to internalizing and social–cognitive problems but also peer likeability.

Justice sensitivity (JS), the tendency to perceive and negatively respond to alleged injustice, has been associated with a range of internalizing and externalizing problems and peer victimization; however, it remains unclear if it has an association with self-victimization. Participants (N = 769) reported on their JS longitudinally at 9–19 (T1), 11–21 (T2), and 14–22 years of age (T3). They further reported on nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and illegal substance use as indicators of self-victimization as well as victimization by peers at T2 and T3. A cross-lagged latent model revealed that victim JS at T1 was positively associated with NSSI, substance use, and peer victimization at T2, and victim JS at T2 was positively associated with substance use at T3. Higher observer JS at T2 predicted higher illegal substance use at T3 and higher illegal substance use at T2 predicted higher observer JS at T3. Finally, higher peer victimization at T2 predicted less perpetrator JS at T3 in the total group. Multigroup models further revealed sex-specific effects. Our findings highlight that being sensitive to injustice, particularly the tendency to feel unfairly treated or being taken advantage of, contributes to individuals’ vulnerability to both engaging in behaviors reflecting self-victimization and being a target of peer victimization, which in turn have influences on JS.

The relation between peer victimization and depressive symptoms is complex, requiring the use of methodologically rigorous designs to examine these relations and potential mediating factors. The current study used a random intercepts cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to investigate both between-person and within-person associations in peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and family cohesion across five waves in a sample of adolescents (N = 801, ages 13–15 years at recruitment) in the Northeast. We also investigated the moderating effects of sex and victimization status (i.e., bullying victimization vs. peer victimization). Overall, findings revealed a reciprocal relation between peer victimization and depressive symptoms for females, but no relation for males. A reciprocal relation between peer victimization and family cohesion was found for males. No significant differences were found by victimization status. Future research on peer victimization and associated outcomes and the role of family should account for both between-person and within-person variance.

Researchers face an important challenge when assessing peer victimization in children, since self-reports are often discrepant with parent-reports. A latent class analysis identified patterns of response to items assessing peer victimization, which were either divergent or convergent between the parent and the child. Classes were then compared on the child sexual abuse status and on various behavioral and social outcomes. Participants were 720 school-aged child victims of sexual abuse and a comparison group of 173 nonvictims and their caregivers. We identified two discordant subgroups (self-identified and parent-identified) and two concordant groups (nonvictims and concordant victims of peer victimization). Compared to children of the comparison group, sexually abused children were five times more likely to be identified as targets of peer victimization solely by their parent than the contrary. Sexually abused children with concordant reports of peer victimization showed the poorest adjustment on all studied outcomes assessed 6 months later. Children who discounted experiencing peer victimization while their parent reported it were also at risk of maladjustment. Results underscore the importance of supplementing self-reports with other available sources of information, especially in young and vulnerable populations who may be inclined to discount their victimization experiences.