Peer victimization

Peer victimization is the experience among children of being a target of the aggressive behavior of other children, who are not siblings and not necessarily age-mates.

Mass interest in the issue of peer victimization arose during the 1990s due to media coverage of student suicides, peer beatings, and school shootings, notably the tragedy in Columbine, Colorado. This led to an explosion of research attempting to assess bully-victim relationships and related players, what leads victims to experience negative outcomes and how widespread this problem was. Studies of peer victimization have also been conducted in the context of research investigating childhood relationships in general and how they are associated with school adjustment and achievement.

Research has proven the problematic nature of peer victimization, identifying many negative outcomes such as low self-esteem, low school engagement, school avoidance, lower school achievement, learned helplessness, and depression. Peer victimization is especially prevalent and damaging in middle school, as during this time children are defining themselves by creating self-schemas and establishing self-esteem, both which will impact their future adult life; for this reason, most of the research on peer victimization focuses on this age group. They are also more vulnerable to peer rejection because needs for belonging and intimacy may be especially strong during early adolescence, when children are working to solidify their peer groups.

Much of victimization research adopts a social psychology perspective, investigating how different types of peer victimization affect the individual and the different negative outcomes that occur. Some experimenters are adopting the term social victimization in order to acknowledge that victimization can take both verbal and nonverbal forms or be direct or indirect. They mostly focus on the types of victimization that can occur from multiple sources in a particular environment. Personality psychologists look at individual differences and effects in victims. They may also study individuals in a social context, determining which are more likely to be victimized, such as those who are socially withdrawn.

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