Peer Victimization and Children's Development

在过去20年里，在校儿童受害已成为一个日益令人关切的公共卫生问题。这个神话曾经被认为是成长过程中规范甚至可以接受的一部分，但现在已经被驱散了。因此，研究人员开始有兴趣了解为什么有些孩子更容易成为受害者，以及这种受害如何影响他们的幸福。本研究的目的是确定受害的心理、情感、行为和生理的前因和后果。提出了一个交易模型来解释同伴群体中的受害如何影响一系列发展过程，然后将儿童置于进一步的风险中。具体来说，该模型假设同伴受害会导致社会认知过程适应不良、情绪和行为自我调节反应无效、整体情绪和行为功能障碍以及肾上腺皮质反应性增强。这些发展后果反过来又被认为是提高儿童对未来人际压力的敏感性，并使儿童在其关系中产生额外的压力，包括进一步受害。儿童的个人属性和受害经历的特征预计会影响儿童对受害的反应。该模型将在前瞻性纵向研究的背景下进行评估。400名二年级学生将在四年的时间里通过孩子、家长和老师的报告进行跟踪调查。儿童的子样本将参与两个观察程序。首先，在四年的时间里，将对儿童在操场上的自然互动进行观察，以检查儿童与熟悉的同伴的经历，包括受害事件，以及他们如何应对压力情况。其次，将使用实验室范例进行观察，以检查受害儿童在与不熟悉的同伴互动时对社会挑战的反应。对拟议的交易模式进行评估将有助于了解儿童及其环境如何共同促进发展，并将为了解受害儿童随时间和跨社会群体的长期风险提供一个广泛的概念框架。此外，这项研究将为创建儿童层面和学校层面的项目提供基础，这些项目旨在打破与同伴虐待相关的受害、暴力和痛苦的循环。

Over the past 2 decades, victimization among school children has become a growing public health concern. Once believed to be a normative and even acceptable part of growing up, this myth has now been dispelled. Consequently, researchers have become interested in understanding why some children are more likely to be victimized, and how this victimization affects their well being. The goal of the proposed research is to identify the psychological, emotional, behavioral, and physiological antecedents and consequences of victimization. A transactional model is proposed to explain how victimization in the peer group influences a range of developmental processes, which then place children at further risk. Specifically, this model posits that exposure to peer victimization contributes to maladaptive social-cognitive processes, ineffective emotional and behavioral self-regulatory responses, global emotional and behavioral dysfunction, and heightened adrenocortical reactivity. These developmental consequences, in turn, are proposed to heighten children's sensitivity to future interpersonal stress, as well as to cause children to generate additional stress in their relationships, including further victimization. Personal attributes of children and characteristics of victimization experiences are expected to influence how children react to victimization. This model will be evaluated in the context of a prospective longitudinal study. 400-second graders will be followed across four years using child, parent, and teacher reports. A sub-sample of children will participate in two observational procedures. First, observations will be conducted of natural playground interactions each of the four years to examine children's experiences with familiar peers, including incidents of victimization, and how they respond to stressful situations. Second, observations will be conducted using a laboratory paradigm to examine victimized children's responses to a social challenge during an interaction with an unfamiliar peer. Evaluation of the proposed transactional model will advance efforts to understand how children and their environments jointly contribute to development, and will provide a broad conceptual framework for understanding long-term risk in victimized children over time and across social groups. Moreover, this research will provide a basis for the creation of child-level and school-level programs designed to interrupt the cycle of victimization, violence, and distress associated with maltreatment by peers.