Peer Victimization and Children's Development

在过去的20年里，学龄儿童中的受害行为已经成为一个日益严重的公共卫生问题。这个神话曾经被认为是规范的，甚至是可以接受的成长的一部分，现在已经被驱散了。因此，研究人员开始有兴趣了解为什么一些儿童更有可能成为受害者，以及这种受害者是如何影响他们的福祉的。这项拟议的研究的目标是确定受害的心理、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龄人群体中的受害如何影响一系列的发展过程，从而将儿童置于进一步的风险之中。具体地说，该模型假设，暴露在同伴受害中会导致社会认知过程不适应，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。反过来，这些发展后果被认为是为了提高儿童对未来人际压力的敏感性，并导致儿童在他们的关系中产生额外的压力，包括进一步的受害。儿童的个人属性和受害经历的特点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名二年级学生将使用儿童、家长和教师报告进行为期四年的跟踪调查。一组儿童将参加两个观察性程序。首先，将在四年中每年对游乐场上的自然互动进行观察，以检查儿童与熟悉的同龄人的经历，包括受害事件，以及他们如何应对压力情况。其次，将使用实验室范式进行观察，以检查受害儿童在与陌生同龄人互动时对社会挑战的反应。对拟议的交易模式的评价将推动了解儿童及其环境如何共同促进发展的努力，并将提供一个广泛的概念框架，以了解受害儿童随着时间的推移和跨社会群体的长期风险。此外，这项研究将为创建儿童和学校级别的方案提供基础，旨在中断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.