Does authentic self-esteem buffer the negative effects of bullying victimization on social anxiety and classroom concentration? Evidence from a short-term longitudinal study with early adolescents.

Background: Bullying victimization is a risk factor for social anxiety and disrupted classroom concentration among young people. Self-esteem has been implicated as a protective factor, but extant literature is sparse.

Aims: Aim of present study was to test if a new measure of authentic self-esteem can buffer the negative effects of bullying victimization on social anxiety and disrupted classroom concentration concurrently and across time.

Parenting about challenges and adolescents' social anxiety, disrupted classroom concentration, and resilience knowledge: The mediating role of authentic self-esteem.

Background: A large theoretical and empirical literature indicates that parenting practices affect young people's well-being and resilience, but there is much still to learn about psychological mechanisms, especially beyond infancy/early childhood. A recent model of authentic self-esteem argues that it arises out of experiences of challenge situations shared with parents that it can subsequently act as a protective factor that supports well-being and resilience among young people. The aim of the current study is to test (a) if parenting about challenges can predict 3 indices of adolescents' well-being, namely their social anxiety, disrupted classroom concentration, and ability to spontaneously generate resilient strategies; and more substantially, (b) if authentic self-esteem can mediate those associations if found.

Modifying Self-Blame, Self-Esteem, and Disclosure Through a Cooperative Cross-Age Teaching Intervention for Bullying Among Adolescents.

Bullying is common among school students, and some victims hold self-blaming attributions, exhibit low self-esteem, and do not seek social support. A wait-list control pre-/post-test experimental design, with random allocation, was used to assess the effects of a novel cross-age teaching of social issues (CATS) intervention on the latter 3 variables among peer-identified victims of bullying (N = 41, mean age = 14.5 years).

Perceived barriers that prevent high school students seeking help from teachers for bullying and their effects on disclosure intentions.

Many adolescents choose not to tell teachers when they have been bullied. Three studies with 12-16 year-old English adolescents addressed possible reasons. In study 1, students (N = 411, 208 females/203 males) identified reasons with no prompting.

Enhancing Primary School Children's Knowledge of Online Safety and Risks with the CATZ Cooperative Cross-Age Teaching Intervention: Results from a Pilot Study.

Children are heavy users of the Internet and prior studies have shown that many of them lack a good understanding of the risks of doing so and how to avoid them. This study examined if the cross-age teaching zone (CATZ) intervention could help children acquire important knowledge of online risks and safety. It allowed older students to act as CATZ tutors to design and deliver a lesson to younger schoolmates (tutees), using content material about online risks and safety provided by adults.

Teachers' self-efficacy, perceived effectiveness beliefs, and reported use of cognitive-behavioral approaches to bullying among pupils: effects of in-service training with the I DECIDE program.

Despite the promise of being effective in tacking bullying and conduct disorder, cognitive-behavioral (C-B) interventions are underused by teachers. Little detailed information exists as to why this is the case. The current study with junior school teachers in the U.

Children's hostile attribution bias is reduced after watching realistic playful fighting, and the effect is mediated by prosocial thoughts.

Hostile attribution bias (HAB) has been found to characterize aggressive children. Watching prosocial media has been shown to have positive effects on children, and the general learning model has been used to account for these observations. This study tested the hypotheses derived from this theory that exposure to playful fighting would lead to a reduction in HAB, both immediately and after a 1-day delay, and that this effect would be mediated by positive thoughts.

The effects of victim of bullying reputation on adolescents' choice of friends: mediation by fear of becoming a victim of bullying, moderation by victim status, and implications for befriending interventions.

Research has shown that victims of bullying fare less well on measures of peer affiliation than nonvictims, but less is known about the direction of effects and the mechanisms involved. Three linked studies addressed the latter two issues using an experimental paradigm with hypothetical vignettes (N=360). In Experiment 1, among both boys and girls and pupils in Years 7, 8, and 9 (n=120), participants were significantly less likely to (a) agree to act as a formal befriender to, (ii) believe that they would attempt to form a friendship with, and (iii) think that their peers would form friendships with a pupil new to their school if the description of the new pupil signaled that he or she had (vs.

Associations between adults' recalled childhood bullying victimization, current social anxiety, coping, and self-blame: evidence for moderation and indirect effects.

Prior studies have shown that bullying victimization is common during childhood and may have negative effects over the short term. Evidence is also emerging that childhood bullying victimization in the form of teasing may precipitate social anxiety in adulthood. The present study extended the field by testing for associations between adults' recall of four common subtypes of childhood bullying victimization and their current social anxiety.

The relation between trust beliefs and loneliness during early childhood, middle childhood, and adulthood.

Four studies examined the relation between trust and loneliness. Studies 1, 2, and 3 showed that trust beliefs negatively predicted changes in loneliness during early childhood (5-7 years), middle childhood (9-11 years), and young adulthood (18-21 years). Structural equation modeling yielded support for the hypothesis that the relation between trust beliefs and loneliness was mediated, in part, by social disengagement, which varied by age and gender.

Concurrent and short-term longitudinal associations between peer victimization and school and recess liking during middle childhood.

Background: Prior studies outside of the UK have shown that peer victimization is negatively associated with school adjustment.

Aims: To examine concurrent and short-term longitudinal associations between peer victimization (physical, malicious teasing, deliberate social exclusion, and malicious gossiping) and two measures of school adjustment (school liking and recess liking), and test if these associations were moderated by year and sex.

Sample: A UK sample of 429 pupils in Years 4, 5, and 6 (Grades 3, 4, and 5, respectively, in USA) participated in the Autumn/Winter (Time 1) and 189 of these provided follow-up data during the Spring/Summer (Time 2) of the same school year.

Associations between peer victimization, fear of future victimization and disrupted concentration on class work among junior school pupils.

Background: Studies have shown that peer victimization is associated with psychological maladjustment, and have implicated such maladjustment in disrupted ability to concentrate.

Aims: To investigate the levels of, and associations between, physical, verbal, and social exclusion victimization, fear of future victimization, and disrupted classroom concentration.

Sample: Participants consisted of 485 pupils aged 10-11 drawn from 11 junior schools in the UK.

Longitudinal associations between submissive/nonassertive social behavior and different types of peer victimization.

Previous research, primarily in North America, has found that submissive and nonassertive behaviors are associated with peer victimization during childhood. A limitation of this work has been the failure to examine the relationships between such behaviors and different types of peer victimization. To overcome this weakness, we developed an inventory to assess the bidirectional longitudinal associations between three different types of victimization and submissive/nonassertive social behavior.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among children's trust beliefs, psychological maladjustment and social relationships: are very high as well as very low trusting children at risk?

Four hundred and thirty-four children enrolled in school years 5 and 6 in the United Kingdom were administered measures of trust beliefs in peers/best friends and psychosocial functioning (internalized maladjustment, self-perceived social acceptance, social preference, and social exclusion) across an 8-month period (mean age = 9 years-9 months at Time 1). The relation between children's trust beliefs in peers or trust beliefs within best friend dyads and measures of psychosocial functioning conformed to a quadratic pattern. Compared to children in the middle range of trust beliefs, children with very low trust beliefs and those with very high trust beliefs in peers and/or within best friend dyads displayed higher internalized maladjustment, lower self-perceived social acceptance, higher social exclusion, and lower social preference.

The social skills problems of victims of bullying: self, peer and teacher perceptions.

Background: A small number of prior studies have found that victims of school bullying tend to exhibit poor social skills. Few of these have examined this issue from multiple perspectives, and there has been a focus on a restricted range of social skills.

Aims: To determine the extent to which self, peers, and teachers regard victims as having poorer social skills than non-victims across 20 behaviours/competencies.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among peer-reported trustworthiness, social relationships, and psychological adjustment in children and early adolescents from the United Kingdom and Canada.

Trustworthiness was examined in children and early adolescents from two countries. In Study 1,505 children in the fifth and sixth school years in the United Kingdom (mean age = 9 years 7 months) were tested across an 8-month period. In Study 2,350 sixth- through eighth-grade Canadian children and early adolescents (mean age = 12 years 11 months) were tested across a 1-year period.