Peer likeability and victimization in young adolescents: Moderating effects of descriptive and status group norms for aggression and prosocial behaviour and network density.

Introduction: Previous research has shown that peer victimization can be highly responsive to variables at the classroom level. Aggressive and prosocial norms may promote or reduce its status in classrooms. However, yet there is an apparent lack of success to explain which types of norms are more influential. This study examined the role of aggressive and prosocial descriptive and status norms in the peer victimization-status link. It also explores how the network density increases adherence to the prevailing norm in the classroom and its effect on the status of the victims.

Method: Data on peer acceptance and rejection, victimization, prosocial behaviour, and aggression were collected with sociometric methods in a sample of 6,600 students (M = 13.1 years, SD = 0.6; 49.2% girls), from 269 classrooms in 81 secondary schools in Spain. Group norms for aggression and for prosocial behaviour were assessed in three ways, the behaviour of all peers (class-norm), the behaviour of most-liked peers (likeability-norm), and the behaviour of most salient peers (visibility-norm).

Results: Multilevel regression analyses revealed that the negative impact of victimization on peer likeability was moderated by the classroom's norm for prosocial behaviour, by the status norm of most visible peers' norm for prosocial behaviour and for aggression, and by the group's network density. The behavioural status norms of most likeable peers had no significant effect.

Conclusion: These results underscore the overall importance of group context as a moderating factor of the relation between victimization and peer status in adolescents, and add to the growing body of knowledge driven by the socio-ecological approach to the study of peer relations in developmental psychology. As implications for education, these results affect the importance of considering socio-emotional variables in the formation of class groups in order to reduce victimization.