Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:11:20.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Twenty Years' Research on Peer Victimization and Psychosocial Maladjustment: A Meta-analytic Review of Cross-sectional Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2000

David S. J. Hawker
Affiliation:
Warneford Hospital, Oxford, U.K.
Michael J. Boulton
Affiliation:
Keele University, U.K.
Get access

Abstract

Cross-sectional quantitative designs are often used to investigate whether peer victimization is positively related to psychosocial maladjustment. This paper presents a meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies, published between 1978 and 1997, of the association of peer victimization with psychosocial maladjustment. Mean effect sizes were calculated for the association between peer victimization and each form of maladjustment (depression, loneliness, generalized and social anxiety, and global and social self-worth) assessed. The results suggested that victimization is most strongly related to depression, and least strongly related to anxiety. There was no evidence that victimization is more strongly related to social than to psychological forms of maladjustment. Effect sizes were stronger when the same informants were used to assess both victimization and maladjustment than when different informants were used. There were some design limitations to the studies reviewed, but all together their results provide a strong background for more complex research into the course and treatment of victims' distress.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)