Predicting Psychosocial Maladjustment in Emerging Adulthood From High School Experiences of Peer Victimization

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to compare recollections of sexual, physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization experienced in high school in terms of depressed affect, self-esteem, and loneliness experienced in university. In all, 247 university students (70 males and 177 females; M = 20.62, SD = 2.54) completed online measures assessing retrospective accounts of their experiences of different forms of peer victimization during high school (i.e., sexual, physical, verbal, social, and cyber) and their current psychosocial adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, depressed affect, and loneliness). Three separate hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to determine whether different indices of negative psychosocial adjustment are more strongly predicted by experiencing sexual or nonsexual forms of peer victimization. Although many university students recalled experiencing sexual peer victimization in high school at least once at an even higher percentage than verbal and social forms of peer victimization, the results of the present study suggest that social peer victimization in high school predicts higher levels of depressed affect and loneliness in university students than sexual peer victimization experienced in high school. Surprisingly, the young adults reporting higher levels of cyber peer victimization in high school were less lonely in university. Although the hypothesized relationships between each form of peer victimization and specific indices of psychosocial functioning were not consistently supported, these findings suggest that the form of peer victimization matters and may be differentially associated with well-being in emerging adulthood. It is important that future research explores how individual characteristics may further predict varied experiences of peer victimization and the long-term impact of those experiences.

Keywords

Internet and abuse adolescents sexual harassment bullying

Research, media, and personal experiences have made society acutely aware of the seriousness of peer victimization in schools. Although the overall prevalence of peer victimization tends to decrease as youth enter adolescence (Finkelhor, Ormrod, Turner, & Hamby, 2005), researchers have noted important developmental changes in the types of peer victimization young people encounter during adolescence. Indeed, physical peer victimization (e.g., hitting, kicking) has been found to decrease with age while verbal (e.g., name calling) and social peer victimization¹ (e.g., negative facial expressions such as eye rolling, spreading rumors) peaks in adolescence (Björkqvist, Lagerspetz, & Kaukiainen, 1992; Rosen, Beron, & Underwood, 2013). Moreover, young people’s interactions with peers are not restricted to school grounds and with increasing opportunities to connect with peers online, adolescents are more likely to report experiencing cyber peer victimization (e.g., victimization through email, picture/video clips, text messages, social media, social networks, online games) when compared with children (Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, & Lattanner, 2014). Researchers have also observed that peer victimization becomes sexualized during adolescence (American Association of University Women [AAUW], 1993; Berman, Straatman, Hunt, Izumi, & MacQuarrie, 2002; Craig, Pepler, Connolly, & Henderson, 2001; Hill & Kearl, 2011; McMaster, Connolly, Pepler, & Craig, 2002). From a developmental perspective, studies of peer victimization during adolescence should include and compare assessments of multiple forms of peer victimization, including physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual.

It is important to examine how varying forms of peer victimization may differentially affect the psychosocial development of young people. Although researchers have investigated an array of outcomes associated with various forms of peer victimization, these studies tend to examine one form of peer victimization in isolation from other forms of peer victimization experienced by young people—this is particularly true in the case of sexual peer victimization. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare recollections of sexual, physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization experienced in high school in terms of depressed affect, self-esteem, and loneliness experienced in university.

Developmental studies examining psychosocial outcomes associated with experiencing physical, verbal, and social peer victimization have long documented numerous negative outcomes during childhood and adolescence (see meta-analyses by Reijntjes et al., 2011; Reijntjes, Kamphuis, Prinzie, & Telch, 2010). Moreover, these negative associations with “traditional” forms of peer victimization (i.e., physical, verbal, and social) experienced by some youth seem to also extend into their psychosocial functioning during adulthood (see McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015, for review).

Studies examining young people’s psychosocial functioning that include comparisons of more than one form of peer victimization have revealed inconsistencies in comparing the impact of experiencing physical, verbal, and social peer victimization. For example, Nishina and Juvonen (2005) found no difference in the negative feelings associated with experiencing physical, verbal, and social peer victimization among 11-year-old middle school students. However, Baldry (2004) found that 11- to 15-year-old middle school students who were victims of indirect aggression (i.e., peer victimization such as social, indirect, anonymous, and circuitous) reported higher levels of internalizing problems than those students who were victims of direct aggression (i.e., physical and verbal peer victimization). This was particularly evident for young female adolescents. These inconsistencies may reflect the role of age and gender in how young people experience different forms of peer victimization. Indeed, Prinstein, Boergers, and Vernberg (2001) found that while male high school students were more likely to be victims of overt aggression (i.e., physical and verbal peer victimization) than female high school students, they reported comparable levels of relational peer victimization. For both male and female adolescents, experiencing relational aggression was found to be a stronger predictor of psychosocial maladjustment than experiencing overt aggression.

Researchers and the general public are also concerned about the prevalence of and outcomes associated with experiencing victimization through electronic contact with peers. Although the prevalence and outcomes associated with cyber peer victimization are variable, these interactions are clearly having a negative impact on many of the victims (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2012; also, see meta-analysis by Kowalski et al., 2014). It appears that cyber victimization or what some have referred to as “electronic bullying” peaks in early adolescence and remains prevalent throughout adolescence for both male and female high school students (David-Ferdon & Hertz, 2009; Kowalski et al., 2014). However, developmental researchers have cautioned against studying cyber peer victimization in isolation of the victimization young people experience in their offline social contexts. Indeed, researchers have documented a high degree of overlap in young people’s reports of traditional and cyber peer victimization (see David-Ferdon & Hertz, 2009; Olweus, 2013, for reviews).

When cyber peer victimization is compared with other forms of peer victimization, the construction of a measure of traditional peer victimization often represents a composite score that includes some combination of physical, verbal, and/or social forms of peer victimization that is then compared with experiences of cyber peer victimization. The resulting body of literature suggests that cyber peer victimization may be more strongly associated with psychosocial distress than traditional peer victimization (Cross, Lester, & Barnes, 2015; Juvonen & Gross, 2008). Kowalski and colleagues (2012) proposed that adolescents experiencing cyber peer victimization may be at higher risk for psychosocial maladjustment than victims of peer victimization experienced elsewhere because cyber peer victimization is often anonymous and difficult to escape (e.g., victimization “goes viral”).

Bannink, Broeren, van de Looij–Jansen, de Waart, and Raat (2014) found that young adolescents’ experiences of traditional bullying increased their risk of suicidal ideation, whereas only girls’ experiences of traditional and cyber bullying were associated with an increased risk of mental health problems. Furthermore, Dempsey, Sulkowski, Nichols, and Storch (2009) demonstrated that overt, relational, and cyber peer victimization differentially account for variability in social anxiety and depression reported by middle school students (ages 11-16). Experiences of overt and relational peer victimization were found to uniquely account for variability in adolescents’ reports of depression over and above experiences of cyber peer victimization. Cyber peer victimization was found to be associated with social anxiety after controlling for overt and relational peer victimization, though relational peer victimization was further found to be most strongly associated with adolescents’ social anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of treating different forms of victimization individually to examine what adolescents are likely to encounter in various social contexts that involve their peers.

Adolescents also experience peer victimization that is sexual. In a nationwide survey of 1,965 American students in Grades 7 through 12, 48% reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment during the 2010-2011 school year and the majority identified peers as the perpetrators (Hill & Kearl, 2011). Although sexual peer victimization may emerge prior to adolescence (e.g., Murnen & Smolak, 2000) and increases into early adolescence (Craig et al., 2001), the higher prevalence rates obtained in studies conducted with older adolescents suggests that sexual peer victimization is particularly salient during the developmental stage of adolescence (e.g., AAUW, 1993; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Hill & Kearl, 2011; Pepler et al., 2006). Some research suggests that this is perhaps due to adolescent developmental milestones such as the emergence of other-sex peer interactions (Craig et al., 2001), puberty (McMaster et al., 2002), and gender-role development (Buchanan & McDougall, 2017).

Furthermore, the existing research on adolescents’ experiences of sexual peer victimization reveals several negative outcomes, at least in the short-term. In a qualitative study by Berman and colleagues (2002), their analysis of adolescent girls’ narratives of sexual victimization perpetrated by their peers revealed themes of fear, avoidance, self-consciousness, violation, and shame that were not as evident in boys’ narratives. Girls also described the negative impact that experiences of sexual peer victimization had on their sense of well-being. As with research on cyber peer victimization, adolescents’ well-being in relation to experiencing sexual peer victimization is rarely compared with experiencing other forms of peer victimization. In the few studies that have examined the relative impact of experiencing sexual peer victimization versus other forms of peer victimization, reports of experiencing physical, verbal, and social peer victimization are again aggregated and compared with experiences of sexual peer victimization. For example, Gruber and Fineran (2008) compared the impact of being sexually harassed by peers to being a victim of peers’ aggression that was nonsexual (i.e., the measure included items about physical, verbal, and social aggression) among middle and high school students. They found that while adolescents were more likely to report nonsexual peer victimization than sexual peer victimization, sexual peer victimization was more strongly associated with psychosocial maladjustment than nonsexual peer victimization, particularly for female and sexual minority adolescents.

To the best of our knowledge, currently only one published study has assessed psychosocial adjustment and multiple forms of peer victimization (including sexual) experienced in adolescence. Felix and McMahon (2006) found that whereas sexual peer victimization was less prevalent than experiencing overt aggression and relational aggression, experiencing overt aggression and sexual peer victimization (but not social forms) was related to internalizing behaviors reported by 11- to 15-year-olds. These associations may not be generalizable to older adolescents given high school students’ well-being has been strongly tied to social forms of peer victimization (Prinstein et al., 2001), although the relative impact of social versus sexual peer victimization during late adolescence has yet to be investigated.

Over the past few decades, researchers have generated a large volume of research that provides substantial evidence to support the claim that young people’s well-being is negatively affected by experiences of peer victimization, but significant gaps in the current literature persist. Past findings on adolescents’ experiences of peer victimization signal the need to assess and compare different forms of traditional peer victimization given the varied developmental trajectories for experiencing physical, verbal, and social peer victimization. Moreover, it should not be surprising that negative interactions between adolescents occur in both online and offline contexts given adolescents’ propensity for technology that fosters both positive and negative social interactions with their peers. Additional developmental changes unique to adolescence may further cultivate the sexualization of peer victimization. Taken together, it is important to differentiate among the varying forms of peer victimization experienced during adolescence given that different indices of adjustment may be more strongly connected to specific forms of peer victimization. Yet limited research has compared patterns of psychosocial adjustment in emerging adulthood associated with different forms of peer victimization that are experienced in high school.

The present study examined three indices of current psychosocial functioning reported by university students (depressed affect, self-esteem, and feelings of loneliness) and retrospective accounts of different forms of peer victimization in high school (physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual). Based on the very limited research, we hypothesized that in comparing recollections of experiencing physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual peer victimization in high school, recollections of sexual peer victimization experienced in high school would be the strongest predictor of university students’ self-reported depressed affect, self-esteem, and loneliness, particularly for female participants (Felix & McMahon, 2006; Gruber & Fineran, 2008). We also hypothesized that recollections of experiencing social peer victimization in high school would more strongly predict university students’ feeling of depressed affect than recalled experiences of physical, verbal, and cyber peer victimization in high school (Dempsey et al., 2009; Prinstein et al., 2001). To expand upon existing research, additional indices of psychosocial well-being, including loneliness and self-esteem, were also examined to investigate whether forms of nonsexual peer victimization experienced in high school may differentially affect young people’s psychosocial well-being once they enter university.

Method

Participants

Emerging adults (i.e., age 18-29; Arnett, 2014) attending a Canadian university were recruited to participate in this study using two different mechanisms. First, some student participants were recruited through the university webmail service including 21 men and 119 women (ages 17-45); they could email the researcher to enter a draw for one of the two $50 CAD gift certificates. Second, participants were recruited from introductory psychology courses including 57 male and 80 female university students who received course credit for participation (ages 18-48). Only data provided by individuals who were in emerging adulthood were used for the reported analyses. Thus, data from 30 students were removed from the sample because their reported age fell outside the specified age range (n = 16) or because they were missing data on one or more key variables (e.g., did not respond to peer victimization questions and/or responded to less than 60% of items on a particular scale; n = 14). Missing data were spread across key variables of interest; it was observed that these data were missing in a random fashion and fell below the 5% cutoff level for any single variable.

The final sample size included 247 participants (70 males and 177 females) with a mean age of 20.62 (SD = 2.54). Most of the participants were below the age of 21 (62%) and in their first year of university (40%). Participants were asked to indicate what their sexual orientation was in high school and 93% reported being heterosexual, 4% reported being bisexual, 2% reported that they were unsure, and two participants reported being homosexual. Although ethnicity was not collected through the online survey accessed by the introductory psychology students, data on ethnicity were collected through the university webmail service survey and 90% of these participants indicated they were White, Caucasian, European, or Latino/Hispanic; 5% indicated they were Asian; 2% indicated they were Aboriginal; one person indicated they were Black or African American; and two participants indicated Other. It should be noted that the university where students were recruited does not have a substantial Latino/Latina student body (~1%-2%) so the percentage of White university students participating in this study would largely be of European descent.

Measures

Data were collected using several measures administered online. Demographic information was collected including sex, age, year of study, ethnicity, and current sexual orientation and sexual orientation in high school. Online measures included assessments of participants’ retrospective accounts of their experiences of different forms of peer victimization during high school. They were also asked to complete online measures assessing their current psychosocial adjustment including self-esteem, depressed affect, and loneliness.

Peer victimization

Participants were asked to think back to high school and rate how often other students had victimized them. They were instructed to “keep in mind these are behaviors that you felt were unwanted or unwelcome (that is not friendly joking around or flirting)” when rating their experiences of peer victimization in high school on a 4-point Likert-type scale: 0 = never, 1 = seldom, 2 = often, and 3 = very often. Physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization were assessed with one item each (“hurt you physically by hitting, shoving, or kicking you”; “hurt you with words by insulting, threatening, or putting you down”; “hurt you socially by excluding you, gossiping about you, or getting others to not like you”; and “used text messages, emails, or pictures on a computer/cell phone to hurt or make you look bad,” respectively; Buchanan & McDougall, 2017; Vaillancourt et al., 2010).

Peer victimization that was sexual was assessed using a modified version of the AAUW’s (1993) sexual victimization questionnaire. Twelve of the items appearing on this scale were drawn from the AAUW’s sexual victimization questionnaire (i.e., “showed or gave you sexually explicit material such as pictures and notes”; “flashed or mooned you”; “touched, grabbed, or pinched you in a sexual way”; “forced you to kiss someone”; “forced you to do something sexual other than kissing”; “intentionally brushed up against you in a sexual manner”; “pulled your clothing off or down”; “pulled at your clothing in a sexual way”; “blocked or cornered you in a sexual manner”; “spread sexual rumors about you”; “maliciously called you gay or lesbian”; and “made you the target of sexual comments or jokes”). One of the original items was modified; “gestures and looks” was deleted from “been a target of sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or looks” because this original item was a double-barrel question. Also, one of the original items from the AAUW’s sexual harassment questionnaire was deleted because not all high school students participate in physical education and, therefore, would rarely be in the situation of “been spied on while dressing or showering.” In addition to the 12 items originating from AAUW’s measure, the following items by Timmerman (2003) and McMaster et al. (2002) were included: “made sexual comments about parts of your body” and “made sexual remarks about your clothing.” In sum, this measure of sexual peer victimization included 14 items (Buchanan & McDougall, 2017). Internal consistency for retrospective accounts of experiencing sexual peer victimization was high at .84. A composite score was created by averaging across responses with higher scores indicating greater experiences of sexual peer victimization.

Self-esteem

Current self-esteem was assessed using five items from the self-esteem scale on the Self-Description Questionnaire II (Marsh, 1990). The validity of these items has been well documented (see Marsh, Parada, & Ayotte, 2004). Items appearing on this measure were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale (i.e., 1 = not at all true about me, 2 = hardly true about me, 3 = sometimes true about me, 4 = most of the time true about me, and 5 = always true about me). Examples of items include “Overall, I have a lot to be proud of,” and “I am as good as most other people.” Cronbach’s alpha of .89 suggests this measure was reliable with this sample. A composite score was created by averaging across responses with high scores indicating higher levels of self-esteem.

Depressed affect

Current depressive affect was assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). Items on this questionnaire describe experiences associated with depression (e.g., “I felt that everything I did was an effort” and “I talked less than usual”). These 20 items were rated on a 4-point scale; 1 = rarely or none of the time, 2 = some or a little of the time, 3 = somewhat or occasionally, and 4 = most or all of the time. The validity and reliability of this questionnaire has been well documented in university populations (see Santor, Zuroff, Ramsay, Cervantes, & Palacios, 1995). Internal reliability was found to be high (α = .92). A composite score for depressed affect was calculated by averaging across items; higher mean scores reflect higher levels of depressed affect.

Loneliness

Participants were also asked to self-report current feelings of loneliness using the UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3 (Russell, 1996). The 10 items on this questionnaire describe subjective experiences of loneliness (e.g., “How often do you feel that you lack companionship?”) and were rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale (i.e., 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, and 4 = always). This measure was found to be reliable with high internal consistency (α = .90). A composite score for loneliness was calculated by averaging across items; higher mean scores reflect greater feelings of loneliness.

Results

Descriptive statistics for self-reports of experiencing different forms of peer victimization in high school are shown in Table 1. Whereas many participants recalled experiencing verbal, social, and sexual peer victimization at least once while in high school, smaller proportions of students reported any experience of physical or cyber victimization. Retrospective accounts of experiencing verbal and social peer victimization emerged as the more prevalent forms of recalled peer victimization with means just above a rating of “1” and also showed greatest variability in prevalence. As demonstrated in Table 1, the pattern of correlations among female participants’ recollections of peer victimization in high school suggests experiences of one type of peer victimization puts one at risk of experiencing other types of peer victimization (although cyber and physical peer victimization were not significantly correlated). For male participants, experiences of verbal peer victimization in high school were related to experiencing physical, social, and cyber peer victimization in high school. The three indices of psychosocial well-being were modestly correlated such that higher depressed affect was tied to greater loneliness, r(245) = .56, p < .001, and lower self-esteem, r(245) = –.51, p < .001, with greater loneliness also connected to lower self-esteem, r(245) = –.28, p < .001, for the sample as a whole.

Table 1.

Percentages and Frequency of Reported Experiences of Sexual and Nonsexual Peer Victimization During High School and Intercorrelations, Means, and (Standard Deviations) for These Experiences.

Type of Peer Victimization	Females (n = 177)	Males (n = 70)	1	2	3	4	5
1. Physical	25% 0.25 (0.45)	40% 0.47 (0.63)	—	.28*	.13	−.14	.19
2. Verbal	84% 1.15 (0.75)	79% 1.00 (0.66)	.48***		.59***	.24*	−.08
3. Social	83%1.20 (0.81)	70%0.96 (0.79)	.34***	.59***		.22	−.03
4. Cyber	33%0.37 (0.59)	16%0.16 (0.37)	.11	.30***	.36***		.15
5. Sexual	88%0.38 (0.33)	93%0.40 (0.37)	.27***	.22***	.19**	.25**

Note. The percentage of participants who indicated experiencing each form of peer victimization behavior at least once in high school is on the first line (i.e., students who reported seldom, often, or very often experiencing each type of peer victimization were counted in the percentage), the mean appears on the second line (where the frequency scale ranges from 0 to 3), and the standard deviation appears in parentheses on the third line. Intercorrelations for male university students’ recollections of experiencing victimization in high school are presented above the diagonal (n = 70), and intercorrelations involving female university students’ recollections of experiencing victimization in high school are presented below the diagonal (n = 177).

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

To test the hypotheses, three separate hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to determine whether different indices of negative psychosocial adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, depressed affect, social loneliness) are more strongly predicted by experiencing sexual or nonsexual forms of peer victimization. Sex was entered on the first step of the regression as a categorical variable that was dummy coded such that “0” represented males and “1” represented females. In addition, the first step of the regression included continuous variables for each form of peer victimization (physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual), centered on their respective grand means to avoid problems of multicollinearity between variables of an interaction term (Aiken & West, 1991). The products of these centered variables were entered as interaction terms on the second step of each regression (e.g., Sex × Physical Peer Victimization; see Table 2).

Table 2.

Hierarchical Multiple Regressions for Predicting Psychosocial Adjustment.

Variables	Self-Esteem		Depressed Affect		Loneliness
Variables	ΔR ²	β	ΔR ²	β	ΔR ²	β
Step 1	.07*		.13***		.11***
Sex^a		.15*		.15*		.09
Physical PV		−.08		.09		.05
Verbal PV		−.03		.12		.12
Social PV		−.15		.18*		.22**
Cyber PV		−.04		.03		−.15*
Sexual PV		.07		.03		−.06
Step 2	.03		.03		.02
Sex		.16*		.16*		.07
Physical PV		−.05		−.01		−.10
Verbal PV		.12		.12		.39*
Social PV		−.33*		.29*		.14
Cyber PV		−.03		−.24		−.21
Sexual PV		.27*		−.09		−.06
Sex × Physical PV		−.06		.13		.20
Sex × Verbal PV		−.15		−.02		−.33
Sex × Social PV		.22		−.15		.08
Sex × Cyber PV		−.02		.28		.06
Sex × Sexual PV		−.24*		.16		.02

Note. PV = peer victimization.

Males = 0 and females = 1.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Predicting Self-Esteem

Bivariate correlations were computed to examine the zero-order connections between self-esteem and the predictor variables of interest, including sex, physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual victimization. Higher self-esteem in emerging adulthood was correlated with being female, r(245) = .14, p = .029, and fewer experiences of physical, verbal, and social peer victimization recalled about high school, r(245) = –.14, p = .028; r(245) = –.14, p = .030; and r(245) = –.17, p = .007, respectively. In predicting self-esteem in emerging adulthood, the variables on Step 1 accounted for a small (7%) but significant portion of the variance, F(6, 240) = 2.85, p = .01; but the addition of the interaction terms on Step 2 was not significant. On Step 1, the standardized beta weight for sex revealed that higher levels of self-reported self-esteem in emerging adulthood were associated with being a female university student (see Table 2). As none of the forms of peer victimization or interaction terms emerged as uniquely predictive, our findings did not support the hypothesis that experiences of sexual peer victimization in high school would be the strongest predictor of university students’ self-esteem, particularly for girls.

Predicting Depressed Affect

An examination of the bivariate correlations between depressed affect and the predictor variables of interest reveal that depressed affect in emerging adulthood was correlated with sex whereby greater depressed affect was tied to being female, r(245) = .17, p = .006. Greater depressed affect was also connected to higher frequencies of reportedly experiencing physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization in high school, r(245) = .15, p = .018; r(245) = .28, p < .001; r(245) = .30, p < .001; and r(245) = .16, p = .012. In predicting depressed affect in emerging adulthood, only the variables on Step 1 accounted for a significant portion of the variance, R² = .13, F(6, 240) = 6.13, p < .001. The standardized beta weights suggest that sex and experiences of social peer victimization in high school uniquely predicted depressed affect in emerging adulthood such that higher levels of depressed affect in emerging adulthood were associated with being female and recollections of greater frequency in high school social peer victimization. Therefore, our findings support the hypothesis that recalled experiences of social peer victimization in high school uniquely predict depressed affect felt by university students. However, contrary to what we predicted, experiences of sexual peer victimization in high school were not found to predict university students’ feelings of depressed affect.

Predicting Loneliness

The zero-order connections between feelings of loneliness and the predictor variables indicated that more loneliness in emerging adulthood was correlated with accounts of more frequent verbal and social peer victimization in high school, r(245) = .22, p < .001, and r(245) = .26, p < .001, respectively. In predicting loneliness in emerging adulthood, the variables on Step 1 accounted for just more than 10% of the variance in loneliness resulting in a significant finding, F(6, 240) = 4.68, p < .001; but the interaction terms added on Step 2 did not contribute a significant amount of variance. On Step 1, the standardized beta weights suggest that emerging adults’ level of loneliness is uniquely predicted by retrospective accounts of social and cyber peer victimization. That is, feeling lonely in emerging adulthood was predicted by more social victimization and less cyber victimization recalled from high school experiences. These findings do not support our hypothesis that females’ experiences of sexual peer victimization in high school would be the strongest predictor of feelings of loneliness in university.

Discussion

The goal of this study was to compare sexual, physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization experienced in high school in terms of depressed affect, self-esteem, and loneliness experienced in university to more fully understand how peer victimization in adolescence may influence emerging adults’ psychosocial functioning. In general, we were only able to predict small amounts of the variance in current psychosocial indices on the basis of peer victimization that took place years earlier, ranging from 7% (self-esteem) to a high of 13% (depressed affect), with feelings of loneliness falling in between (11%). Clearly, there are numerous other individual and interpersonal factors that are predictive of self-esteem, depressed affect, and loneliness in emerging adulthood.

Two key hypotheses were advanced. First, based on very limited prior research (e.g., Gruber & Fineran, 2008), it was predicted that more frequently recalled experiences of sexual peer victimization would be most strongly associated with university students’ psychosocial maladjustment as compared with traditional forms of victimization. The findings did not support this hypothesis. Recollections of sexual peer victimization were not associated with any of the indices of psychosocial functioning in university and did not emerge as a significant predictor of functioning.

The absence of sexual peer victimization as a predictor of functioning was surprising given that many university students recalled experiencing sexual peer victimization in high school at least once at an even higher percentage than verbal and social forms of peer victimization. Although some research has similarly reported no relationship between experiencing sexual victimization and self-esteem (e.g., Timmerman, 2003), the present findings contradict what has been previously reported by others studying psychosocial functioning and sexual peer victimization in schools (Berman et al., 2002; Felix & McMahon, 2006; Gruber & Fineran, 2008). It is possible that the current findings can be attributed to the low frequency of sexual peer victimization in high school as reported by emerging adults participating in this study. That is, although the percentage of emerging adults who recalled experiencing sexual peer victimization at least once while in high school shows high prevalence, the mean levels for sexual peer victimization and the relatively tight clustering of scores around the mean suggest that they were not repeatedly sexually victimized by their peers. Perhaps the high prevalence–low frequency nature of sexual peer victimization in high school suggests that these occurrences become normalized in peer groups in high school resulting in less impact on psychosocial well-being. There may also be measurement issues at work here for sexual peer victimization, discussed below as a limitation.

In the second hypothesis, we posited that social peer victimization (when compared with other traditional forms) would emerge as the most notable predictor of depressed affect experienced in emerging adulthood. Indeed, although small associations were observed between depressed affect and each of the traditional forms of peer victimization (physical, verbal, social, and cyber), the results of the regression provided support for this hypothesis showing that social peer victimization was the only uniquely significant victimization predictor of greater depressed affect. Although not explicitly hypothesized, earlier social peer victimization was similarly a unique predictor of higher levels of loneliness experienced years later in university, for both male and female students (no interaction was observed). The strength of social peer victimization experiences observed in the present study is consistent with past research wherein social forms of peer victimization have been strongly tied to high school students’ well-being (e.g., Prinstein et al., 2001; Storch, Brassard, & Masia-Warner, 2003). Indeed, the results of this study suggest that social peer victimization may have a more lasting impact on university students’ psychosocial functioning than recalled experiences of sexual and other nonsexual forms of peer victimization experienced in high school.

The presence of correlations at the bivariate level between retrospective accounts of peer victimization (particularly verbal and social) and university students’ depressed affect, feelings of loneliness, and self-esteem seem to suggest that variability in psychosocial functioning measured in emerging adulthood may be tied to earlier experiences of traditional forms of peer victimization in general, rather than sexual peer victimization. These associations were small in magnitude and as such would need to be replicated before further hypotheses are advanced.

The current findings may reflect the prevalence of each form of traditional peer victimization assessed. Consistent with past research (Björkqvist et al., 1992), many university students recalled being a victim of verbal and social aggression while in high school, with fewer recalling physical or cyber peer victimization. Moreover, these incidents involving verbal and social peer victimization in high school appear to have occurred more frequently than incidents of physical peer victimization; therefore, these experiences may carry more weight into emerging adulthood.

Experiencing cyber peer victimization in high school was not predictive of maladjustment in emerging adulthood. Even at the bivariate level, cyber peer victimization was only associated with depressed affect but not loneliness or self-esteem. However, cyber peer victimization was not found to be a prevalent experience among the participants in this study. Whereas some studies have reported high prevalence rates of cyber peer victimization in high school (e.g., Juvonen & Gross, 2008), others have argued that assessments used in many studies inflate the prevalence of peer victimization experienced online (see Kowalski et al., 2014). Asking someone to indicate how often they experienced cyber peer victimization in the past few weeks is quite different than asking about lifetime experiences. Yet in this study, the same timeframe was used in reporting experiences of physical, verbal, social, cyber, and sexual peer victimization in high school. Perhaps the university students participating in this study did not have as widespread access to the technology as is currently available to adolescents, therefore making cyber victimization less relevant for at least some in this cohort.

It is interesting to note that despite the low frequency of recollected cyber victimization, the young adults who did report more cyber victimization in high school were actually less lonely in university. This could be a testament to the fact that while a greater online presence makes one more susceptible to cyber victimization because of more time spent online and greater exposure, it also corresponds with greater opportunity for engaging in social relationships, which reduce loneliness.

Existing research reveals that a host of negative outcomes are related to experiencing both sexual and nonsexual peer victimization (e.g., AAUW, 1993; Felix & McMahon, 2006; Reijntjes et al., 2011; Reijntjes et al., 2010), but other studies have not detected these links. For example, Tritt and Duncan (1997) did not find that self-esteem varied between victims and nonvictims of childhood experiences of peer victimization. Other researchers have found that poor childhood psychosocial functioning may account for the link between peer victimization and depression (e.g., Matsui, Kakuyama, Tsuzuki, & Onglatco, 1996). In a review of long-term outcomes associated with peer victimization, McDougall and Vaillancourt (2015) suggested that if youth are not already struggling with depression prior to being victimized, they may indeed recover from these experiences once removed from the context wherein the victimization occurs. The current findings may suggest that this is true for self-esteem and feelings of social isolation as well. Perhaps universities provide a social environment that fosters recovery from experiencing some forms of peer victimization in high school keeping in mind that the present findings suggest that social forms of peer victimization may inflict more long-term damage than other forms of peer victimization. More longitudinal research is needed that takes into account earlier psychosocial functioning, form of peer victimization experienced, and later well-being.

One of the major limitations of this study is that it is not longitudinal but rather relied on retrospective accounts of experiences of peer victimization in high school. It is important to highlight that childhood experiences can be validly and reliably studied using retrospective methods (Brewin, Andrews, & Gotlib, 1993; Campbell & Porter, 2002; Hardt & Rutter, 2004). In terms of the suitability of this method, previous research has been able to document that recollections of earlier experiences of childhood peer victimization are typically stable (e.g., Eslea & Rees, 2001; McNicholas, Orpinas, & Raczynski, 2020; Rivers, 2001). At the same time, retrospective accounts of high school experiences are not ideal from a measurement perspective and could affect the findings. For example, participants may have forgotten past experiences of peer victimization or misremember how frequently they were victimized by peers in high school thus providing underestimates. Longitudinal studies would add considerably to the exploration of the present research questions by aiding in the identification of diverse pathways for victims of peer victimization from adolescence to emerging adulthood.

Longitudinal research on children suggests that at least some victims experience stable levels of peer victimization across different contexts (Pellegrini & Long, 2002; Vaillancourt, Brittain, McDougall, & Duku, 2013), therefore, it is possible that some individuals who suffer the most in high school do not attend university to avoid settings that may place them at risk of being revictimized by a new set of peers. There is no single trajectory for victimized youth and clearly some do go onto university. Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham, and Rich (2012) found that the online and offline victimization that university students recalled experiencing in high school was strongly associated with the form of victimization they reported experiencing in university. They also found that university students who reported experiences of peer victimization (both in offline and online contexts) were at greater risk of both psychosocial maladjustment and academic problems.

Another limitation that needs to be addressed concerns the measurement of each type of peer victimization. Specifically, physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization were each assessed with a single item (including multiple examples of that form of victimization) whereas the measure of sexual peer victimization had 14 items. Multi-item measures tend to be more sensitive than single-item measures (Vaillancourt et al., 2010).

There are also drawbacks associated with multi-item measures as seen in the measurement of sexual peer victimization used in the present study. Asking separate items to represent different exemplars of sexual peer victimization and then aggregating across items meant that each behavior, regardless of how central it may or may not be to the construct and/or to the individual, was weighted equally. Thus, more infrequent aspects of sexual peer victimization (e.g., forced to engage in unwanted sexual behaviors; AAUW, 1993; Lacasse, Purdy, & Mendelson, 2003) would reduce the overall frequency score.

More stringent assessments of the validity of the sexual peer victimization measures are encouraged. It is possible that distinct forms of sexual peer victimization should be identified as done with traditional forms of peer victimization; some researchers have attempted to categorize the items on measures of sexual peer victimization (e.g., physical and nonphysical in AAUW, 1993; moderate and severe in Lacasse et al., 2003; visual, verbal, and physical in Murnen & Smolak, 2000). In this study, small correlations suggested overlap between female university students’ ratings of sexual, physical, verbal, social, and cyber peer victimization. Perhaps during adolescence, especially for females, the aggressive strategies used in the context of peer groups do become more sexualized. Indeed, other developmental researchers have argued that sexual peer victimization is a form of peer victimization that emerges in early adolescence as nonsexual forms of peer victimization become more sexualized with the onset of sexual maturation particularly in the context of interacting with other-sex peers (Craig et al., 2001; McMaster et al., 2002).

Very few developmental studies on peer victimization include sexual peer victimization (see Craig et al., 2001; Felix & McMahon, 2006; Gruber & Fineran, 2008; McMaster et al., 2002, for exceptions), and even fewer studies have compared patterns of negative outcomes associated with different forms of peer victimization that are sexual and nonsexual (see Felix & McMahon, 2006; Gruber & Fineran, 2008, for exceptions). Thus, the present findings extend existing research by including sexual victimization alongside other forms of victimization and by considering multiple indices of psychological adjustment in emerging adulthood. Given that results are based on retrospective accounts of peer victimization, longitudinal research is necessary to further examine possible long-term effects of peer victimization and should explore other factors that might explain why emerging adults suffer psychological distress from high school experiences of victimization. Certainly, the detected connections between social peer victimization experienced in high school and later experiences of depressed affect and loneliness in university are likely affected by other factors.

Individuals’ interpretations of these behaviors are important if researchers want to develop effective interventions and prevent negative outcomes associated with these behaviors. The low frequency of behaviors and experiences (e.g., as in the case of sexual peer victimization described in this research) may actually mask devastating critical events that have a strong impact on some victims. Peer victimization remains a significant concern even in those cases in which behaviors or experiences are not high in frequency. Moreover, taking diversity into consideration, it is possible that certain groups of adolescents may be disproportionately victimized by peers. Specifically, some research suggests that adolescents’ sexual orientation may put them at great risk of experiencing sexual peer victimization (Gruber & Fineran, 2008). In the current study, the small sample size made it impossible to make meaningful comparisons of young people’s experiences of different forms of peer victimization according to self-reported sexual orientation. Further research using retrospective accounts of peer victimization in adolescence may be beneficial in developing an understanding of what experiences have a lasting impact. That is, examining the link between individuals’ current psychosocial well-being and what they perceive as memorable in terms of adolescent peer victimization could help researchers better identify where preventive efforts are most needed during adolescence.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by doctoral wards from the Canadian Federation of University Women and the Saskatchewan-Canadian Institutes of Health Research Regional Partnership Program.

ORCID iD

Carie M. Buchanan

Notes

Author Biographies

Carie M. Buchanan (PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at St. Thomas More College, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She studies the developmental significance of peer relationships across the lifespan. Her current program of research explores how young adults’ psychosocial functioning may be related to both positive peer interactions (e.g., friendships and romantic relationships) and negative peer interactions (e.g., peer victimization) during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood, particularly within the context of post-secondary education.

Patricia McDougall (PhD) serves as the vice-provost, teaching and learning, at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and conducts research on social relationships in childhood and adolescence, including such topics as friendship and social status, with a particular focus on studying the long-term impact of bullying and victimization. She also investigates the domain of student experience, where she examines the nature of the transition into university, students’ educational goals, and factors that affect student retention.

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