Social and Emotional Adjustment Across Aggressor/Victim Subgroups: Are Aggressive-Victims Distinct?

Despite prior studies supporting the existence of “aggressive-victims”, it remains unclear if they possess unique risk factors from adolescents who are mostly aggressive or victimized. The present study sought to determine whether aggressive-victims differ from adolescents with distinct patterns of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of youth and adolescence Vol. 48; no. 11; pp. 2222 - 2240
Main Authors:	O’Connor, Kelly E., Farrell, Albert D., Kliewer, Wendy, Lepore, Stephen J.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	New York Springer US 01-11-2019 Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:	Adjustment Adolescent Adolescents Aggression - psychology Aggressiveness Behavioral Science and Psychology Bullying - psychology Child and School Psychology Clinical Psychology Crime Victims - psychology Emotional Adjustment Emotions Empirical Research Female Health Psychology History of Psychology Humans Latent class analysis Law and Psychology Male Participation Peer Group Psychology Risk factors Schools Self Concept Social Adjustment Students - psychology Teenagers Victimization Victims Aggressive-victims Adolescence Aggression Emotion regulation Social competence
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Summary:	Despite prior studies supporting the existence of “aggressive-victims”, it remains unclear if they possess unique risk factors from adolescents who are mostly aggressive or victimized. The present study sought to determine whether aggressive-victims differ from adolescents with distinct patterns of involvement in aggression and victimization in their social and emotional adjustment. Secondary analyses were conducted on baseline data from 984 seventh grade students (54% female) from three schools. Most participants identified their race as White (49%) or African American (19%), with 24% identifying as Latino/a. Latent class analysis identified four subgroups: predominant-aggressors (25%), predominant-victims (17%), aggressive-victims (12%), and limited-involvement (47%). The findings did not provide evidence of unique social-emotional characteristics of aggressive-victims that were not accounted for by their involvement in both aggression and victimization. Further evidence of unique differences in risk factors is needed to support targeted interventions for aggressive-victims.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Authors’ Contributions Kelly E. O’Connor is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Kelly’s research interests are broadly focused on youth violence prevention and positive youth development. Her research investigates the dynamics among risk and protective factors for problem behaviors among adolescents living in urban, high-burden communities. Stephen J. Lepore is Professor and Chair, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, in the College of Public Health, at Temple University. Much of his career has been devoted to studying psychosocial factors in adjustment to stressful life events, including serious illness, such as cancer, and exposure to violence. From this work, he developed the Social Cognitive Processing model of adjustment to stress. Wendy Kliewer is a Professor of the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Kliewer’s research centers on the broad theme of risk and resilience, with specific attention to cumulative stressors, their impacts on a broad array of functioning, and protective factors that mitigate risk. She has long-standing interests in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural research, and is committed to training the next generation of scholars to continue to do research that matters. Albert D. Farrell is Commonwealth Professor and Founding Director of the Clark-Hill Institute for Positive Youth Development at Virginia Commonwealth University. His work focuses on the identification of risk and protective factors related to adolescent problem behaviors, especially youth violence, and factors that promote the positive development of youth in high risk environments (e.g., those exposed to community violence). He also has a strong interest in research methodology, particularly as it applies to longitudinal research and prevention science. KO conceived of the study, completed the statistical analyses, and participated in the design and interpretation of the data and drafting of the manuscript. AF participated in the conceptualization of the study, design and interpretation of the data, and drafting of the manuscript. WK and SL provided the data for use in this study and contributed to the preparation of the manuscript. Author Affiliations and Research Interests
ISSN:	0047-2891 1573-6601 1573-6601
DOI:	10.1007/s10964-019-01104-0