【英文文献】关系欺负的研究

1、published by blackwell publishing inc.98volume 11, number 3, june 2002have highlighted the importance ofincreasing understanding of peervictimization so that people can in-tervene before troubled interac-tions escalate to fatal proportions.interestingly, even in the cases thatended in serious physic

2、al injuriesand death to the victims, perpetra-tors (or persons close to them) of-ten cited relational slights (e.g., be-ing excluded from salient socialgroups, which is one kind of rela-tional victimization) as significantmotivating factors in their physi-cally aggressive acts (e.g., johnson& br

3、ooke, 1999).although many past studies ofpeer maltreatment have focused onphysical victimization (e.g., ol-weus, 1978; perry, kusel, & perry,1988), the importance of an empiri-cal focus on relational victimiza-tion has only recently been recog-nized (for a review, see crick et al.,2001). anecdot

4、al evidence for thesalience of this construct abounds,but this research area is still in itsinfancy.what is relational victimization?in contrast to physical victimiza-tion, which involves being the fre-quent target of peers physicallyaggressive acts, relational victim-ization involves being the freq

5、uenttarget of peers relationally aggres-sive strategies. relationally aggres-abstractalthough many past studiesof peer maltreatment have fo-cused on physical victimiza-tion, the importance of anempirical focus on relationalvictimization has only recentlybeen recognized. in relationalvictimization, t

6、he perpetratorattempts to harm the targetthrough the manipulation of re-lationships, threat of damage tothem, or both. we review whatis currently known about rela-tional victimization with threeissues in mind: (a) developmen-tal changes in the manifesta-tion of relational victimization,(b) gender di

7、fferences in thelikelihood of being victimized,and (c) evidence that relationalvictimization is harmful.keywordsvictimization; gender; rela-tional aggressionalthough victimization by peershas long been considered a signifi-cant area of empirical inquiry inother countries (e.g., olweus,1978), in the

8、united states it hasonly recently emerged as a “ hot ”research topic. in this country, in-creased interest has likely been fu-eled by several horrific episodes ofpeer violence that have attractedsignificant national media atten-tion (e.g., the school shootings inlittleton, colorado). these eventssiv

9、e behaviors are those in whichthe perpetrator attempts to harmthe victim through the manipula-tion of relationships, threat of dam-age to them, or both (crick et al.,2001). thus, for example, a rela-tional victim may have friends whothreaten to withdraw their affec-tion unless he or she does whatthe

10、y want, may be excluded fromimportant social gatherings or ac-tivities when a peer is angry withhim or her, or may be the target ofnasty rumors within the peergroup that are designed to moti-vate peers to reject him or her.relationally aggressive acts de-prive children of opportunities tosatisfy the

11、ir social needs for close-ness, acceptance, and friendship inpeer relationships, social psycho-logical experiences that have beenshown to be critical for childrensdevelopment and well-being (for areview, see baumeister & leary,1995). a certain degree of exposureto these behaviors is likely to be

12、normative for most children (andadults), and is unlikely to be detri-mental for most individuals. it isthe children who are targeted at ex-treme levels that we are concernedabout and whom we consider to berelationally victimized. in ourstudies, we have defined “ ex-treme ” as referring to greater ex

13、po-sure than what is average in a rele-vant, same-age peer group (e.g., anelementary-school classroom).studies of relational victimiza-tion are important not only be-cause of the hypothesized salienceof relational victimization for allchildren, but also because of theirpotential for increasing knowl

14、edgeof the social development of girls(crick & grotpeter, 1996). this isbecause studies of physical victim-ization have shown the targets tobe primarily boys, but relationalvictimization is more likely thanphysical victimization to involvegirls as victims. we review what iscurrently known about

15、relationalvictimization with three issues intoward a more comprehensive understanding of peer maltreatment: studies of relational victimizationnicki r. crick,1 juan f. casas, and david a. nelsoninstitute of child development, university of minnesota, twin cities campus,minneapolis, minnesota (n.r.c.

16、); department of psychology, university ofnebraska, omaha, nebraska (j.f.c.); and department of marriage, family, andhuman development, brigham young university, provo, utah (d.a.n.)copyright ? 2002 american psychological societycurrent directions in psychological science99mind: (a) developmental ch

17、angesin the manifestation of relationalvictimization, (b) gender differ-ences in the likelihood of being vic-timized, and (c) evidence that rela-tional victimization is harmful.this discussion is organized withrespect to three developmental pe-riods: preschool, middle child-hood, and adolescence.dev

18、elopmental changes in the manifestationof relational victimizationthe manifestation of relationalvictimization changes with devel-opment, reflecting the social, cog-nitive, and emotional changes thatoccur with increasing maturity(crick et al., 2001). thus, for exam-ple, relational victimization amon

19、gpreschool children tends to involvedirect, face-to-face behaviors, suchas threatening to exclude someonefrom a birthday party (e.g., “ youcan t come to my birthday partyunless you let me play in yourgroup ” ) or signaling ignoring byholding one s hands over onesears (i.e., the preschool equivalento

20、f the “ silent treatment” ). duringmiddle childhood, relationally vic-timized children encounter moresophisticated manifestations ofpeer maltreatment, including bothindirect and direct relationally ag-gressive acts. for example, a peermay spread rumors about them (anindirect act) or may refuse tocho

21、ose them as team members dur-ing gym class as retaliation for apast grievance (a direct act).these types of victimizing be-haviors continue into adolescence(with increasing complexity andsubtlety). in addition, the increasedsalience of opposite-sex friend-ships and romantic relationshipsduring this

22、developmental periodprovides new contexts for the ex-pression of relational victimization.for example, a relationally victim-ized adolescent may find that apeer “ gets even” with her for a pastgrievance by stealing her boy-friend. or she may discover thather best friend has “ shared ” nega-tive info

23、rmation about her with herboyfriend in an attempt to damageher romantic relationship. further,her boyfriend himself may give herthe silent treatment when he wantsto control or manipulate her (e.g.,“ i won t talk to you until you dowhat i want” ). although cross-sec-tional studies show these develop-

24、mental trends (crick et al., 2001), itshould be noted that no longitudi-nal studies of developmentalchanges in the manifestations of re-lational victimization have yetbeen conducted.gender differencesin relational victimizationthe study of relational victim-ization was initiated to generate amore ge

25、nder-balanced view of peermaltreatment, so it is not surpris-ing that several studies have beenconducted to evaluate whetherthere are indeed gender differ-ences in relational victimization.among preschool-age children, ex-isting findings are mixed with re-gard to this issue, at least in thecase of s

26、tudies that have assessedvictimization by using reports ofteachers or peers. specifically, re-sults of one study showed that girlswere more relationally victimizedthan boys (crick, casas, & ku,1999), whereas two other studiesyielded no gender differences(bonica, yershova, & arnold, 1999;hart

27、 et al., 1999). in contrast, stud-ies that have employed observa-tional methods have shown thatgirls are significantly more rela-tionally victimized than boys (e.g.,ostrov, woods, jansen, casas, &crick, 2002).research findings for middlechildhood and adolescence are alsoconflicting. studies in w

28、hich chil-dren and adolescents have beenasked to describe the aggressive in-terchanges that take place in theirpeer interactions indicate that rela-tional aggression most commonlytakes place in female-female inter-actions (e.g., crick, bigbee, &howes, 1996; french, jansen, & pi-dada, in pres

29、s). however, studiesthat have assessed victimization byasking children and adolescents ortheir teachers to answer more stan-dardized questionnaires haveyielded mixed findings, with somestudies indicating that girls aremore relationally victimized thanboys and others showing no gen-der differences (c

30、rick et al., 2001).given the paucity of research inthis area, it is difficult to draw firmconclusions regarding gender dif-ferences in the frequency of rela-tional victimization. however, thesalience of relational victimizationfor increasing understanding ofmaltreated girls cannot be judgedsolely on

31、 the basis of gender differ-ences in exposure. at least two ad-ditional issues must be considered.first, it is important to note that as-sessing relational victimization re-sults in the identification of signifi-cantly more peer-victimized girlsthan does focusing on physical vic-timization only, as

32、was done in thepast (crick & bigbee, 1998). sec-ond, given evidence that femalesare more likely than males to be-come distressed by negative inter-personal events (leadbeater, blatt,& quinlan, 1995), the consequencesof relational victimization may bemore serious for girls than forboys. thus,

33、 regardless of whetheror not future research indicates theexistence of gender differences inthe frequency of relational victim-ization, the study of relational vic-timization is likely to have signifi-can tu t il it yfo renh an ci ngknowledge of the social develop-ment of females.100volume 11, numbe

34、r 3, june 2002published by blackwell publishing inc.relationalvictimization andsocial psychological harmtwo approaches have beentaken to establish a link betweenrelational victimization and socialpsychological harm. in the first,children and adolescents have beenasked to describe the types of ag-gre

35、ssive harmful behaviors thatthey have observed in their peergroups (e.g., crick et al., 1996;french et al., in press). these stud-ies have shown that relationally ag-gressive acts are among the mostcommonly cited mean behaviors, afinding that provides evidence ofthe hurtful nature of relational vic-

36、timization.the second approach to assess-ing the potentially damaging con-sequences of relational victimiza-tion has focused on evaluation ofthe association between this typeof peer maltreatment and indicesof social psychological adjustment.these studies have demonstratedthat, during the preschool,

37、middle-childhood, and adolescent years,relational victimization within thegeneral peer group is associatedwith significant concurrent adjust-ment problems, such as poor peerrelationships, internalizing prob-lems (e.g., depressive symptoms),and externalizing difficulties (e.g.,delinquent behavior; fo

38、r a review,see crick et al., 2001). recent re-search has also demonstrated thatrelational victimization predicts fu-ture difficulties such as peer rejec-tion (crick et al., 2001).conclusions andfuture directionsgiven the potentially harmfulnature of relational victimization, itwill be important to i

39、dentify fac-tors that predict individual differ-ences in children s risk for expo-sure to this type of maltreatmentand in their propensity for devel-oping other problems related tothese experiences (e.g., depressivesymptoms). for example, it may bethat children who have been ex-posed to particular k

40、inds of aver-sive family environments (e.g., pa-rental rejection or neglect, relationalvictimization by siblings) are moresensitive than other children to re-lational victimization by peers orare more likely to be viewed withinthe peer group as easy targets (e.g.,peers may sense that these childrena

41、re more vulnerable than others tosocial exclusion). for these children,even relatively low levels of rela-tional victimization may be dis-tressing and likely to result in otheradjustment difficulties, as well asadditional victimization in the fu-ture. in contrast, some childrenmay be relatively resi

42、lient whenconfronted with relational victim-ization, perhaps because of sup-portive family environments, andmay not react negatively to theseexperiences. this, in turn, maymake them less likely to encounterrelational victimization in the fu-ture (e.g., because they do not reactin ways that are rewar

43、ding to theperpetrators). these and other fac-tors warrant attention so that re-searchers can build theoreticalmodels of the processes involvedin relational victimization.a number of future research di-rections are suggested by existingresearch and theory. one of themost urgent needs is for longitud

44、i-nal studies. it is clear from existingstudies that relational victimizationis associated with concurrent diffi-culties in adjustment, as well aswith difficulties in the short-termfuture; however, long-term pro-spective investigations are neces-sary to establish that relational vic-timization resul

45、ts in lasting harm.this type of research is also neededto discover whether, as we sug-gested in the introduction, rela-tional victimization sometimesplays a role in physical violence di-rected toward peers. studies of thefactors that contribute to relationalvictimization (e.g., family factors,contex

46、tual factors, individual char-acteristics) are also sorely neededso that empirically based interven-tion programs can be developedfor children who experience thistype of peer abuse.studies utilizing observationalapproaches for assessing relationalvictimization are also needed,along with studies that

47、 directlycompare the utility and validity ofvarious measures of relational vic-timization. in addition, it would beuseful for future research to evalu-ate chronicity and severity of rela-tional victimization and their rela-ti v e cont r i bu t ion s tosocialpsychological difficulties. anotherimporta

48、nt avenue for future workinvolves generating and applyingtheory to guide exploration of theimpact of relational victimizationon children s development. for ex-ample, this aversive peer treatmentmay influence children s interpre-tations of future peer interactionsin negative ways (e.g., they maybegin

49、 to interpret peers behavioras intentionally hostile, even whenit is not). social information-pro-cessing models may be useful forunderstanding this phenomenon.finally, another issue that war-rants attention in future researchconcerns the role of the relation-ship context in which victimizationoccur

50、s. most previous investiga-tions of relational victimizationhave evaluated maltreatment in alarge, peer-group context (e.g., aclassroom). however, given recentevidence that relational peer abusecan also occur in smaller groups ordyads, such as between bestfriends or in a romantic relation-ship (for

51、a review, see crick et al.,2001), future research that consid-ers and systematically comparesthese various contexts is needed.this may be particularly importantcopyright ? 2002 american psychological societycurrent directions in psychological science101for females because relational vic-timization w

52、ithin the dyadic con-text has been shown to be particu-larly problematic for girls (crick &nelson, in press).recommended readingcrick, n.r., & bigbee, m.a. (1998).(see references)crick, n.r., casas, j.f., & ku, h.(1999). (see references)crick, n.r., & grotpeter, j.k. (1996).(see refe

53、rences)crick, n.r., nelson, d.a., morales,j.r., cullerton-sen, c., casas, j.f.,& hickman, s. (2001). (see refer-ences)juvonen, j., & graham, s. (eds.).(2001). school-based peer harass-ment: the plight of the vulnerableand victimized. new york: guil-ford press.acknowledgments preparation of t

54、hisessay was supported by a first awardfrom the national institute of mentalhealth (mh53524) and a faculty scholarsaward from the william t. grant foun-dation to the first author and by a childpsychology training grant fellowshipfrom the national institute of mentalhealth (t32mh15755) to the third a

55、uthor.note1. address correspondence to nickir. crick, institute of child develop-ment, university of minnesota, 51 eastriver rd., minneapolis, mn 55455;e-mail: .referencesbaumeister, r.f., & leary, m.r. (1995). the need tobelong: desire for interpersonal attachmentsas a fundamenta

56、l human motivation. psycho-logical bulletin , 117, 497 529.bonica, c., yershova, k., & arnold, d. (1999,april). relational aggression, relational victimiza-tion, and language development in preschool.poster presented at the biennial meeting of thesociety for research in child development,albuque

57、rque, nm.crick, n.r., & bigbee, m.a. (1998). relational andovert forms of peer victimization: a multi-informant approach. journal of consulting andclinical psychology , 66, 337 347.crick, n.r., bigbee, m.a., & howes, c. (1996).gender differences in childrens normative be-liefs about aggressi

58、on: how do i hurt thee? letme count the ways. child development, 67,10031014.crick, n.r., casas, j.f., & ku, h. (1999). physicaland relational peer victimization in preschool.developmental psychology , 35, 376 385.crick, n.r., & grotpeter, j.k. (1996). childrenstreatment by peers: victims of

59、 relational andovert aggression. development and psychopa-thology, 8, 367 380.crick, n.r., & nelson, d.a. (in press). relationaland physical victimization within friendships:nobody told me thered be friends like this.journal of abnormal child psychology .crick, n.r., nelson, d.a., morales, j.r.,

60、 cullerton-sen, c., casas, j.f., & hickman, s. (2001). rela-tional victimization in childhood and adoles-cence: i hurt you through the grapevine. in j.juvonen & s. graham (eds.), school-based peerharassment: the plight of the vulnerable and vic-timized (pp. 196214). new york: guilfordpress.french, d.c., jansen, e.a., & pidada, s. (in press).u. s. and indonesian childrens and adoles-cents reports of re