An Investigation Into How Students Respond to Being Victimized by Peer Aggression

This study investigates how students respond to peer aggression. Results indicate that boys tend to use more retaliatory responses to peer aggression compared with girls, who are more likely to confide in their friends. The use of humor in response to being victimized also was found to be a promising way to respond to being victimized, especially among boys. Independent of gender, the emotional impact of being victimized was positively associated with reporting to adults at school yet not at home. Furthermore, a small negative indirect effect was found between the emotional impact of being victimized and the likelihood that students would report being victimized to adults at school through the influence of school connectedness. Thus, emotional distress associated with being victimized can erode feelings of being bonded to others at school, further reducing the likelihood that students will report being victimized by peer aggression to adults at school.