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The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School

Victims of bullying are at increased risk of developing psychosocial problems. It is often claimed that it helps victims when others stand up against the bullying and when defending is typical (descriptive norm) or rewarded with popularity (popularity norm) in classrooms. However, recent work on the...

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Autores principales: Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia, van den Berg, Yvonne H. M., Mainhard, Tim, Cillessen, Antonius H. N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33301130
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00738-0
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author Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia
van den Berg, Yvonne H. M.
Mainhard, Tim
Cillessen, Antonius H. N.
author_facet Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia
van den Berg, Yvonne H. M.
Mainhard, Tim
Cillessen, Antonius H. N.
author_sort Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia
collection PubMed
description Victims of bullying are at increased risk of developing psychosocial problems. It is often claimed that it helps victims when others stand up against the bullying and when defending is typical (descriptive norm) or rewarded with popularity (popularity norm) in classrooms. However, recent work on the healthy context paradox suggests that victims – paradoxically – tend to do worse in more positive classrooms. Therefore, it is possible that defending norms are counterproductive and exacerbate victims’ adjustment difficulties, possibly because social maladjustment is more apparent in classrooms where everybody else is doing well. The current study examined whether descriptive and popularity norms for defending predicted victims’ classroom climate perceptions and psychosocial adjustment. Using data of 1,206 secondary school students from 45 classrooms (M(age) = 13.61), multi-level analyses indicated that descriptive norms for defending increased rather than decreased negative classroom climate perceptions and maladjustment of victimized youths. In contrast, popularity norms for defending positively predicted all students’ classroom climate perceptions and feelings of belonging, except victims’ self-esteem. Interventions may benefit more from promoting popularity norms for defending rather than descriptive norms for defending in secondary schools.
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spelling pubmed-78263032021-02-11 The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia van den Berg, Yvonne H. M. Mainhard, Tim Cillessen, Antonius H. N. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol Article Victims of bullying are at increased risk of developing psychosocial problems. It is often claimed that it helps victims when others stand up against the bullying and when defending is typical (descriptive norm) or rewarded with popularity (popularity norm) in classrooms. However, recent work on the healthy context paradox suggests that victims – paradoxically – tend to do worse in more positive classrooms. Therefore, it is possible that defending norms are counterproductive and exacerbate victims’ adjustment difficulties, possibly because social maladjustment is more apparent in classrooms where everybody else is doing well. The current study examined whether descriptive and popularity norms for defending predicted victims’ classroom climate perceptions and psychosocial adjustment. Using data of 1,206 secondary school students from 45 classrooms (M(age) = 13.61), multi-level analyses indicated that descriptive norms for defending increased rather than decreased negative classroom climate perceptions and maladjustment of victimized youths. In contrast, popularity norms for defending positively predicted all students’ classroom climate perceptions and feelings of belonging, except victims’ self-esteem. Interventions may benefit more from promoting popularity norms for defending rather than descriptive norms for defending in secondary schools. Springer US 2020-12-10 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7826303/ /pubmed/33301130 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00738-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia
van den Berg, Yvonne H. M.
Mainhard, Tim
Cillessen, Antonius H. N.
The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title_full The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title_fullStr The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title_short The Role of Defending Norms in Victims’ Classroom Climate Perceptions and Psychosocial Maladjustment in Secondary School
title_sort role of defending norms in victims’ classroom climate perceptions and psychosocial maladjustment in secondary school
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33301130
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00738-0
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