Developmental Pathway from Childhood Abuse to Adolescent Peer Victimization: The Role of Rejection Sensitivity and Aggression.

Abstract

Despite the well-established relationship between early experiences of victimization and later re-victimization, little is known about the exact mechanism of this cycle of victimization. The present study examined whether the route from rejection sensitivity to aggression mediates the associations between different forms of childhood abuse and later peer victimization longitudinally. A total of 3525 adolescents (56.6% male; Mage = 13.21 ± 0.85) participated in this three-wave study, with a 6-month lag and a 9-month lag respectively. The results indicated that the association between childhood emotional abuse and peer victimization were independently mediated by aggression, and sequentially mediated by rejection sensitivity and aggression in both sexes. Sex differences existed regarding the association between childhood physical abuse and aggression, such that only in adolescent boys did physical abuse show significant effect on aggression, resulting in later peer victimization. In general, these findings suggest that maladaptive social-cognitive processes and behavioral patterns are crucial for understanding the mechanism of the vicious cycle of victimization, and sex differences must be considered when examining different types of childhood abuse.