Narcissism, self-esteem, and gender moderate the association between peer victimization and specific forms of aggressive behavior during adolescence

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Based off ego threat and self-discrepancy theory, we evaluated hypotheses that narcissism and self-esteem would moderate the relationship between peer victimization and forms of aggression during early adolescence. One-hundred and forty-three youth (M age = 12.85 years) completed measures of narcissism, self-esteem, peer victimization, physical aggression, verbal aggression, and relational aggression. Results suggest that victims with high narcissism were more likely to employ relational aggression instead of verbal or physical forms of aggressive behavior. The interactive effects of peer victimization and self-esteem on aggression were further moderated by participant gender. Self-esteem moderated the association between peer victimization and aggression for boys and girls, but the interaction patterns were different. High self-esteem moderated the association between peer victimization and verbal and physical aggression for boys. Conversely, low self-esteem moderated the association between peer victimization and physical aggression for girls. Implications for future research on covert and overt aggression during early adolescence are discussed.