Open AccessSocial and Emotional Adjustment Across Aggressor/Victim Subgroups: Are Aggressive-Victims Distinct?
Author(s) -
Kelly O’Connor,
Albert D. Farrell,
Wendy Kliewer,
Stephen J. Lepore
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of youth and adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.883
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1573-6601
pISSN - 0047-2891
DOI - 10.1007/s10964-019-01104-0
Subject(s) - aggression , psychology , health psychology , psychological intervention , clinical psychology , legal psychology , injury prevention , poison control , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , race (biology) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , public health , medicine , medical emergency , botany , nursing , biology
Despite prior studies supporting the existence of "aggressive-victims", it remains unclear if they possess unique risk factors from adolescents who are mostly aggressive or victimized. The present study sought to determine whether aggressive-victims differ from adolescents with distinct patterns of involvement in aggression and victimization in their social and emotional adjustment. Secondary analyses were conducted on baseline data from 984 seventh grade students (54% female) from three schools. Most participants identified their race as White (49%) or African American (19%), with 24% identifying as Latino/a. Latent class analysis identified four subgroups: predominant-aggressors (25%), predominant-victims (17%), aggressive-victims (12%), and limited-involvement (47%). The findings did not provide evidence of unique social-emotional characteristics of aggressive-victims that were not accounted for by their involvement in both aggression and victimization. Further evidence of unique differences in risk factors is needed to support targeted interventions for aggressive-victims.