Bullying and Victimization
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior
Peer Acceptance, Rejection, and Popularity
Social Network Analysis
Romantic Relationships
Same- and Cross-Ethnic Friendships
Parent-Child Relationships
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Tinga, F., & Ormel, J. (2010). Truancy in late elementary and early secondary education: The influence of social bonds and self-control. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34, 302-310.
Some pupils already show unexcused, illegal, surreptitious absences in elementary education or the first years of secondary education. Are weak social bonds (see also Hirschi, 1969) and a lack of self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990) indicative of truancy at an early age? Of the children in our sample, 5% were persistent truants in late elementary education and early secondary education. Using multivariate analyses the influence of various predictors on persistent truancy was examined. Lack of attachment to norm-relevant significant others (parents and teachers) and lack of prosocial orientation were indicative of truancy. Social bonds with classmates had no effect on truancy. Other risk factors for truancy were being a boy, early pubertal development, family breakup, and low socio-economic status. The effect of self-control on truancy was partially mediated by social bonds. The impact of social bonds to norm-relevant significant others suggests that early truancy can partly be prevented by focusing on children’s relations with parents at home and with teachers at school. Prevention of truancy is desirable because the likelihood of involvement in other deviant behavior increases for truants.
KEY WORDS: adolescence, effortful control, elementary school children, goal-framing, relationship between parents and adolescents, school environment, self-control, social control, truancy
Veenstra, R., Huitsing, G., Dijkstra, J.K., & Lindenberg, S. (2010). Friday on my mind: The relation of partying with antisocial behavior of early adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20, 420-431. [Appendices]
The relation between partying and antisocial behavior was investigated using a sample of Dutch early adolescents (T2: N = 1,076; M age = 13.52). Antisocial behavior was divided into rule-breaking and aggressive behavior. Using a goal-framing approach, it was argued that the relation of partying to antisocial behavior depends on the way the need to belong is realized. Girls, in early adolescence often physically more mature than boys, are likely to seek older and, thus, often more antisocial boys for partying. Unpopular adolescents are likely to be among themselves when partying, and their feeling of exclusion is likely to lead to antisocial behavior. The findings show that girls who party are indeed at a greater risk of engaging in antisocial behavior, as are unpopular girls and boys.
KEY WORDS: aggressiveness; antisocial behavior; partying; popularity; rule-breaking behavior
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Munniksma, A., & Dijkstra, J.K. (2010). The complex relation between bullying, victimization, acceptance, and rejection: Giving special attention to status, affection, and sex differences. Child Development, 81, 480-486.
To understand the complex nature of bullies’ acceptance and rejection, this article considered goal-framing effects of status and affection as they relate to the gender of the bully (male versus female bullies), the target (male versus female victims), and the evaluator (acceptance and rejection from male versus female classmates). The hypotheses were tested with data from a social network questionnaire conducted in 26 elementary school classes (N = 481 children; mean age 10.5 years). The findings revealed that bullies were only rejected by those for whom they were a potential threat and that bullies generally chose their victims so as to minimize loss of affection by choosing victims who were not likely to be defended by significant others.
KEY WORDS: bullying, elementary school students, peer relations, social networks, victimization
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Verhulst, F.C., & Ormel, J. (2009). Childhood-Limited versus Persistent Antisocial Behavior: Why Do Some Recover and Others Do Not? The TRAILS Study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 29, 718-742.
Possible differences between childhood-limited antisocial youths and their stable high-antisocial counterparts were examined. Children were 11 years old at wave 1 (T1) and 13.5 at wave 2 (T2). At both waves the same parent, teacher, and self-reports of antisocial behavior were used. Stable highs and childhood-limited antisocial youths differed somewhat in family and individual background. Stable highs had less effortful control, perceived more overprotection, had a higher level of familial vulnerability to externalizing disorder, and lived less often with the same parents throughout their lives than the childhood-limited group. Both groups had similar levels of service use before T1, but after that period the childhood-limited youths received more help from special education needs services than from problem behavior services, and vice versa for stable highs. The results suggest that the childhood-limited antisocial youths recovered not only from antisocial behavior, but also from academic failure, peer rejection, and internalizing problems.
KEY WORDS: antisocial behavior; developmental psychopathology; elementary-school; life-course-persistent; stability
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Oldehinkel, A.J., De Winter, A.F., Verhulst, F.C., & Ormel, J. (2008). Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior in Preadolescence: Teachers' and Parents' Perceptions of the Behavior of Girls and Boys. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 32, 243-251.
There has been recent emphasis on the importance of investigating prosocial and antisocial behavior
simultaneously owing to doubts about whether examining one automatically gives information about the
other. However, there has been little empirical research into this question. The present study (based
on a large population sample of preadolescents, N = 2,230) simultaneously examines prosocial and
antisocial behavior, explicitly including the possibility that children might show prosocial behavior
according to one informant and antisocial behavior according to another. When parents and teachers
agreed in their judgments, children were distinctly profiled and differed clearly in effortful control,
intelligence, academic performance, and several peer nominations and family characteristics. The
correlates were more rater-specific for children that were prosocial according to one informant and
antisocial according to the other informant. Teachers and parents used different context-dependent
criteria for judging children to be prosocial or antisocial. Academic performance and peer relations
were related to the teacher’s judgment of prosocial and antisocial behavior. By contrast, children’s
being problematic at home (and thus causing stress for the parents) was related to the parents’
judgment.
KEY WORDS: adolescent development, antisocial behavior, childhood development, prosocial behavior, social perception
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Zijlstra, B.J.H., De Winter, A.F., Verhulst, F.C., &
Ormel, J. (2007). The Dyadic Nature of Bullying and Victimization: Testing a Dual Perspective Theory. Child Development, 78, 1843-1854.
For this study, information on who bullies who and by whom are you bullied? was collected
from 54 school classes with 918 children (M age =11) and 13,606 dyadic relations. Bullying and
victimization were viewed separately from the point of view of the bully and the victim. The two
perspectives were highly complementary. The probability of a bully-victim relationship was higher if
the bully was more dominant than the victim, and if the victim was more vulnerable than the bully
and more rejected by the class. In a bully-victim dyad, boys were more often the bullies. There was no
finding of sex effect for victimization. Liking reduced and disliking increased the probability of a bully-victim
relationship.
KEY WORDS: bullying, elementary school students, peer relations, social networks, victimization
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Oldehinkel, A.J., De Winter, A.F., &
Ormel, J. (2006). Temperament, Environment, and Antisocial Behavior in a Population Sample of Preadolescent Boys and Girls. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30, 422-432.
Antisocial behavior can be triggered by negative social experiences and individuals’ processing of these experiences. This study focuses on the interaction between temperament, perceived parenting, socio-economic status (SES), and gender in relation to antisocial behavior in a Dutch population sample of preadolescents (N=2230). Perceived parenting (overprotection, rejection, emotional warmth) was assessed by the EMBU (a Swedish acronym for My Memories of Upbringing) for Children, temperament (effortful control and frustration) by the parent version of the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised, SES by information on parental education, occupation, and income, and antisocial behavior by the Child Behavior Checklist (parent report) and the Youth Self-Report (child report). All parenting and temperament factors were significantly associated with antisocial behavior. SES was only a related to antisocial behavior among children with a low level of effortful control or a high level of frustration. Furthermore, the association of SES and frustration with antisocial behavior was stronger in boys. Thus, the effects of SES depend on the temperament and gender of the child.
KEY WORDS: antisocial behavior, childrearing practices, preadolescence, sex differences, socio-economic status, temperament
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Oldehinkel, A.J., De Winter, A.F., Verhulst, F.C., &
Ormel, J. (2005). Bullying and Victimization in Elementary Schools: A Comparison of Bullies, Victims, Bully/Victims,
and Uninvolved Preadolescents. Developmental Psychology, 41, 672-682.
Research on bullying and victimization largely rests on univariate analyses and on reports from a single informant. Researchers may thus know too little about the simultaneous effects of various independent and dependent variables, and their research may be biased by shared method variance. The database for this Dutch study was large (N = 1,065) and rich enough to allow multivariate analysis and multisource information. In addition, the effect of familial vulnerability for internalizing and externalizing disorders was studied. Gender, aggressiveness, isolation, and dislikability were most strongly related to bullying and victimization. Among the many findings that deviated from or enhanced the univariate knowledge base were that not only victims and bully/victims but bullies as well were disliked and that parenting was unrelated to bullying and victimization once other factors were controlled.
KEY WORDS: bullying, childhood development, peer relations, psychosocial factors, victimization