Relational victimization and personal, social, and family protective factors on urban female adolescent adjustment
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effects of personal competence/self-acceptance, social connectedness, and family cohesion on the relationship between relational victimization and psychological adjustment among urban female adolescents. The sample was comprised of 130 female adolescent students of diverse ethnicity Ages 12–15 from urban school districts. Students completed a demographic questionnaire and the following self-report scales: Relational Aggression Victimization Questionnaire (RAVQ), Resilience Scale (RS), Social Connectedness Scale-Revised (SCS-R), Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES IV), and the Behavior Assessment System for Children, 2nd Edition (BASC-2). Results indicated that relational victimization significantly predicted psychological adjustment. Further regression analyses revealed that although the protective factors did not moderate the relationship between relational victimization and psychological adjustment, they were all significantly related to adjustment outcome. A hierarchical regression was computed as an additional analysis to determine the predictive power of relational victimization and the protective factors, individually and in combination, on psychological adjustment. Results indicated that each variable contributed significant variance at each incremental level, including the overall final model, which accounted for 62.7% of the variance. Although no moderator effects were found in this study, each one of the protective factors added significant variance above and beyond that of relational victimization, thus underscoring the importance of these factors for this urban adolescent sample and their experiences with relational forms of aggression. Study results have implications for developing prevention and intervention programs, and creating policies to promote school safety and the psychological well-being of adolescent students.
Subject Area
Social psychology
Recommended Citation
McSheffrey, Gina Marie, "Relational victimization and personal, social, and family protective factors on urban female adolescent adjustment" (2012). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3519009.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3519009
