DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/H36S-J221
Defense Date
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Clinical Psychology
First Advisor
Wendy Kliewer
Second Advisor
Albert Farrell
Third Advisor
Terri Sullivan
Fourth Advisor
Roxann Roberson-Nay
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the bidirectional relations between anxious and depressive symptoms and two forms of peer victimization (i.e., overt and relational) within a sample of 358 predominantly African-American adolescents living in low-income urban areas across four years. Longitudinal path analyses tested progressively complex models for each type of victimization. For both overt and relational victimization the autoregressive model where only previous levels of each construct predicted future levels of the construct was the most parsimonious explanation. The best fitting model for both types of peer victimization suggested that internalizing symptoms helped to further explain future victimization, but victimization did not help to further explain future internalizing symptoms. Additionally, anxious symptoms were more uniquely important in predicting future peer victimization than depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that the patterns between peer victimization and internalizing symptoms may be missing an important predictor when anxiety is not considered.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
April 2014