The Characteristics Of Peer Victimization From Age 3 To 5 And Its Relationships With Children's Coping Strategies

Peer victimization is the experience that a child is the target of peer's aggressive behavior, including physical, verbal, property hurt or destroying relationships. Studies have shown that peer victimization has severe effect on children's mental and physical health (Zhang, 2001; Storch et al., 2003, 2004; Newman, Holden, & Delville, 2005). Since 1980s, much attention has been paid to peer victimization among primary school children and adolescents in China and other countries (Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988; Nansel et al., 2001;Zhang, 2002; Janssen et al., 2004; Newman, Holden, & Delville, 2005), while little is studied among preschool children. In China no systematic studies have been done on peer victimization in preschool years to date. As peer victimization often occurs in preschool years, research on it can not only reveal its major characteristics in early years, which can provide theoretical basis for intervention programs, but also help us further understand the characteristics of peer victimization in primary school children and adolescents.From the perspective of stress and coping, victimization is a pressure from social relationship for victims (Hunter et al., 2002; Hunter & Boyle, 2004). In face of victimization, victims will be sure to use corresponding strategies to cope with it. So, what strategies do children in preschool use when they meet with peer victimization? Do their experience of peer victimization influence their application of coping strategies? And is their application of coping strategies influenced by their emotional feelings? These questions have close relations with children's adaptation and with the connection between children's cognition and emotion in peer victimization situation. However, existing studies cannot fully answer these questions. In order to explore these questions, empirical methods are needed.The purpose of the study is: (1) To develop a children's peer- victimization scale, and to examine the basic characteristics of peer victimization among 3-5 years old Chinese children, including the types of peer victimization, age and gender differences.(2) To investigate children's coping strategies in response to peer victimization from the generation and application perspective. (3) To explore the possible intermediate effect of negative emotion on the relationship between children's peer victimization and their coping strategies. Therefore, three studies had been done to explore those questions above. 575 children of 3-5 years old from two public kindergartens in Jinan city participated in these studies.Main findings are as follows: (1) Three types of peer-victimization existed among Chinese preschool children, that is, verbal-relational victimization, physical victimization, and property victimization. Physical victimization existed most frequently among 3 to 5- year- old children. (2) There were no significant age differences in terms of verbal-relational and property victimization. However, in terms of physical victimization, we found that physical victimization occurred more frequently in the group of 3 and 5-year olds than in the group of 4 year olds, while the above conclusion couldn't be drawn by comparing the group of 3 year olds and that of 5 year olds. (3) Gender differences were not significant in verbal-relational and property victimization, but boys experienced more peer-victimization than girls among 4 to 5- year- old children. (4) Five major strategies were generated and applied to the peer-victimization situations, including escaping, social-support seeking, internalization, externalization, and problem solving, in addition to no strategies on generation. (5) The strategy of social-support seeking was the most that children tended to generate, while the strategies of social-support seeking and escaping were the ones that children tended to apply in most situations. (6) The total amount of strategies generated increased with age. When it comes to the application of coping strategies, we found that children of 5-year-old tended to use problem-focused strategies more frequently than 3 and 4-year-old children, whereas externalizing strategies less frequently than 3-year-old children. No significant age difference was found in the strategies of social-support seeking, escaping and internalization. (7) Strategy generation and application varied in concrete contexts of victimization. More strategies of escaping were applied in relational victimization situation than in verbal and property victimization situations, and more externalizing strategies in physical victimization situation than in verbal and relational victimization situations. (8) There was no gender difference in the total amount of coping strategies. Nevertheless girls were more inclined to use social-support seeking and problem-focused strategies than boys. The same conclusion could be reached as for the use of internalizing strategies. (9) Victims thought out more problem-focused strategies and used more externalizing and internalizing strategies than normal children in most situations. (10) Anger, fear, sadness, shame and disgust mediated the relations between peer victimization and coping strategies, but varied with the type of peer victimization. Verbal-relational victimization not only has the direct effect on problem-focused strategy, but also has the indirect effect through shame. Verbal-relational victimization has the indirect effect on escaping strategy through disgust, on internalizing strategy through fear and shame, on externalizing strategy through shame and disgust. Physical victimization has the indirect effect on internalizing strategy through fear and sadness, on externalizing strategy through anger, on problem-focused strategy through shame. Property victimization has the indirect effect on escaping strategy through disgust, on internalizing strategy through sadness, shame and disgust.