What Changes During Adolescence?

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Our study followed a group of more than 300 Brazilian adolescents over the course of two school years.

Earlier reports of being victimized by peers was tied to worse self-portrayals the following year.

The effect of previous peer victimization was explained by stability in victimization over time.

This study highlights the long-term consequences of being picked on by classmates.

One of the main developmental tasks of adolescence is to develop a strong and positive sense of self. However, many youth struggle to do so. These struggles are evidenced in students’ negative self-portrayals. Negative self-portrayals reflect the unfavorable beliefs adolescents hold about themselves, including feelings of shame, self-doubt, or inadequacy, or perceptions that they are not good enough. In our recently published paper, we examined how peer victimization one year earlier combined with concurrent peer victimization predicted Brazilian youths' negative self-portrayal even after controlling for earlier values.

How peer victimization affects adolescent views of themselves

Our research team followed more than 300 adolescents from Curitiba, Brazil, over two school years to better understand how their experiences with peers relate to changes in the way they view themselves. The main variable of interest for our study was students’ negative self-portrayal. In other words, we wanted to better understand why some young people have poor views of themselves. This involved asking........

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