Trajectories of Italian Children’s Peer Rejection: Associations with Aggression, Prosocial Behavior, Physical Attractiveness, and Adolescent Adjustment

  • Laura Di Giunta
  • Concetta Pastorelli
  • Eriona Thartori
  • Anna Silvia Bombi
  • Emma Baumgartner
  • Richard A. Fabes
  • Carol Lynn Martin
  • Craig K. Enders
Article
First Online:

Abstract

In the present study, the predictors and outcomes associated with the trajectories of peer rejection were examined in a longitudinal sample of Italian children (338 boys, 269 girls) ages 10 to 14 years. Follow-up assessments included 60% of the original sample at age 16–17. Low, medium, and high rejection trajectory groups were identified using growth mixture models. Consistent with previous studies, we found that (a) being less prosocial and more physically aggressive at age 10 was characteristic of those children with the high rejection trajectory; (b) being less attractive was related to higher peer rejection from age 10 to 14; and (c) boys with a high rejection trajectory showed high levels of delinquency and anxiety-depression and low levels of academic aspiration at age 16–17, whereas girls with a high rejection trajectory showed low levels of academic aspiration and social competence at age 16–17. Our findings indicate the detrimental consequences of peer rejection on children’s development and adjustment and shed light on the mechanisms that contribute to maintaining or worsening (e.g., being attractive, prosocial, and aggressive) a child’s negative status (e.g., being rejected) within his or her peer group over time.

Keywords

Peer rejection Physical aggression Prosocial behavior Physical attractiveness Growth mixture modeling 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Special appreciation is expressed to all the children and parents who made this study possible and to members of the Genzano Longitudinal Study for assistance with data collection. We thank Natalie D. Wilkens for her assistance with the interpretation of results for this article.

Funding

This research was partially supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and W.T. Grant Foundation to Albert Bandura, and from both the Italian Ministry of Education University and Research and the University of Rome “La Sapienza” to Gian Vittorio Caprara.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Supplementary material

10802_2017_373_MOESM1_ESM.doc (125 kb)
ESM 1 (DOC 125 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Laura Di Giunta
    • 1
  • Concetta Pastorelli
    • 1
  • Eriona Thartori
    • 1
  • Anna Silvia Bombi
    • 1
  • Emma Baumgartner
    • 1
  • Richard A. Fabes
    • 2
  • Carol Lynn Martin
    • 2
  • Craig K. Enders
    • 3
  1. 1.Psychology DepartmentSapienza University of RomeRomeItaly
  2. 2.Arizona State UniversityTempeUSA
  3. 3.University of California, Los AngelesLos AngelesUSA

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