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Peer victimization and aggressive behaviors among adolescents: a moderated mediation model of cognitive impulsivity and dispositional mindfulness

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Abstract

This study examined the mediating effect of cognitive impulsivity and the moderating effect of dispositional mindfulness in the relations between peer victimization and adolescent proactive and reactive aggressive behaviors. The sample included 2477 Chinese adolescents (51.43% boys and 48.57% girls; Mage =12.23 years, SD = 1.65). The results of path analysis showed that peer victimization was significantly related to both proactive and reactive aggressive behaviors. Cognitive impulsivity mediated in the relations between peer victimization and proactive and reactive aggressive behaviors. Dispositional mindfulness buffered against the relations between peer victimization and proactive aggressive behavior, and between peer victimization and cognitive impulsivity. The results further showed that the indirect effect of cognitive impulsivity was more salient when there were lower levels of dispositional mindfulness. This study revealed the mediating and moderating mechanism between peer victimization and aggressive behavior from the perspective of the control model of the criminal lifestyle theory and has important implications for preventing and reducing adolescent aggressive behaviors.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the participants of this study for their participation.

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2021ZD0203804), and Funds for National Natural Science Youth Foundation of China (No. 32300898), Funds for Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (No. 22YJC190031), and Funds for General Project of Social Science Planning of Gansu Province (No. 2022YB057), and Funds for Youth Science and Technology of Gansu Province (No. 22JR5RA170).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China

    Jianhua Zhou & Ru Wang

  2. Department of Primary Education, College of Education, Shaanxi Fashion Engineering University, Xi’an, China

    Ru Wang

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Tiantian Bi

  4. Department of Psychology, Normal College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China

    Xue Gong

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  1. Jianhua Zhou
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Correspondence to Xue Gong.

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Ethical approval

The present study was approved by School of Psychology Research Ethics Committee, Northwest Normal University. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee.

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

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Zhou, J., Wang, R., Bi, T. et al. Peer victimization and aggressive behaviors among adolescents: a moderated mediation model of cognitive impulsivity and dispositional mindfulness. Curr Psychol 43, 17406–17415 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05700-7

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