Attentional Biases to Bullies and Bystanders and Youth’s Coping With Peer Victimization

Abstract

Effectively coping with peer victimization may be facilitated by deploying attention away from threat (i.e., bullies, reinforcers) and toward available support (e.g., defenders). To test this premise, 72 early adolescents (38 girls; M_age = 11.67, SD = 8.14 months) watched video clips of youth actors portraying a bully aggressing against a victim in front of a reinforcer and a defender. Coping was assessed using self-reports, and peer victimization was assessed through peer-, teacher-, and parent-reports. At high levels of peer victimization, attention to the bully was associated with less seeking of adult support and greater retaliation. Contrary to predictions, at high levels of victimization, attention to defenders was associated with an internalizing coping profile for boys and a retaliatory profile for girls. Thus, attentional biases may contribute to poor coping responses among victimized youth, underscoring the need to study how attention to cues is translated into actionable coping strategies.

Keywords

peer victimization coping visual attention eye tracking

Peer victimization (i.e., being the target of peers’ aggression and bullying) has been associated with numerous psychological and behavioral difficulties (Reijntjes et al., 2011; Reijntjes, Kamphius, Prinzie, & Telch, 2010). However, the nature and extent of these developmental consequences depend, in part, on how the individual copes with the victimization. Accordingly, researchers have examined youth’s responses to peer victimization and the psychosocial correlates of those responses (e.g., Dirks, Cuttini, Mott, & Henry, 2016; Erath, Kaeppler, & Tu, 2019). These studies confirm that youth enact a range of coping strategies, each of which may serve to buffer or exacerbate the link between victimization and well-being (e.g., Kochenderfer-Ladd & Skinner, 2002; Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010).

In contrast to the literature on the consequences of youth’s responses to peer victimization, little attention has been paid to the contextual, interpersonal, and psychological factors that account for individual differences in these responses. Drawing on social information processing theories (SIP; Crick & Dodge, 1996; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) and participant role approaches to the study of bullying (Salmivalli, 2010), this study examined one potential contributing factor—attention to social cues. We propose that the varying roles taken by bystanders (Salmivalli, 2010) serve as social cues to which youth may or may not attend. Biases as to which cues are attended are theorized to impact how youth cope with peer victimization when they themselves are the target of peer aggression (see Crick & Dodge, 1994). This study tests associations between attention to three social roles often found in bullying contexts—bullies, reinforcers, and defenders—and early adolescents’ coping when victimized by peers.

Coping With Peer Victimization, Social Information Processing, and Visual Attention

Several theoretical frameworks have been developed to understand coping responses to stress. These frameworks often focus on distinctions between emotion- and problem-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), approach and avoidance strategies (Roth & Cohen, 1986), and engaged and disengaged responses (Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001). Utilizing coping styles that are problem-focused and approach-oriented has been thought to help resolve threatening situations while disengaged and emotion-focused strategies are believed to increase emotional distress while doing little to resolve ongoing problems (Compas, Malcarne, & Fondacaro, 1988).

Support-seeking, avoidance, retaliation, and internalizing coping are commonly identified forms of coping with peer victimization within child and adolescent populations (Causey & Dubow, 1992; Tapper & Boulton, 2005). Support-seeking is often viewed as a problem-focused, approach-oriented, and engaged response (Compas et al., 2001), although whether it prevents peer victimization is unclear (Rigby & Barnes, 2002; Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010). Retaliation, despite being an approach-oriented and engaged response, is often emotion-focused (Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010) and exacerbates risk for further peer victimization and aggression (Dirks et al., 2016). Behavioral avoidance disengages the adolescent from the stressor, but can be problem-focused or emotion-focused in its use. Not surprising, then, the level of psychosocial risk conferred through volitional forms of disengagement coping is unclear (Troop-Gordon, Rudolph, Sugimura, & Little, 2015; Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010). Internalizing coping is by its nature an emotion-focused and avoidant response to peer victimization that is consistently found to be maladaptive (Garnefski & Kraajj, 2014).

The nature of youth’s responses to peer victimization is likely driven by how they cognitively process peers’ aggression. Accordingly, SIP theories have been prominent in the literature on behavioral adaptation in social contexts (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1996; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). SIP theories propose that when faced with a challenging social task, the individual undergoes a set of cognitive “steps” through which relevant information is encoded, interpreted, and processed, leading to the enactment of a response. SIP theories have primarily been tested within the context of ambiguous provocations (Fontaine et al., 2010). However, SIP theories can also be applied to other social contexts, including unambiguous provocations (e.g., bullying). Of particular importance to this study is the potential for attention to social cues during an episode of bullying to impact interpretations of and emotional reactions to peers’ behavior (Thayer & Lane, 2000; Todd, Cunningham, Anderson, & Thompson, 2012), contributing to expectations of the likely outcomes of response options. Thus, from an SIP perspective, attentional biases may play a vital role in how adolescents cope with peer victimization.

Within peer victimization contexts, cues are often present that represent threat, including the youth leading the harassment (i.e., bullies) or reinforcing the bullies’ aggression (i.e., reinforcers), as well as cues communicating support for the adolescent being harassed (i.e., defenders; Salmivalli, 2010). We propose that attention to threat may elicit perceptions of the peer context as hostile and heighten emotional reactivity to bullying (see Sulkowski, Bauman, Dinner, Nixon, & Davis, 2014). Thus, attention to threat should lead to a shift in coping responses from those that are problem-focused to those that are emotion-focused and either approach-oriented (e.g., retaliation) or avoidance-oriented (e.g., behavioral avoidance, internalizing coping). Based on SIP theory (Crick & Dodge, 1994), we further postulate that attention to support increases perceptions of a caring peer context, dampening emotional distress. The consequence is less emotion-focused coping and heightened problem-focused, approach-oriented responses (e.g., seeking support from adults and friends). Based on this rationale, we predicted that attention to bullies and reinforcers would be positively associated with retaliation, behavioral avoidance, and internalizing coping in response to peer victimization, and negatively associated with support-seeking. In contrast, attention to defenders would be positively associated with support-seeking and negatively associated with retaliation and internalizing coping. Due to the potential for behavioral avoidance to encapsulate a problem-focused (e.g., to leave a dangerous situation) or emotion-focused response (e.g., to regulate negative affect), we made no a priori hypotheses as to how it would be associated with attention to defenders. We also considered the possibility that associations between attentional biases and coping may be determined by additional factors including the youth’s own peer victimization and gender.

Peer Victimization, Gender, and Cue Effects on Coping

Even seemingly unambiguous cues are understood using preexisting knowledge structures including memories, schemas, and perceived norms for behavior (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Thus, the implications of attending to particular cues may be influenced by adolescents’ cumulative experiences. For those who have experienced little peer victimization, attention to bullies and reinforcers may elicit little emotional reactivity, and thus not interfere with problem-focused coping (see Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000). For adolescents who have experienced frequent peer victimization, attention to bullies and reinforcers may elicit strong negative emotions, leading to emotion-focused coping aimed at reducing negative affect (e.g., retaliation, behavioral avoidance; see Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010) or managing distressing thoughts and feelings (Causey & Dubow, 1992). Thus, whether attention to a particular social cue is associated with greater use of a coping strategy may depend on whether an adolescent has been the target of peer victimization. Recent research by Troop-Gordon et al. (2019), using the same data set as this study, supports the proposition. The researchers found positive associations between attention to bullies and aggression only at moderate or high levels of peer victimization. Accordingly, we anticipate that at higher levels of peer victimization attention to bullies and reinforcers will be more strongly, negatively associated with support-seeking and more strongly positively associated with retaliation, behavioral avoidance, and internalizing coping.

Previous work with these data has also shown that at high levels of victimization attention to defenders is associated with low levels of aggression for boys, but high levels of aggression for girls (Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). The researchers speculated that peer-victimized boys and girls may have different interpretations of, and reactions to, cues from defenders. As boys socialize in larger peer groups than girls (Ladd, 1983; Lever, 1978), support communicated by defenders may be interpreted as a sign that the overall peer context is not threatening, leading to more problem-focused, and less emotion-focused coping. This may be particularly important for victimized boys, as they may have particular difficultly coping effectively with harassment from peers (Newman, Lohman, & Newman, 2007; Oransky & Marecek, 2009). Girls co-ruminate more than boys (Rose, 2002) and, therefore, may be more likely to interpret peers’ sympathy and shared distress as confirmation of the harmfulness of the bully’s actions, leading to greater use of emotion-focused coping and less problem-focused coping. Thus, building on the earlier findings, we anticipated that for boys, at higher levels of peer victimization, attention to the defender would be more positively associated with support-seeking and more negatively associated with retaliation, behavioral avoidance, and internalizing coping. We expected the opposite pattern for girls such that at higher levels of peer victimization attention to the defender would be more strongly negatively associated with support-seeking and positively associated with retaliation, behavioral avoidance, and internalizing coping.

The Current Study

Building upon an earlier analysis of this data set that focused narrowly on associations between attention to bullying roles and stable patterns of aggressive behavior (Troop-Gordon et al., 2019), the current study examined links between attentional biases and a broad set of coping responses within a specific social context—peer victimization. To test the hypothesized associations, the current study utilized eye tracking to assess attentional deployment as early adolescents watched video clips in which child actors portrayed a bully aggressing against a victim in the presence of a reinforcer and a defender. Five coping responses were assessed—adult assistance, friend assistance, retaliation, behavioral avoidance, and internalizing coping—and potential moderating effects of peer victimization and gender were explored. In all analyses, we controlled for attentional difficulties (see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). To avoid any masking of results, we tested seeking assistance from adults and from friends separately.

Method

Participants

Participants included 72 early adolescents from the upper Midwest of the United States (34 boys; 38 girls; M_age = 11.67, SD = 8.14 months; 94.4% White) and their parents (63 mothers; 9 fathers). Participants came from primarily middle-class families with five parent-reported annual household incomes between US$0 and US$40,000, 19 between US$41,000 and US$60,000, 21 between US$61,000 and US$80,000, and 24 reporting incomes greater than US$80,000. Three parents did not provide income data.

The participants were recruited from a sample of 464 children who had completed a longitudinal study. Recruitment focused on all participants who lived within a 20-minute drive of the university (N = 69), with an additional three participants recruited from a subset of participants residing 45 minutes away. Children who participated in the eye-tracking task had lower peer-reported peer victimization scores (M = 1.49; SD = .22) than those who could not be reached or whose parents declined participation, M = 1.57, SD = .33, t(208) = 1.89, p = .06.

Procedures

As part of the larger longitudinal study from which the participants were recruited, self-, peer-, and teacher-report measures were administered during the spring of the 2006–2007 school year. Parent-reports were collected during the eye-tracking lab visit approximately 10 months later. For the eye-tracking task, participants and one parent came to the lab where they were randomly assigned to complete questionnaires or the eye-tracking task first. Questionnaires took approximately 10 minutes to complete. For the eye-tracking task, adolescents were seated in a sound-proofed room at a table where they placed their head in the eye-tracker headrest. Calibration and validation ensured a gaze position accuracy of 0.50° or better. A demonstration task in which participants moved a picture across the computer screen using their visual gaze allowed them to become comfortable with the eye-tracking procedure. Participants then watched all 60 video clips. Between clips, participants fixated on a cross at the center of the screen. After completing the study, the accompanying parent was given a US$25 honorarium.

Apparatus and Stimuli

Video clips

The stimuli for the eye-tracking task included short video clips depicting 18 scenes of bullying, six scenes of ambiguous provocation, and six scenes of prosocial behavior. Four boy actors acted out each scene as well as four girl actors, such that 60 video clips in total were created (i.e., 30 with boy actors and 30 with girl actors; see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). All actors were recruited from local theater groups, aged 10 to 13 years, and White. Each video clip lasted on average 13.47 s (range: 8.00–21.00 s).

The 18 bullying scenes showed a bully unambiguously aggressing against a victim. Six video clips depicted an act of physical bullying (e.g., throwing paper, poking repeatedly), six depicted verbal bullying (e.g., calling “stupid,” mocking glasses), and six depicted relational bullying (e.g., whispering about somebody, gossiping about somebody). All 18 scenes followed the same format. First, the “bully” would aggress against the “victim.” The victim would respond ineffectively (e.g., weak attempt at assertiveness) while showing physical or emotional pain. The bully then acted out a second aggressive act against the victim, who responded in an ineffective manner. The “reinforcer” laughed at the bully’s aggressive behavior while the “defender” looked sympathetic toward the victim and disapproving toward the bully. In order for attention not to be drawn simply to whichever actor was speaking, the reinforcer and defender provided only facial expressions. Consequently, the actions of the defender did not include many of the active behaviors often attributed to this role (e.g., getting help, standing up to the bully) and, thus, may be more open to interpretation than more direct forms of defending. For each scene, the actors were randomly assigned to a role to ensure that no actor would become associated with a particular role. The actors wore jeans and plain identical colored shirts provided by the investigators. Ratings by undergraduate research assistants confirmed that all actors displayed the desired emotions (see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019).

Eye tracking

The 60 video clips were displayed to the adolescents on an NEC MultiSync FP2141SB monitor at a resolution of 1,024 × 768 pixels at a refresh rate of 75 Hz. Participants watched the video clips from 57 cm away. A tower-mounted Eyelink 1000 Eye Tracker (SR Research Ltd., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) was used to record participants’ eye movements at a rate of 1,000 Hz. All participants viewed the entire set of 60 video clips in one of two randomly assigned orders. Participants were informed that their eye location was going to be monitored as they watched the video clips. No further instructions were given, and participants were not asked any follow-up questions about the video clips. In total, there were 2,592 trials (72 participants × 36 video clips), with loss of tracking for one trial for one participant. This participant’s attention scores were computed using the remaining trials.

Measures

Visual attention to social cues

For each of the 36 bullying video clips, the location and duration of each fixation on any part of one of the actors’ bodies were recorded by trained research assistants. After eliminating fixations shorter than 100 ms (3.28%), the total number of seconds attending to each of the three bullying roles was averaged across all 36 bullying video clips (see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). As variations in whether youth attended to the actors while watching the video clips may reflect attention problems, we controlled for the average time spent looking at the actors (i.e., total attention to the actors) in all analyses.

Victimization

Peer victimization was measured using peer-, teacher-, and parent-report measures. Peer-reports were obtained the previous spring as part of the original longitudinal study and, therefore, many of the ratings participants received were provided by classmates who did not participate in the eye-tracking study. Participants were rated on four items from the Multi-Informant Peer Victimization Scale (MPVS; Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002). Items were rated on a scale from 1 (never) to 4 (a lot) and assessed physical (“hit or pushed by other”), verbal (“called names”), and relational (“told by other kids they cannot play with them or be friends with them”) victimization. Participants received ratings from an average of 15.49 classmates (Min = 10; Max = 24). Mean ratings were calculated separately for each item, and the unstandardized item-level scores were averaged to create a composite score (α = .89).

Teacher-reports and parent-reports of peer victimization were obtained using four items from the MPVS that parallel those from the peer-report measure and four items written to provide a more comprehensive assessment of relational peer victimization (e.g., “is ignored by peers”). Teacher-report items were rated on a 4-point scale (1 = never to 4 = a lot of the time), and parent-report items were rated on a three-point scale (1 = not true to 3 = very true or often true). Scores on these items were averaged to create a composite victimization score (α = .90 and .85, for teachers and parents, respectively).

Correlations among the three reports of peer victimization were significant (all rs > .40, ps < .001). As multi-informant measures of peer victimization provide more valid assessments of peer victimization than single-informant measures (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002), the three scores were standardized and averaged to create a composite peer victimization score (α = .75).

Coping

Youth’s coping responses were assessed using the Self-report Coping Scale (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Pelletier, 2008). Participants were asked to rate their use of a range of coping responses “when kids are being mean to them” on a scale from 1 (never) to 4 (every time). Three items tapped seeking support from parents (e.g., “ask my mom or dad what I should do”), and three tapped seeking support from teachers (e.g., “tell the teacher what happened”). These subscale scores were highly correlated (r = .74, p < .001), and results, when analyzed separately, were highly similar. Accordingly, we computed a composite seeking adult assistance score (α = .90). Three items assessed seeking friend assistance (e.g., “talk to a friend about it”; α = .89). Five items assessed behavioral avoidance (e.g., “stay away from the kids who were being mean to me”; α = .67). Four items assessed retaliation (e.g., “hurt the kid back”; α = .86), and three items assessed internalizing coping (e.g., “I feel sorry for myself”; α = .65). All subscale scores were computed by averaging item-level scores.

Attention problems

Youth’s attention problems were assessed using teacher- and parent-reports. Teachers rated adolescents on three items (e.g., “is inattentive”) from the hyperactive-distractible subscale of the Child Behavior Scale (Ladd & Profilet, 1996) on a scale from 1 (never) to 4 (a lot of the time; α= .83). Parents rated children on nine items from the attention problems subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) on a scale from 1 (not true) to 3 (very true or often true; α= .74). Teacher and parent reports were significantly correlated (r = .56, p < .001) and, thus, averaged to create a composite attention problems score.

Plan of Analysis

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations were examined and t-tests were conducted to examine patterns of missingness and gender differences on all study variables. Regression analyses were conducted in MPlus version 7.2 (Muethen & Muethen, 1998–2007), which uses full information maximum likelihood estimation to handle missing data (Enders & Bandalos, 2001). Models were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (Boomsma, 2000; Chou, Bentler, & Satorra, 1991). All continuous predictor variables were mean-centered. Regressions were conducted separately for attention to each of the three bullying roles and simultaneously for each of the five coping responses. Predictors included attention to the bullying role, peer victimization, gender, all two-way interactions, and the attention to bullying role × victimization × gender three-way interaction. We controlled for attention problems and total attention to the actors in all analyses. Due to the high correlation between total attention to the actors and attention to each actor, models were tested with and without the control variable. Results were highly similar; thus, the control variable was retained to maintain consistency with previous analyses using this data set (see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). Simple slopes were calculated and plotted at high (+1SD) and low (−1SD) levels of attention to the bullying role and for boys (coded as 0) and girls (coded as 1; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). All significant two-way interactions remained significant when the three-way interaction was excluded from the analysis. Plots of interactions were based on regressions with all interactions included. As data collection included attention to the victim, analyses regarding attention to victims are presented in the Supplemental Material (Table S1 and Figure S1).

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. Participants attended primarily to the bully (and the victim, see Troop-Gordon et al., 2019) and reported moderate levels of seeking adult assistance, seeking friend assistance, and engaging in behavioral avoidance. They reported low levels of retaliatory and internalizing coping. In addition, based on the raw scores, informants reported low levels of peer victimization on average (M_parent = 1.26, SD_parent = 0.33; M_teacher = 1.40, SD_teacher = 0.64; M_peer = 1.49, SD_peer = 0.22). T-tests revealed that girls were more likely than boys to seek adult and friend support and to respond with internalizing coping; boys were more likely than girls to respond with retaliation (all ps < .05). There were no gender differences in the measures of attention. Only two children were missing any data. They did not differ from the other children on any of the study variables.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Correlations.

	Correlations
Variable	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	9.	10.	M	SD	Min.	Max.
1. Attention to bully	—										5,011.45	912.76	2,037.81	6,560.44
2. Attention to reinforcer	.27*	—									1,547.92	308.52	648.00	2,392.78
3. Attention to defender	−.02	.44**	—								1,490.81	364.34	657.47	2,853.81
4. Peer victimization	−.15	−.03	−.04	—							−0.02	0.84	−0.89	3.12
5. Seek adult assistance	−.04	−.04	.21	.07	—						2.18	0.88	1.00	4.00
6. Seek friend assistance	.05	.10	.08	−.12	.39***	—					2.30	0.90	1.00	4.00
7. Retaliation	−.19	.01	.03	−.08	−.17	−.17	—				1.35	0.57	1.00	4.00
8. Avoidance	.04	.02	.03	−.16	.49***	.51***	−.22	—			2.38	0.62	1.00	4.00
9. Internalizing coping	−.01	.07	.07	.07	.45***	.36**	−.12	.29*	—		1.69	0.67	1.00	4.00
10. Attention problems	.04	−.04	−.10	.47***	−.24*	−.11	−.03	−.08	−.18	—	1.41	0.46	1.00	3.05
11. Total attention to actors	.87***	.50***	.32**	−.16	.06	.09	−.20	.07	.03	−.05	12,529.28	1,639.13	5,577.25	14,617.56

Note. Total attention to the actors was calculated as raw duration scores in milliseconds. Peer victimization scores were calculated after z-scoring peer-reports, teacher-reports, and parent reports.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Bivariate correlations are presented in Table 1. Peer victimization was correlated only with attention problems. Attention to the bully was positively correlated with attention to the reinforcer. Attention to the reinforcer was positively correlated with attention to the defender. Correlations among the coping responses were low-to-moderate and in expected directions.

Regression Analyses

Seeking adult assistance

Results from regression analyses predicting seeking adult assistance are presented in Table 2. Significant effects were found for attention to the bully and defender, but not the reinforcer.

Table 2.

Regressions Predicting Adult Assistance.

Predictor	Seeking adult assistance
Predictor	b	SE	β	R ²
Attention to the bully
Total attention to actors	2.15	1.14	0.40^†	.26
Attention problems	−0.49	0.25	−0.26*
Gender	0.45	0.19	0.26*
Peer victimization	0.22	0.20	0.21
Attention to bully	−0.46	0.18	−0.48*
Attention to bully × peer victimization	−0.38	0.14	−0.38**
Attention to bully × gender	0.28	0.15	0.22^†
Peer victimization × gender	−0.06	0.20	−0.05
Attention to bully × peer victimization × gender	0.11	0.16	0.11
Attention to the reinforcer
Total attention to actors	1.03	0.64	0.19	.20
Attention problems	−0.62	0.23	−0.33*
Gender	0.36	0.20	0.21^†
Peer victimization	0.41	0.21	0.30*
Attention to reinforcer	−0.29	0.35	−0.10
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization	0.01	0.56	0.00
Attention to reinforcer × gender	0.19	0.63	0.05
Peer victimization × gender	−0.28	0.22	−0.22
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization × gender	−0.71	0.69	−0.19
Attention to the defender
Total attention to actors	0.74	0.64	0.14	.28
Attention problems	−0.37	0.26	−0.19
Gender	0.49	0.19	0.28*
Peer victimization	0.26	0.21	0.25
Attention to defender	0.75	0.22	0.31***
Attention to defender × peer victimization	0.54	0.46	0.18
Attention to defender × gender	−0.68	0.42	−0.16
Peer victimization × gender	−0.18	0.21	−0.14
Attention to defender × peer victimization × gender	−1.44	0.56	−0.39*

Note. Each attentional bias was examined in separate models and all outcomes were examined simultaneously. Two-way interaction effects remained significant in models without the three-way interaction effect.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

There was a main negative effect of attention to the bully and a significant attention to the bully × peer victimization interaction. Attention to the bully was negatively associated with seeking adult assistance at high (b = −0.77, p < .001) and moderate levels of peer victimization (b = −0.46, p = .02), but not at low levels of peer victimization (b = −0.15, p = .49). As can be seen in Figure 1a, seeking adult assistance was low at high levels of attention to the bully regardless of the level of peer victimization. In contrast, at low levels of attention to the bully, seeking adult assistance was relatively higher, but only at average and high levels of peer victimization.

Figure 1.

Plots of (a) attention to the bully × peer victimization and (b) attention to the defender × peer victimization × gender predicting seeking adult assistance.

There was a main positive effect of attention to the defender and a significant attention to the defender × peer victimization × gender interaction. Attention to the defender was not associated with seeking adult assistance for boys at low levels of peer victimization (b = 0.30, p = .54) or girls at high levels of peer victimization (b = −0.67, p = .11). Attention to the defender was positively associated with seeking adult assistance for boys at high levels of peer victimization (b = 1.21, p < .001) and was marginally, positively associated with seeking adult assistance for girls at low levels of peer victimization (b = 0.83, p = .06). As shown in Figure 1b, attention to the defender had no association with seeking adult assistance for girls at high levels of peer victimization, for whom seeking adult assistance was relatively high, or for boys at low levels of peer victimization, for whom seeking adult assistance was relatively low. However, for girls at low levels of peer victimization and boy at high levels of peer victimization, seeking adult assistance was greater at high levels of attention to the defender.

Seeking friend assistance

No significant effects were found for attention to the bully, reinforcer, or defender. Results from these regressions are presented in Table S2 of the Supplemental Material.

Retaliation

Results from regression analyses predicting retaliation are presented in Table 3. Significant effects were found for attention to the bully and defender, but not the reinforcer.

Table 3.

Regressions Predicting Retaliation.

Predictor	Retaliation
Predictor	b	SE	β	R ²
Attention to the bully
Total attention to actors	−1.33	0.60	0.33^†	.43
Attention problems	0.02	0.15	0.01
Gender	−0.43	0.14	−0.38**
Peer victimization	−0.30	0.11	−0.45**
Attention to bully	−0.20	0.13	−0.33
Attention to bully × peer victimization	0.59	0.09	0.92***
Attention to bully × gender	0.39	0.10	0.48***
Peer victimization × gender	0.32	0.11	0.39**
Attention to bully × peer victimization × gender	−0.49	0.09	−0.71***
Attention to the reinforcer
Total attention to actors	−1.21	0.60	−0.35*	.23
Attention problems	−0.03	0.18	−0.02
Gender	−0.35	0.16	0.30*
Peer victimization	−0.25	0.15	0.37^†
Attention to reinforcer	−0.03	0.41	−0.01
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization	0.20	0.43	0.10
Attention to reinforcer × gender	0.37	0.47	0.14
Peer victimization × gender	0.30	0.14	0.36*
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization × gender	0.27	0.49	0.11
Attention to the defender
Total attention to actors	−1.30	0.60	−0.38*	.26
Attention problems	−0.08	0.19	−0.06
Gender	−0.34	0.16	−0.30*
Peer victimization	−0.25	0.16	−0.36
Attention to defender	−0.09	0.29	−0.06
Attention to defender × peer victimization	−0.30	0.33	−0.15
Attention to defender × gender	0.71	0.31	0.26*
Peer victimization × gender	0.32	0.15	0.38*
Attention to defender × peer victimization × gender	0.73	0.41	0.30^†

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

All two-way and three-way interactions were significant for attention to the bully. At high levels of peer victimization, attention to the bully was positively associated with retaliatory coping (b = 0.29, p = .04, for boys; b = 0.27, p = .02, for girls). At low levels of peer victimization, the association between attention to the bully and retaliatory coping was negative for boys (b = −0.69, p < .001) and nonsignificant for girls (b = 0.11, p = .19). As shown in Figure 2a, girls reported low levels of retaliatory responding. However, retaliatory coping was somewhat higher for girls at high levels of attention to the bully and high levels of peer victimization. A similar pattern was found for boys at high levels of attention to the bully and high levels of peer victimization. The most notable pattern, however, was that for boys at low levels of peer victimization high levels of retaliatory coping were found at low levels of attention to the bully.

Figure 2.

Plots of (a) attention to the bully × peer victimization × gender and (b) attention to the defender × peer victimization × gender predicting retaliatory coping.

Although the three-way interaction for attention to the defender was only marginally significant (p = .10), a simple slope analysis suggested that important distinctions emerge when taking into account moderation by peer victimization and gender. For boys, attention to the defender was not associated with retaliatory coping at low (b = 0.16, p = .73) or high (b = −0.34, p = .29) levels of peer victimization. For girls, attention to the defender was not associated with retaliatory coping at low levels of peer victimization (b = 0.27, p = .20), but was positively associated with retaliatory coping at high levels of peer victimization (b = 0.99, p < .001). As shown in Figure 2b, at low levels of peer victimization, boys reported relatively high levels of retaliatory coping regardless of attention to the defender and reported somewhat lower levels of retaliation at high levels of peer victimization. For girls, retaliation was low regardless of attention to the defender at low levels of peer victimization. In contrast, retaliation was higher at high levels of attention to the defender and at high levels of peer victimization.

Behavioral avoidance

There were no effects of attention to the bully, and although significant three-way interactions were found for attention to the reinforcer and defender, all simple slopes were nonsignificant. Results from these regressions are presented in Table S3 of the Supplemental Material.

Internalizing coping

Results from regression analyses predicting internalizing coping are presented in Table 4. Significant effects were found for attention to the reinforcer and defender. Although the attention to the bully × gender interaction was significant, the simple slopes were not (b = −0.14, p = .30, for boys; b = 0.11, p = .49, for girls).

Table 4.

Regressions Predicting Internalizing Coping.

Predictor	Internalizing coping
Predictor	b	SE	β	R ²
Attention to the bully
Total attention to actors	0.11	0.80	0.03	.19
Attention problems	−0.25	0.20	−0.17
Gender	0.42	0.14	0.32**
Peer victimization	0.15	0.17	0.19
Attention to bully	−0.14	0.13	−0.19
Attention to bully × peer victimization	−0.01	0.10	−0.02
Attention to bully × gender	0.25	0.11	0.26*
Peer victimization × gender	−0.06	0.18	−0.07
Attention to bully × peer victimization × gender	−0.01	0.12	−0.01
Attention to the reinforcer
Total attention to actors	−0.08	0.45	−0.02	.29
Attention problems	−0.29	0.19	−0.20
Gender	0.43	0.13	0.32***
Peer victimization	0.19	0.16	0.23
Attention to reinforcer	−0.46	0.26	−0.21^†
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization	0.57	0.40	0.24
Attention to reinforcer × gender	1.55	0.45	0.49***
Peer victimization × gender	−0.10	0.18	−0.10
Attention to reinforcer × peer victimization × gender	−0.69	0.53	−0.25
Attention to the defender
Total attention to actors	0.15	0.42	0.04	.31
Attention problems	−0.28	0.20	−0.20
Gender	0.47	0.13	−0.35***
Peer victimization	0.33	0.16	0.41*
Attention to defender	−0.09	0.16	−0.05
Attention to defender × peer victimization	1.14	0.32	0.48***
Attention to defender × gender	1.00	0.32	0.31***
Peer victimization × gender	−0.23	0.18	−0.23
Attention to defender × peer victimization × gender	−1.46	0.48	−0.52**

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

A significant attention to the reinforcer × gender interaction emerged. Attention to the reinforcer was positively associated with internalizing coping for girls (b = 1.09, p = .01), but was marginally negatively associated with internalizing coping for boys (b = −0.45, p = .09). As shown in Figure 3a, at low levels of attention to the reinforcer, boys and girls exhibited low levels of internalizing coping. At high levels of attention to the reinforcer, boys evidenced low levels of internalizing coping, and girls evidenced relatively high levels of internalizing coping.

Figure 3.

Plots of (a) attention to the reinforcer × gender and (b) attention to the defender × peer victimization × gender predicting internalizing coping.

There was a significant attention to the defender × peer victimization × gender interaction. The association between attention to the defender and internalizing coping was not significant for girls at high levels of peer victimization (b = 0.64, p = .13), but was significant for boys at low (b = −1.04, p < .001) and high (b = 0.86, p = .02) levels of peer victimization and for girls at low levels of peer victimization (b = 1.19, p < .001). As can be seen in Figure 3b, girls reported relatively high levels of internalizing coping at high levels of peer victimization regardless of attention to defenders. Similarly, high levels of internalizing coping were reported at high levels of attention to the defender for boys high in peer victimization and girls low in peer victimization. The lowest levels of internalizing coping emerged for boys at high levels of attending to the defender and low levels of peer victimization.

Discussion

Although biases in visual attention have been studied in relation to stable patterns of internalizing problems (Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn, 2007; Gotlib, Krasnoperova, Yue, & Joormann, 2004) and aggressive behavior (Horsley, de Castro, & Van der Schoot, 2010; Troop-Gordon et al., 2019), associations with immediate responses to unambiguous peer provocation have yet to be addressed. By integrating coping, SIP, and bullying role literatures, this study provided a novel examination of the link between biases in attention to social cues during bullying and coping with peer victimization. The findings suggest that attentional cues are associated with three of the coping responses studied: seeking adult assistance, retaliation, and internalizing coping. However, these associations varied depending on early adolescents’ history of peer victimization and gender, suggesting that attention to bullies and bystanders may elicit qualitatively different cognitive and affective responses among peer victimized youth than from their non-victimized peers.

Seeking Assistance From Adults and Friends

It was expected that attention to the bully would be negatively associated with seeking adult assistance. This relation did emerge, but only at high levels of peer victimization. Youth who experience low levels of peer victimization likely feel competent in their ability to independently handle peers’ aggression (Singh & Bussey, 2011) and, therefore, rarely seek adult assistance regardless of whether they are attentive to the aggressive behavior of their peers who bully. In contrast, youth who are frequently peer-victimized may doubt their ability to cope effectively with bullying and, therefore, seek adult intervention and support. The current findings suggest that being attentive to bullies suppresses seeking adult support. One explanation is that attention to bullies confirms perceptions of a hostile peer environment (Troop-Gordon & Ladd, 2005) and elicits greater emotional reactivity to victimization experiences (see Fox, Cahill, & Zougkou, 2010; Wilkowski & Robinson, 2010), leading to feelings of helplessness. However, to more fully understand the extent of this association, we conducted supplemental analyses to determine whether these findings held when seeking assistance from a parent and from a teacher were examined separately. These analyses indicated that attention to the bully is negatively associated only with seeking parents’ assistance. This suggests that children who are peer-victimized and avoid visually attending to bullies are particularly likely to seek parental support in response to peer harassment. This may reflect an orientation toward heightened emotion regulation when viewing bullying that includes cognitive avoidance of threatening stimuli and help from parents who tend to be a greater source of emotional support during early adolescence than teachers (Malecki & Demaray, 2003). However, as this was the only difference found between seeking support from parents and teachers, and the two were highly correlated, we caution overinterpreting this finding until it is replicated in subsequent studies.

As anticipated, attention to the defender was associated with greater seeking of adult support among boys at high levels of peer victimization, potentially due to defenders communicating to peers the presence of a supportive social environment. However, we did not find a negative association between attention to defenders and seeking adult assistance at high levels of peer victimization for girls. Rather, at high levels of peer victimization, girls reported high levels of seeking adult assistance regardless of how much they attended to the defender. Overall, girls are more likely than boys to seek adult assistance when peer-victimized (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Pelletier, 2008; Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010). Therefore, requesting adult support may be a well-developed strategy for girls that is unaffected by contextual cues. In contrast, one might expect that girls low in peer victimization would find little need to seek adult assistance when coping with peer victimization regardless of their attention to social cues. However, the findings from this study suggest that infrequently peer-victimized girls were more likely to seek adult assistance if they attended to the defender. These girls may interpret the sympathy communicated by the defender as evidence of the severity of the bullying around them, motivating behavior to get adult assistance when the target of peer victimization. It should be noted that these findings held when seeking assistance from a parent and from a teacher were examined separately.

Surprisingly, we found no evidence that attentional biases are associated with seeking friend assistance. During early adolescence, youth increasingly rely on friends for emotional support and advice (Brown, 1990; Collins & Steinberg, 2006). Thus, due to high reliance on friends for support, attentional biases may not be potent enough to predict differences in seeking friend assistance. However, it should be noted that the mean level of seeking friend support was not much higher than seeking adult support. An alternative possibility is that whether children seek friend support is more dependent on the quality of one’s friendships than social cues from the environment. Stronger findings may have been obtained if peer support was assessed rather than support specifically from friends. Therefore, more research is needed to understand how attentional biases may be associated with seeking support from specific individuals.

Retaliation

As expected, for youth at high levels of peer victimization, attention to the bully was associated with reporting more frequent retaliation in response to bullying. By eliciting negative emotional reactions and perceptions of a hostile peer environment, particularly among youth who have a history of peer victimization, attention to the behavior of bullies may lead to an immediate, retaliatory response when peer-victimized (Camodeca, Goossens, Terwogt, & Schuengel, 2002). Indeed, if these attentional biases are also evident during a situation when an adolescent is being victimized, excessive attention to the bully may deplete regulatory processes necessary to engage in problem-focused coping, resulting in greater reliance on retaliation to end the immediate threat and reduce negative affect (Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010).

Unexpectedly, however, the highest levels of retaliatory coping were estimated for boys at low levels of attention to the bully and low levels of peer victimization. Some boys may effectively deploy attention away from a threatening event to control their emotions (Thayer & Lane, 2000; Todd et al., 2012) and, therefore, are able to competently enact retaliatory responses, preventing further peer harassment. That diverting attention away from the bully would be linked to higher levels of retaliatory coping for boys, but not girls, is consistent with boys’ greater focus on dominance goals and less prosocial handling of conflicts (Rose & Rudolph, 2006). It should be noted that youth low in peer victimization may have little experience coping with peers’ aggression and, therefore, may have been only speculating as to how they would respond. However, that this would be the case only when low-victimized boys are relatively inattentive to bullies’ behavior underscores the importance of attentional biases when choosing coping responses.

The findings partially supported hypotheses regarding the association between retaliation and attention to defenders. As expected, for girls at high levels of victimization, attention to defenders was positively associated with retaliatory coping. This finding is consistent with findings from these data showing that for peer-victimized girls, attention to defenders is positively associated with peer- and teacher-reported aggression (Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). Interestingly, retaliatory coping is not typically employed by girls, at least when compared with boys (Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010; Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2011). The presence of defenders may communicate peer support for vengeful tactics, prompting coping strategies that girls would otherwise not utilize. An alternative explanation can be derived from the highly passive actions of the defenders in these scenes. As girls are more likely to defend than boys (Salmivalli, 2010), they may be disappointed by the inaction of an otherwise sympathetic peer. Attention to peers’ passive reactions to bullying may lead to retaliatory actions when peer-victimized as a result of expecting little active intervention from others. Interestingly, unlike the previous analyses showing that attention to the defender is associated with lower levels of aggression among boys who are frequently peer-victimized (Troop-Gordon et al., 2019), a similar pattern did not emerge for retaliatory coping. It may be that attention to defenders within the peer group engenders aggressive behavior aimed at reducing future peer victimization, but does not deter immediate retaliation when bullied. It should be noted, however, that the three-way interaction was only marginally significant and, thus, requires further replication.

Behavioral Avoidance

Interestingly, attention to the bullying roles was not associated with behavioral avoidance. Avoidance is used for varying purposes (e.g., avoid further harm, control emotions; Bellmore, Chen, & Rischall, 2013). Thus, how attentional biases relate to behavioral avoidance may depend on how and why this strategy is being employed. Furthermore, emotional reactivity may be higher when one is the direct target of peer victimization, rather than witnessing bullying of a peer. Thus, behavioral avoidance used as an emotion regulation strategy may be associated with visual attention to threat when one is experiencing peer victimization, a possibility we were unable to test with the current research design. Researchers, therefore, should further examine the motivations underlying behavioral avoidance, as well as how it is used in conjunction with other coping strategies, to further test how attentional biases may play a role.

Internalizing Coping

For girls, but not boys, attention to the reinforcer was associated with higher levels of internalizing coping. Being highly attentive to reinforcers may amplify negative perceptions of the peer group, resulting in greater feelings of humiliation and internalizing coping when the target of bullying. That this was true for girls only was unanticipated. However, research shows that girls are more sensitive to interpersonal stress than boys (Hankin & Abramson, 2001). Thus, this gender difference may be attributable to differences in how girls and boys cope with peer stress.

Contrary to expectations, for boys at high levels of peer victimization attention to the defender was associated with greater internalizing coping. One possible explanation is that the empathy expressed by defenders reinforces victimized boys’ low self-confidence and anxiety (Reijntjes et al., 2010), leading to a more internalizing profile of coping. Interestingly, the anticipated protective effect on internalizing coping was evidenced for boys at low levels of peer victimization. When victimization is infrequent, boys may be able to focus on the supportive nature of defending behaviors in their peer group, reducing negative emotional responses when coping with aggression from peers.

Limitations and Future Directions

The use of naturalistic stimuli and eye-tracking technology permitted a unique study of the association between attentional processes and coping responses to peer victimization. However, a number of limitations need to be acknowledged. Most notably, the mechanisms that were proposed to account for the link between attentional biases and coping responses (e.g., identification of social support, emotional reactivity, threat assessment) were not directly assessed. Indeed, this is a major gap within the research linking attentional biases to aggression and psychopathology (see Wilkowski, Robinson, Gordon, & Troop-Gordon, 2007, for an exception). Thus, it is imperative to modify our paradigms to include both the tracking of visual attention and the meaning participants place on those cues. In addition, in the video clips, the defender responded to bullying by signaling disapproval but did not actively intervene. Attention to defenders who more actively aid the victim may be associated with very different coping responses than attention to passive actions such as those taken by the defenders in the scenes used in this study. Moreover, the current study could only assess concurrent associations. Although causal interpretations of these findings are consistent with SIP theories (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) and conceptual models of attention-emotion regulation links (Todd et al., 2012), it is plausible that over time deployment of attention is modified to serve learned coping responses. Therefore, longitudinal data are needed to explicate the direction of effects. Furthermore, experimental methodologies could be employed in which attention is directed to varying bullying roles to isolate cause-and-effect relationships between visual attention, emotional reactivity, social-cognitive mechanisms, and coping responses.

It should be noted that visual attention to bullying roles was assessed from a third-person perspective. As victims are also likely to witness the bullying of peers (Fitzpatrick & Bussey, 2011; Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Östermann, & Kaukainen, 1996), attentional biases from an outsider perspective may contribute to perceptions of peers, social threat, and sources of support, and, therefore, how victimized youth cope when harassed by peers. However, previous research does indicate that social-cognitive biases depend on whether one is a direct target of a provocation or an onlooker (Kupersmidt, Stelter, & Dodge, 2011). Thus, the methodology employed here raises the question of whether visual attention biases are congruent when one is the victim of the aggression as when one is a witness to the bullying, and whether the findings that emerged in this study would replicate if attentional biases were assessed from a first-person perspective (i.e., when being the target of peer victimization). Creating paradigms in which visual attention can be tracked while participants are directly involved in bullying scenarios, particularly as the target, would provide more valid assessments of the visual attention biases linked to coping responses. For example, chat room tasks (Silk et al., 2012) could be designed allowing for youth confederates to take on multiple bullying roles while the participant experiences low levels of aggression, as well as in experimental conditions in which a youth confederate is the aggression target. However, the benefits of such paradigms would have to be carefully weighed against ethical concerns.

Additional methodological limitations also warrant consideration. The coping measure displayed low reliability for behavioral avoidance and internalizing coping. Another limitation was the treatment of coping responses as mutually exclusive. Coping with victimization likely involves a combination of responses that unfold over time and, in some cases, occur simultaneously (see Dirks et al., 2016; Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2011). Such combinations may change the nature and likely purpose of a coping strategy. Indeed, variations in the underlying motives for using a coping response may help explain why associations were not found between attentional biases and seeking friend assistance or behavioral avoidance. Furthermore, there was a gap between when peer- and teacher-reports of peer victimization were obtained (i.e., the spring of the preceding school year) and when eye-tracking data were collected, potentially weakening the moderating role of peer victimization. This limitation is tempered by the strong yearly stability of peer-reported peer victimization (e.g., r > .60; Kochel, Ladd, & Rudolph, 2012; Paul & Cillessen, 2003) and the significant inter-reporter correlations found in this study.

The study findings should also be viewed in light of sample characteristics. Due to rising levels of bullying (see Troop-Gordon, 2017, for a review) and developing emotion regulation (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007), early adolescence is an important time for studying coping with peer victimization. However, the current findings should be tested at other developmental periods, as attentional biases and coping strategies may develop in childhood and throughout adolescence. Although consistent with similar eye-tracking studies examining attention to hostile situations (Horsley et al., 2010; Wilkowski et al., 2007), the current sample size was small, especially considering the testing of three-way interactions. Findings need to be replicated with a larger and more diverse sample of youth.

Summary and Implications

Looking more broadly at this set of findings, we can begin to see how attentional biases may contribute to the coping strategies employed by adolescents who experience high levels of peer victimization. Attention on bullies was associated with relying on retaliation, rather than adult support. Given the known negative consequences of retaliating, particularly for children frequently victimized (Mahady Wilton, Craig, & Pepler, 2000; Visconti & Troop-Gordon, 2010), these findings suggest that peer victimized children may benefit from attention retraining programs aimed at reducing attention to bullies. Attention to the reinforcer had very little association with children’s coping. When provocation is unambiguously hostile, the reinforcer may provide little unique information with which to inform coping responses, especially in light of the tendency for children to take on multiple, similar bullying roles (Goossens, Olthof, & Dekker, 2006). Although it could easily be assumed that attention should be refocused on defenders, the findings here suggest otherwise. At high levels of victimization, attention to defenders was associated with an internalizing profile for boys and a retaliatory profile for girls. Youth who are frequently peer victimized may interpret and emotionally react to defenders in a way that counter the benefits of identifying a supportive peer. Thus, whether the presence of defenders helps youth cope with peer victimization may depend on whether victimized youth process defenders’ social cues in adaptive ways. For example, if the defender remains primarily passive, as was the case in these video clips, some youth may focus on the inaction of the defender rather than their disapproval of the bully, leading them to conclude that they can rely only on themselves in bullying situations (by retaliating for girls or internalizing for boys) or on adults. Thus, these findings underscore the need to not only understand attentional processes underlying coping with peer victimization but also how youth respond emotionally and cognitively to those cues once attended.

Supplemental Material

McConnell_and_Troop-Gordon_supplemental_materials_LM – Supplemental material for Attentional Biases to Bullies and Bystanders and Youth’s Coping With Peer Victimization

Supplemental material, McConnell_and_Troop-Gordon_supplemental_materials_LM for Attentional Biases to Bullies and Bystanders and Youth’s Coping With Peer Victimization by Leanna McConnell and Wendy Troop-Gordon in The Journal of Early Adolescence

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by NIH P20 GM103505. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The contents of this report are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the NIH or NIGMS.

ORCID iD

Wendy Troop-Gordon

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Leanna McConnell is a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University. She studies links between peer stress and psychosocial adjustment and how those associations vary within and between individuals.

Wendy Troop-Gordon is an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University. She studies the development of peer relationship difficulties in childhood and early adolescence and the processes by which peer stress is linked to later psychopathology and school maladjustment.

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