Reciprocal Relations Between Peer Victimization, Rumination, and Dysphoria: A Multi-Wave Longitudinal Study of...

Adolescence is characterized by increased vulnerability to internalizing symptoms, particularly among girls. Although peer victimization and rumination have each been implicated in this vulnerability, their dynamic, bidirectional associations with dysphoria remain poorly understood. The current study examined transactional longitudinal relations among peer victimization, rumination, and dysphoria symptoms in adolescent girls.

Participants were 550 girls (ages 13.5-15.5 years at baseline) from the Adolescent Development of Emotions and Personality Traits (ADEPT) study, assessed across five waves over three years. Self-report measures captured dysphoria, rumination, and peer victimization. A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model was fitted to separate within-person processes from between-person differences and to test bidirectional associations across time, controlling for age at each wave.

At the between-person level, higher average dysphoria, rumination, and peer victimization were strongly inter-correlated. Within-person analyses showed that elevations in dysphoria predicted subsequent increases in both rumination and peer victimization, and that increases in peer victimization also predicted later elevated levels of dysphoria. Furthermore, the within-person analyses revealed that rumination did not predict later changes in the other constructs.

Findings suggest that, at the within-person level, changes in dysphoria and peer-victimization may be reciprocally related. In contrast, changes in rumination were only predicted by changes in dysphoria, and not peer victimization, challenging previous theory and evidence on the temporal order between the three constructs. Modeling these processes as transactional and across various levels of analyses may inform more precise estimates for multilevel prevention efforts aimed at reducing disparities experienced by adolescent girls.