Abstract
The present study examined peer victimization among adolescents from an evolutionary psychological perspective. With reference to sexual selection, life history theory, and attachment research, we investigated whether anxious and avoidant attachment was related directly and indirectly, through their effect on dating and sexual history, to physical, verbal, or relational victimization in adolescence. A total of 312 adolescents, aged 12–18 (Mage = 14.64, SDage = 1.52), were recruited from community organizations and completed self-report measures of attachment, dating and sexual history, and victimization. As predicted, avoidant attachment was indirectly related to both relational and verbal victimization for girls only, through the effects of number of dating or sexual partners. Significant direct effects were found only for avoidant attachment on verbal victimization. Results are discussed with regard to sex-specific aspects of fast life history strategies and intersexual selection. The findings add to a growing body of recent research suggesting the potential utility of developing and studying anti-bullying interventions incorporating components that address evolutionary psychological perspectives on bullying and peer victimization.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ainsworth, M. (1979). Infant-mother attachment. American Psychologist, 34, 932–937.
Allen, E. S., & Baucom, D. H. (2004). Adult attachment and patterns of extradyadic involvement. Family Process, 43, 467–488. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2004.00035.x.
Apicella, C. L. (2014). Upper-body strength predicts hunting reputation and reproductive success in Hadza hunter–gatherers. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 508–518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.001.
Arend, R., Gove, F. L., & Sroufe, L. A. (1979). Continuity of individual adaptation from infancy to kindergarten: Predictive study of ego-resiliency and curiosity in preschoolers. Child Development, 50, 950–959. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129319.
Armsden, G. C., & Greenberg, M. T. (1987). The inventory of parent and peer attachment: Individual differences and their relationship to psychological well-being in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 16, 427–454. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02202939.
Arnocky, S., & Vaillancourt, T. (2012). A multi-informant longitudinal study on the relationship between aggression, peer victimization, and dating status in adolescence. Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491201000207.
Balan, R., Dobrean, A., & Balazsi, R. (2018). Indirect effects of parental and peer attachment on bullying and victimization among adolescents: The role of negative automatic thoughts. Aggressive Behavior. Advance online publication, 44, 561–570. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21775.
Bjorklund, D. F., & Hawley, P. H. (2014). Aggression grows up: Looking through an evolutionary developmental lens to understand the causes and consequences of human aggression. In T. K. Shackelford & R. D. Hansen (Eds.), Evolutionary psychology. The evolution of violence (pp. 159–186). Springer Science + Business Media: New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9314-3_9.
Bogaert, A. F., & Sadava, S. (2002). Adult attachment and sexual behavior. Personal Relationships, 9, 191–204. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00012.
Bohlin, G., Hagekull, B., & Rydell, A. M. (2000). Attachment and social functioning: A longitudinal study from infancy to middle childhood. Social Development, 9, 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00109.
Book, A. S., Volk, A. A., & Hosker, A. (2012). Adolescent bullying and personality: An adaptive approach. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 218–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.028.
Buss, D.M. (1998). Sexual strategies theory: Historical origins and current status. Journal of Sex Research, 35(1), 19–31.
Buss, D. M. (2011). Personality and the adaptive landscape: The role of individual differences in creating and solving social adaptive problems. In D. M. Buss & P. H. Hawley (Eds.), The evolution of personality and individual differences (pp. 29–57). Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Buss, D. M., & Dedden, L. A. (1990). Derogation of competitors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 395–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407590073006.
Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.2.204.
Campbell, A. (2013). The evolutionary psychology of women’s aggression. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, 368, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0078.
Card, N. A., Stucky, B. D., Sawalani, G. M., & Little, T. D. (2008). Direct and indirect aggression during childhood and adolescence: A meta-analytic review of gender differences, intercorrelations, and relations to maladjustment. Child Development, 79, 1185–1229. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01184.x.
Chen, B., & Santo, J. B. (2016). The relationship between shyness and unsociability and peer difficulties: The moderating role of insecure attachment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 40, 346–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025415587726.
Connolly, J., Pepler, D., Craig, W., & Taradash, A. (2000). Dating experiences of bullies in early adolescence. Child Maltreatment, 5, 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559500005004002.
Cooper, M. L., Shaver, P. R., & Collins, N. L. (1998). Attachment styles, emotion regulation, and adjustment in adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1380–1397. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1380.
Crepeau-Hobson, F., & Leech, N. L. (2016). Peer victimization and suicidal behaviors among high school youth. Journal of School Violence, 15, 302–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2014.996717.
Dane, A., Marini, Z., Volk, A., & Vaillancourt, T. (2017). Physical and relational bullying and victimization: Differential relations with adolescent dating and sexual behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 43, 111–122. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21667.
Del Giudice, M. (2009). Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X09000016.
Del Giudice, M., & Belsky, J. (2011). Parent-child relationships. In C. Salmon & T. K. Shackleford (Eds.), Oxford library of psychology. The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology (pp. 65–82). New York: Oxford University Press.
Donbaek, D. F., & Elklit, A. (2014). A validation of the experiences in close relationships-relationship structures scale (ECR-RS) in adolescents. Attachment and Human Development, 16, 58–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2013.850103.
Ellis, B. J. (2004). Timing of pubertal maturation in girls: An integrated life history approach. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 920–958. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.6.920.
Ellis, B. J., Gonzalez, J., Volk, A. A., & Embry, D. D. (2015). The meaningful roles intervention: An evolutionary approach to reducing bullying and increasing prosocial behavior. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 3, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12243.
Farrell, A. H., & Volk, A. A. (2017). Social ecology and adolescent bullying: Filtering risky environments through antisocial personality. Children and Youth Services Review, 83, 85–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.10.033.
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146.
Feeney, J. A., Noller, P., & Patty, J. (1993). Adolescents’ interaction with the opposite sex: The influence of attachment style and gender. Journal of Adolescence, 16, 169–186.
Finnegan, R. A., Hodges, V. E., & Perry, D. G. (1996). Preoccupied and avoidant coping during middle childhood. Child Development, 67, 1318–1328. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131702.
Fisher, M., & Cox, A. (2009). The influence of female attractiveness on competitor derogation. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1556/JEP.7.2009.2.3.
Fraley, R. C., Heffernan, M. E., Vicary, A. M., & Brumbaugh, C. C. (2011). The experiences in close relationships—Relationship structures questionnaire: A method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships. Psychological Assessment, 23, 615–625. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022898.
Galand, B., & Hospel, V. (2012). Peer victimization and school disaffection: Exploring the moderation effect of social support and the mediation effect of depression. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 569–590. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02077.x.
Gallup, A. C., O’Brien, D. T., White, D. D., & Wilson, D. S. (2009). Peer victimization in adolescence has different effects on the sexual behavior of male and female college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 611–615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.018.
Gangestad, S. W., & Thornhill, R. (1997). The evolutionary psychology of extrapair sex: The role of fluctuating asymmetry. Evolution and Human Behavior, 18, 69–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(97)00003-2.
Gentzler, A. L., & Kerns, K. A. (2004). Associations between insecure attachment and sexual experiences. Personal Relationships, 11, 249–265. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2004.00081.x.
Georgiou, S. N. (2008). Bullying and victimization at school: The role of mothers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 109–125. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709907X204363.
Greiling, H., & Buss, D. M. (2000). Women's sexual strategies: The hidden dimension of extra-pair mating. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 929–963. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00151-8.
Hampson, S. E., Andrews, J. A., Barckley, M., Gerrard, M., & Gibbons, F. X. (2016). Harsh environments, life history strategies, and adjustment: A longitudinal study of Oregon youth. Personality and Individual Differences, 88, 120–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.08.052.
Hayes, A. (2012). PROCESS: A versatile computational tool for observed variable mediation, moderation, and conditional process modeling [white paper]. Retrieved from http://www.afhayes.com/public/process2012.pdf.
Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511.
Hodges, E. V. E., & Perry, D. G. (1999). Personal and interpersonal antecedents and consequences of victimization by peers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 677–685. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.677.
Hodges, E. V. E., Boivin, M., Vitaro, F., & Bukowski, W. M. (1999). The power of friendship: Protection against an escalating cycle of peer victimization. Developmental Psychology, 35, 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.35.1.94.
Hymel, S., & Swearer, S. M. (2015). Four decades of research on school bullying: An introduction. American Psychologist, 70, 293–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038928.
Jackson, J. J., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2007). The structure and measurement of human mating strategies: Toward a multidimensional model of sociosexuality. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 382–391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.04.005.
Kokkinos, C. M. (2013). Bullying and victimization in early adolescence: Associations with attachment style and perceived parenting. Journal of School Violence, 12, 174–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2013.766134.
Leenaars, L. S., Dane, A. V., & Marini, Z. A. (2008). Evolutionary perspective on indirect victimization in adolescence: The role of attractiveness, dating and sexual behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 34, 404–415. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20252.
Little, T. J., Jones, S. M., Henrich, C. C., & Hawley, P. H. (2003). Disentangling the “whys” from the “whats” of aggressive behavior. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 122–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250244000128.
Madison, T. P., Porter, L. V., & Greule, A. (2016). Parasocial compensation hypothesis: Predictors of using parasocial relationships to compensate for real-life interaction. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 35, 258–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276236615595232.
Marini, Z. A., Dane, A. V., Bosacki, S. L., & YLC-CURA. (2006). Direct and indirect bully-victims: Differential psychosocial risk factors associated with adolescents involved in bullying and victimization. Aggressive Behavior, 32, 551–569. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20155.
Marks, M. J. (2008). Evaluations of sexually active men and women under divided attention: A social cognitive approach to the sexual double standard. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30, 84–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973530701866664.
Marsee, M. A., Barry, C. T., Childs, K. K., Frick, P. J., Kimonis, E. R., Munos, L. C., & Lau, K. S. L. (2011). Assessing the forms and functions of aggression using self-report: Factor structure and invariance of the peer conflict scale in youths. Psychological Assessment, 23, 792–804. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023369.
Mayeux, L., Sandstrom, M. J., & Cillesen, A. H. N. (2008). Is being popular a risky proposition? Journal of Research on Adolescence, 18, 49–74.
Merrell, K. W., Gueldner, B. A., Ross, S. W., & Isava, D. M. (2008). How effective are school bullying intervention programs? A meta-analysis of intervention research. School Psychology Quarterly, 23, 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1037/1045-3830.23.1.26.
Nikiforou, M., Georgiou, S. N., & Stavrinides, P. (2013). Attachment to parents and peers as a parameter of bullying and victimization. Journal of Criminology, 2013, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/484871.
Owens, L., Shute, R., & Slee, P. (2000). "guess what I just heard!": Indirect aggression among teenage girls in Australia. Aggressive Behavior, 26, 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(2000)26:1<67::AID-AB6>3.0.CO;2-C.
Reijntjes, A., Kamphuis, J. H., Prinzie, P., & Telch, M. J. (2010). Peer victimization and internalizing problems in children: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34(4), 244–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.07.009.
Renken, B., Egeland, B., Marvinney, D., Mangelsdorf, S., & Sroufe, L. A. (1989). Early childhood antecedents of aggression and passive-withdrawal in early elementary school. Journal of Personality, 57, 257–281.
Schäfer, M., Werner, N. E., & Crick, N. R. (2002). A comparison of two approaches to the study of negative peer treatment: General victimization and bully/victim problems among German schoolchildren. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 281–306. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151002166451.
Schmitt, D. P., & Jonason, P. K. (2015). Attachment and sexual permissiveness: Exploring differential associations across sexes, cultures, and facets of short-term mating. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46, 119–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022114551052.
Sentse, M., Prinzie, P., & Salmivalli, C. (2017). Testing the direction of longitudinal paths between victimization, peer rejection, and different types of internalizing problems in adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45, 1013–1023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0216-y.
Shaw, T., Dooley, J. J., Cross, D., Zubrick, S. R., & Waters, S. (2013). The forms of bullying scale (FBS): Validity and reliability estimates for a measure of bullying victimization and perpetration in adolescence. Psychological Assessment, 25, 1045–1057. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032955.
Solberg, M. E., Olweus, D., & Endresen, I. M. (2007). Bullies and victims at school: Are they the same pupils? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 441–464. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709906X105689.
Sprecher, S. (2013). Attachment style and sexual permissiveness: The moderating role of gender. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 428–432. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.04.005.
Stillman, T. F., & Maner, J. K. (2009). A sharp eye for her SOI: Perception and misperception of female sociosexuality at zero acquaintance. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 124–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.09.005.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1991). Software for advanced ANOVA courses: A survey. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 23(2), 208–211. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203365.
Ttofi, M. M., & Farrington, D. P. (2009). What works in preventing bullying: Effective elements of anti-bullying programmes. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 1, 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1108/17596599200900003.
Vaillancourt, T. (2013). Do human females use indirect aggression as an intrasexual competition strategy? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Sciences, 368, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0080.
Vaillancourt, T., & Hymel, S. (2006). Aggression and social status: The moderating roles of sex and peer-valued characteristics. Aggressive Behavior, 32(4), 396–408. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20138.
Vaillancourt, T., & Sharma, A. (2011). Intolerance of sexy peers: Intrasexual competition among women. Aggressive Behavior, 37, 569–577. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20413.
Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Munniksma, A., & Dijkstra, J. K. (2010). The complex relation between bullying, victimization, acceptance, and rejection: Giving special attention to status, affection, and sex differences. Child Development, 81, 480–486. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01411.x.
Volk, A. A., Camilleri, J. A., Dane, A. V., & Marini, Z. A. (2012). Is adolescent bullying an evolutionary adaptation? Aggressive Behavior, 38, 222–238. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21418.
Volk, A. A., Dane, A. V., Marini, Z. A., & Vaillancourt, T. (2015). Adolescent bullying, dating, and mating: Testing an evolutionary hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychology, 13, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704915613909.
Williams, K., & Kennedy, J. H. (2012). Bullying behaviors and attachment styles. North American Journal of Psychology, 14, 321–338.
Wilson, M., & Daly, M. (1985). Competitiveness, risk taking, and violence: The young male syndrome. Ethology & Sociobiology, 6, 59–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(85)90041-X.
Funding
This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sarah McComb, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McComb, S.E., Dane, A.V. Evolutionary Psychological Perspective on Peer Victimization: Relations with Attachment Security and Dating and Sexual History. Evolutionary Psychological Science 5, 243–255 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0180-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0180-6