ArticleJournal of youth and adolescence2026
Defending is a Balancing Act: The Consequences of Defending Victims of Bullying Depend on Defender's Popularity and Social Preference.
Article in Journal of youth and adolescence, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Defending peers who are victimized by bullying is often promoted as a prosocial strategy, yet the conditions under which defending protects defenders versus exposes them to social risks are not well understood, especially in primary school. This study examined when defending predicts increased versus decreased risk for defenders by considering individual status (popularity, social preference) and classroom-level norms as moderators. Participants were 9439 Dutch primary school students (49.1% female; Mage = 10.55 years, SD = 1.47, range = 6.84-15.62) from 433 classrooms in 161 schools. Data were collected at the beginning and end of one school year (September, 2017 - July, 2018), including self-reports of victimization and bullying and peer nominations of defending, victimization, bullying, popularity, and social preference. Multilevel models showed no consistent main effect of defending on self-reported victimization. Instead, the social consequences of defending depended strongly on defenders' peer status: defending predicted higher victimization for highly popular youth and for youth low in social preference, whereas defending predicted lower victimization for youth low in popularity and for those high in social preference. Classroom bullying descriptive norms were associated with higher overall levels of victimization, but classroom norms related to bullying and defending did not moderate the association between defending and victimization. Sensitivity analyses using peer-reported victimization indicated a small positive association between defending and defenders' victimization as perceived by classmates. Together, these findings indicate that defending is embedded in peer status hierarchies and classroom climates and that the risks and benefits of defending depend on defenders' position within the peer group.
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