Gender-specific co-developmental trajectories of emotional maltreatment among children: Relations to traditional bullying.

BACKGROUND

Emotional maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse and emotional neglect) correlates significantly with traditional bullying perpetration and victimization in children; however, little is known about the co-developmental trajectories of these two forms of emotional maltreatment and their relations to traditional bullying.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined gender-specific trajectories of emotional abuse and emotional neglect through parallel process latent class growth modeling and their relations to traditional bullying perpetration and victimization.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

The baseline sample included 2080 fourth-grade Chinese elementary school children (55.3% boys; Mage = 10.18, SD = 0.60).

METHODS

Participants completed assessments of emotional abuse, emotional neglect, traditional bullying perpetration, and victimization on five occasions, with six-month intervals between assessments.

RESULTS

Four trajectories were identified for boys: congruently low-decreasing (51.13%), low-decreasing emotional abuse & moderate-stable emotional neglect (28.76%), congruently moderate-increasing (10.97%), and low-stable emotional abuse & high-stable emotional neglect (9.14%). For girls, three trajectories were revealed: congruently low-decreasing (70.55%), low-stable emotional abuse & moderate-stable emotional neglect (20.28%), and moderate-increasing emotional abuse & moderate-stable emotional neglect (9.17%). Children in the congruently moderate-increasing group for boys and the moderate-increasing emotional abuse & moderate-stable emotional neglect group for girls showed the highest risk for traditional bullying perpetration and victimization. Compared with girls, boys exhibited a stronger relation between the trajectories of emotional maltreatment and traditional bullying.

CONCLUSION

Findings elucidated statistically significant relations between the gender-specific trajectories of emotional maltreatment and traditional bullying, emphasizing the importance of differing interventions for subgroups to mitigate traditional bullying.