title: The effects of school-level victimization on self-blame: Evidence for contextualized social cognitions.
abstract: The current study examined school-level victimization as a moderator of associations between peer victimization and changes in 2 types of self-blaming attributions, characterological and behavioral, across the first year of middle school. These associations were tested in a large sample (N = 5,991) of ethnically diverse adolescents from fall to spring of the 6th-grade year across 26 schools. Consistent with hypotheses, the results of multilevel modeling indicated that victimized youth showed greater increases in characterological self-blaming attributions (e.g., "my fault and cannot change it") in schools where victimization was less common. In contrast, victimization was associated with increases in behavioral self-blame (e.g., "I should have been more careful") for bullied students in schools with relatively higher levels of victimization. Underscoring the psychological consequences of person-context mismatch, the results suggest that when schools manage to decrease bullying, the few who remain victimized need additional support to prevent more maladaptive forms of self-blame.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Hannah L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Schacter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Jaana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Juvonen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D058445:Bullying; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology