Abstract
Peer victimization in childhood and adolescence can have consequences that reach into adulthood. Loneliness is a particularly problematic consequence of peer victimization due to its relations to poor psychological outcomes and later victimization. Friendship quality may mediate and moderate relations between relational, nonphysical, and physical victimization and psychological outcomes, but little research has examined multiple types of peer victimization. Additionally, the associations between sexual harassment victimization and social outcomes have not been fully investigated. Though victims of sexual harassment consider friends an important source of support, sexual harassment has also been shown to strain personal relationships. Consequently, I examined the relations between peer victimization, loneliness, and friendship intimacy in adolescents. Students in a suburban New England high school completed assessments of peer victimization, friendship quality, and loneliness in 2011 and 2014. I combined two years of data to increase the sample size. First, I conducted exploratory factor analysis to determine whether cyber victimization emerged as its own factor or whether items related to cyber victimization factored onto other types of victimization. I then used structural equation modeling to examine the relations between sexual and nonsexual peer victimization, loneliness, and friendship intimacy, as well as the role of friendship intimacy in the relations between peer victimization and loneliness. Factor analyses indicated that cyber victimization did not emerge as its own factor and items related to digital victimization factored onto scales for sexual harassment and relational victimization. Results from structural equation modeling showed that relational, nonphysical, and sexual harassment victimization covaried with loneliness. Friendship intimacy was not found to impact the relations between peer victimization and loneliness. Results from this study suggest that different types of victimization can differentially affect loneliness and that more research is needed to examine the role of friendships for victimized adolescents.