The Role of Psychological Maturity and the Big Five Personality Traits in the Victimization Through Indirect Aggression

BACKGROUND: Peer victimization is a problem that affects adolescents worldwide. Since so few studies have been made on the relationship between maturity and indirect peer victimization, the main objective of this study was to determine if maturity provides incremental validity beyond the personality traits when predicting indirect victimization. Another objective was to test a model of how all these variables are related to depressive symptomatology and life satisfaction. METHOD: 548 high school students completed five questionnaires. We performed correlations, multiple regression analysis and structural equation analysis. RESULTS: The hierarchical regression analyses show that maturity has incremental validity in predicting indirect peer victimization. Two personality traits (emotional stability and agreeableness) and two maturity factors (identity and self-reliance) were major predictors of indirect peer victimization. The hierarchical regression analyses also show that major predictors were the same for girls and boys. The Structural Equation Model tested had a good fit, which suggests that indirect victimization increases depressive symptomatology and decreases life satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that both personality traits and psychological maturity have to be taken into account when predicting indirect peer victimization. The study also shows the emotional suffering related to this victimization.