How Adolescents' Victimization Trajectories Divergently Predict Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Aggressive Behavior Across Cliques With Different Victimization Norms: A Multilevel Latent Growth Model

BACKGROUND: The Healthy Context Paradox suggests that, in relatively "healthy" contexts with lower victimization norms, victims may paradoxically exhibit greater psychosocial maladjustment. Extending this counterintuitive phenomenon through a developmental lens, this longitudinal multilevel study examined how clique-level victimization norms moderated associations between individual victimization trajectories and corresponding changes in depressive symptoms and aggressive behavior trajectories within adolescent peer microsystems. METHODS: = 5.25, SD = 1.92). RESULTS: As bullying victimization increased, adolescents showed an increase in depressive symptoms and a less pronounced decline in aggressive behavior. In cliques with relatively lower victimization norms, increases in bullying victimization were associated with a more rapid increase in depressive symptoms. By contrast, for aggressive behavior, the association between increasing victimization and a slower decline in aggression was stronger in cliques with higher victimization norms. CONCLUSIONS: These findings advance understanding of the Healthy Context Paradox from a developmental trajectory perspective, showing that the paradox is more evident for depressive symptoms than for changes in aggressive behavior. The results offer important implications for anti-bullying interventions that target informal peer cliques.