Later adolescents' reactions to three types of childhood teasing: Relations with self-esteem and body image

Headnote

The purposes of this study were: 1) to examine how predictive three types of childhood teasing (competency, weight, and appearance) were of later self-esteem; and 2) to examine how predictive these same three variables were of later body image. Additionally, the pattern of relations for each gender was be explored. Each of these questions will be explored for males and females separately. The participants in this study were 89 female and 75 male undergraduates from two midwestern universities, with a mean age of 20. Results showed that more frequent teasing in childhood was significantly predictive of lower self-esteem and poorer body image among females and males. However, the findings varied by teasing types. Certain types of teasing were found to be related to self esteem and body image while other types of teasing were not. Different patterns emerged for each gender. Implications of these findings and applications for professionals are discussed.

A fair amount of research has explored the effects of negative peer interactions on a variety of psychological and adjustment problems. Among children, perceived parental attitudes toward the self are highly related to self esteem, while classmates' support becomes increasingly more predictive of self esteem (Harter, 1990). The experience of being teased is perhaps one of the most common negative peer interactions. It is known that the form of teasing changes with the cognitive development of the child (Warm, 1997), but in whatever form the teasing may occur, it seems that the intention is to hurt. While school teasing has been found to be commonplace in most institutions, teachers are often unaware of its occurrence (Aho, 1998), and therefore are likely to be less able to effectively intervene in the behavior. This is problematic because the experience of being disliked or teased by peers has been shown to be related to many social problems in both children and adolescents. For example, some children who were teased displayed an increase in aggressive behavior and social withdrawal in later peer interactions (Bierman & Wargo, 1995), and others experienced bouts of depression (Rickert, Hassed, Hendon, & Cunniff, 1996).

Many studies have explored the association between teasing and eating disorders in female populations (e.g., Paxton,1996; Thompson, Fabian, Moulton, Dunn, & Altabe, 1991). There has also been a...