Temperamental Risk Factors for Bullying in HFA

Background: In typical development, temperament has been used to predict individual differences in various social-emotional outcomes. Surgency is a temperament style characterized by increased approach behaviors, which has commonly been associated with greater social competency, more appropriate emotion-regulation behaviors and greater self-esteem (Dennis et al., 2010; Davey et al., 2003). However, a few studies have found increased Surgency to be associated with higher rates of peer rejection and externalizing problems (Gunnar et al., 2003; Eisenberg et al., 1996). Negative Affect is a temperament style characterized by increased fearfulness, which has been associated with generally negative outcomes such as lowered social competence and increased internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Rothbart et al., 2005). While the impact of these two temperament styles on social-emotional development have been widely studied in typically developing populations, relatively few studies have examined the impact of these traits in individuals with autism. 

Objectives: The objective of this study was to extend previous work examining the role of Surgency and Negative Affect on the report of peer victimization in adolescents. Specifically, this study was intended to investigate whether a diagnosis of ASD moderates the effect of temperament style on overt peer victimization.

Methods: The participants were 21 individuals (19 male, 2 female) previously diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA), and a control group of 19 typically-developing individuals (17 male, 2 female), matched on gender and mental age (M_HFA=198.55; M_TD=191.63). Participants between the ages of 12 and 15 completed the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R; Capaldi & Rothbart, 1992) and participants between the ages of 16 and 21 completed the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ; Ellis & Rothbart, 2001). Information on participants’ peer victimization experiences was obtained with the Social Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ; Crick & Grotpeter, 1996). All participants were additionally administered the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS; Lord et al., 1999) in order to confirm diagnostic status.

Results: Multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to explore the relationship between temperament style, diagnosis and the experience of peer victimization. The regression model including Diagnosis, Surgency and an interaction term was significant in predicting overt victimization (see Table 1), although there were no main effects for Diagnosis or Surgency. A second model involving Diagnosis, Negative Affect and an interaction term was also tested and no significant effects were found.

Conclusions: As anticipated, higher levels of Surgency were associated with lower reports of overt victimization on the SEQ for typically-developing adolescents. However, for individuals with HFA, higher levels of Surgency were associated with higher reports of overt victimization. This provides support for the idea that approach motivation processes may influence certain individuals with HFA to be more active and interactive in social situations, which in turn exposes them to greater risk for being bullied (Sutton et al., 2005). Implications for understanding the dynamic influences of temperament on the social-emotional development of individuals with HFA are discussed.

Table 1. Regression Analysis by Dependent Variable (DV) 

 

	R	Adj.R2	Beta	p-value
DV: Overt Victimization	.452	.204		.054
Diagnosis			.347	.037
Surgency			-.942	.056
Diagnosis X Surgency			.992*	.046