Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Social Networks
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/socnet

The way bullying works: How new ties facilitate the mutual reinforcement
of status and bullying in elementary schools
Rozemarijn van der Ploega,b, , Christian Steglicha, René Veenstraa
⁎

a
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
b
Department of Pedagogy and Educational Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This study addresses the puzzle how high-status bullies in elementary school are able to maintain high status
Bullying among their classmates despite bullying (some of) them. The dynamic interplay between bullying and status was
Peer status studied, focusing on how relational bullying affects the creation, dissolution, and maintenance of status attri-
Creation and maintenance of ties butions, and vice versa. Longitudinal round-robin peer nomination data were obtained from 82 school classes in
15 Dutch elementary schools (2055 students; 50% boys) followed over three yearly measurements, starting out
in grades 2–5 when students were aged 8-11. An age-dependent effect of bullying on the creation of new status
attributions was found. Whereas the youngest group punished bullying by a refusal to attribute status to the
bully, this turned into a reward of bullying in the oldest groups. Unexpectedly, high-status bullies seemed to
avoid continual bullying of the same victims, pointing to explanations of why their status can persist.

Introduction A key ingredient of such an understanding is the social standing of

Bullying is commonly defined as repetitive and intentionally nega-
tive behavior against a victim who finds it difficult to defend him- or
herself (Olweus, 1993). It can be formalized as a directed, negative
social relation in which one social actor (the bully) behaves negatively
against another (the victim). The effects of bullying are generally not
limited to the bully-victim dyad. When bullying takes place in a social
group and under conditions of high visibility (e.g., among students in a
school class or among colleagues at a workplace), third actors become
witnesses and can react to the bullying, either pro-socially (by de-
fending the victim, or expressing disapproval to the bully), or anti-so-
cially (by siding with the bully, or even joining in the bullying). Also a
non-reaction in the face of bullying conveys the social cue of tacit ap-
proval. Bullying is a group process that affects all the group members
(Salmivalli et al., 1996; Salmivalli, 2010) and is characterized by
complex interdependencies (Huitsing et al., 2014; Fujimoto et al.,
2017). From an organizational viewpoint, bullying is a challenge to the
social order in a task-related group. If bullying plays too prominent a
role in daily life, students cannot concentrate on school tasks and em-
ployees cannot work well. It is in the interest of management (in the
school class: the teacher) to contain bullying, and if necessary intervene
to reduce it. For such interventions to be successful the processes by
which bullying spreads need to be understood in the first place.
the involved individuals. High-status students are more visible and
more accepted in the peer group, and what these students do also gains
visibility and acceptance. This way, they are in a position to set beha-
vioral norms in the school class (Dijkstra and Gest, 2015). Students with
high social status among their classmates were shown to be influential
in their peer group and often serve as role models (Dijkstra et al., 2013).
If they act as bullies, there is the danger that bullying becomes socially
accepted. A high-status bully can potentially lead a whole school class
into bullying. For this reason, many anti-bullying interventions focus on
diminishing the social status of bullying by targeting group norms
(Swearer et al., 2010), by encouraging others to disapprove of bullying.
Unfortunately, these interventions do not always work (e.g., Gaffney
et al., 2018; Nickerson, 2017). Especially bullies with high status tend
to continue bullying and keep their high status among peers, thus de-
feating the intervention’s purpose (Salmivalli, 2014). In contrast to
medium- or low-status bullies, these high-status bullies somehow suc-
ceed in convincing a sufficiently large number of their peers to attribute
status to them despite their bullying. Given the sensitivity of group
behavior to what high-status students do, it is essential to examine the
interplay between bullying and status attribution more thoroughly.
While in the past, bullying was often considered an impulsive, un-
controlled outburst of aggression (Olweus, 1978), scientists and prac-
titioners today tend to agree that it predominantly involves proactive,

⁎
Corresponding author at: University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 38, 9712 TJ, Groningen, the Netherlands.
E-mail address: rozemarijn.van.der.ploeg@rug.nl (R. van der Ploeg).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2018.12.006

0378-8733/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Van der Ploeg, R., Social Networks, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2018.12.006
R. van der Ploeg et al.
strategic, and goal-directed behavior (Reijntjes et al., 2013a,b; Volk
et al., 2017). Bullies are thought to bully in order to achieve dominance
and high social status in the peer group (Salmivalli et al., 1996). Bullies
were shown to be more strongly motivated by considerations of peer
status than non-bullies (Cillessen and Mayeux, 2004; Sijtsema et al.,
2009). To achieve this high status, they strategically pick on easy vic-
tims, e.g., the physically weak or those who are rejected by other
classmates (Sijtsema et al., 2009; Veenstra et al., 2007). This strategy
seems effective for them: Bullying was repeatedly found to be positively
associated with social status among peers in cross-sectional studies
(Caravita et al., 2009; De Bruyn et al., 2010). Longitudinal studies re-
veal that the two concepts are entrained, referring to that they remain
associated over time. High-status bullies tend to keep their high status,
and continue bullying (Cillessen and Borch, 2006; Reijntjes et al.,
2013a,b; Sentse et al., 2015; see also for aggression instead of bullying:
Juvonen et al., 2013). On the conceptual level, it remains a puzzle how
bullying and high status can reliably co-occur, and how some bullies
can successfully derive high status over longer time periods from the
very group they victimize. Although the existence of such a “con-
troversial” group of children has been documented at least since the
early 1980s (e.g., Coie et al., 1982), the literature remains inconclusive
about the underlying mechanisms. We intend to examine how status
and bullying co-determine each other, this way contributing to a so-
lution of the puzzle and facilitating the development of more effective
anti-bullying interventions.
We think that the lack of solid insights is rooted in inappropriate
methodology. Despite both concepts being defined on the dyadic level,
the literature on adolescent development has traditionally taken an
actor level approach in studies of bullying (e.g., Olweus, 1993) as well
as peer status (e.g.,Cillessen et al., 2011). This choice of the level of
analysis makes it impossible to look at the finer-grained dyadic and
triadic patterns required for understanding the interplay between bul-
lying and peer status. Whereas such studies on social relationships and
status have recently started emerging (Betancourt et al., 2018, for
bullying and related behaviors see Appendix B), the specific puzzle of
how bullying and status attribution affect one another has so far re-
mained unaddressed. To address this puzzle, we put forward what
might be termed a network understanding of the mechanisms that allow
high-status bullies to keep their high status while staying bullies, even
when bullying is disapproved of. For this aim, we investigate the de-
terminants of status attribution over time, paying special attention to
the bullying of status recipients. And we examine the determinants of
bullying over time, paying special attention to the peer status of the
bully. Because both processes depend on one another, we examine them
as an interdependent system.
2
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Theory
Bullying can take different forms, including physical bullying (hit-
ting, kicking), relational bullying (ignoring, gossiping), verbal bullying
(calling names, insulting), material bullying (stealing or damaging
things), or cyber bullying (via social networking sites). All these are
negative interactions and, if engaged in voluntarily, should result in
dislike and mutual avoidance (cf. Homans, 1950, chapter 5). Compared
to positive networks, negative networks tend to generally have lower
density and lower stability over time (for our own data, we can see this
in Table 1). However, bullying deviates from Homans’ scenario of a
voluntary interaction in two important ways. First, there is a power
asymmetry between the bully and the victim. Bullying is an act of
dominance, voluntary only from the bully’s point of view, not the vic-
tim’s (Salmivalli et al., 1996). With education being compulsory in al-
most all countries, opting out is not a realistic option for the victim. In
short, being victimized is not a choice, but bullying is. Second, the bully
and the victim may evaluate the interaction differently. Whereas for the
victim, it is almost certainly experienced as negative, the case may lie
different for the bully. Depending on whether this evaluation is positive
or negative, the bully may decide to repeat or discontinue the bullying.
From these considerations, we conclude that to understand bullying, we
need to identify the conditions under which the bully decides to bully.
Probably the most important aspect of this decision is social
standing in the peer group. As an act of dominance, the main effect of
bullying is a reduction of the rank of the victim and an increase of the
rank of the bully in a group-internal pecking order or dominance
hierarchy (Peets and Hodges, 2014). Additionally, there may be effects
relative to third parties. Because the bullying act attracts peers’ atten-
tion, which is a limited resource, the bully as well as the victim gain
visibility at the expense of third parties. Fig. 1 illustrates the combined
effects. If we assume a triad of actors of equal social standing (the black
dot in the middle of the left panel), then the bullying act on the one
hand increases visibility of bully B and victim V while reducing it for
third parties T. On the other hand, in a dominance hierarchy, it in-
creases the rank of B and reduces the rank of V, while leaving the rank
of T unaffected. If we operationalize social standing as a linear com-
bination of visibility and rank in the dominance hierarchy, the resulting
preference orders depend on the direction of the preference gradient
(see right panel of the figure). If actors strive for dominance (up) as well
as visibility (right), they experience an incentive to bully.
In Fig. 1, social standing is by way of simplification assumed to be a
direct result of bullying. It is true that the bullying act is a display of
dominance, and emphasizes a status difference. However, status among
peers is a network-mediated consequence of bullying and endogenous
Fig. 1. Dominance and visibility in a bully-victim-ter-
tius triad.
Note. Left panel: Differentiation in visibility and dom-
inance after bully B bullies victim V (the three actors
had initially identical social standing).
Right panel: Resulting rankings of the three actors
depending on the preference gradient after linear
combination of preferences for visibility and dom-
inance.
R. van der Ploeg et al.
to the peer system. Peers decide to attribute or withhold status. Their
dyadic status attributions collectively determine whether the bullying
act is socially accepted and transformed into social standing among
peers (henceforth peer status). We conclude that if we are to understand
the peer status of bullies, we need to identify the rules according to
which third parties decide to attribute status to their peers. By collec-
tively rewarding or punishing bullying, peers set an injunctive group
norm, which in the past has been the receptacle for anti-bullying in-
terventions (Salmivalli, 2014; Wölfer and Scheithauer, 2014). However,
once a student has acquired a high status among peers, the very nature
of status systems facilitates perpetuation of this high status. We know
since the seminal works by De Solla Price (1965) and Merton (1968)
that status and reputation systems have inherent dynamic tendencies to
perpetuate and aggravate status differences. This implies that high-
status individuals are much less vulnerable to incidental peer status
withdrawal, whatever it is they are doing. If they are able to keep their
high status simply because they had high status in the past, other de-
terminants of status become disposable. Whereas building up peer status
may require specific behavior (e.g., acting pro-socially), from a certain
status level on, this behavior is not required any more for maintaining
high status. On the contrary, high-status individuals might even change
the criteria of what it means to have high status (Dijkstra and Gest,
2015).
Thus, the center of our investigation needs to be the dynamic in-
terplay of the bully’s decision to bully a victim, and a third party’s
decision to attribute status to the bully. This is schematically depicted
in Fig. 2. The central panel illustrates the problematic situation in
which bullying is being rewarded by status attribution.
If we are to explain why this dysfunctional configuration persists
over time, we need to assess how incoming status attributions inform
the bully’s decision to continue vs. stop bullying a given victim (com-
parison between middle and left panel of Fig. 2), and we need to assess
how the bullying of a given victim informs a third party’s decision
whether or not to attribute status to the bully (comparison between
middle and right panel of Fig. 2). The arrows in the figure indicate what
we might call “micro action”: one actor – the bully or the third party –
deciding for or against a specific change. It is these micro actions that
we need to understand and assess evidence for. Whereas the two
“loops” starting and ending in the dysfunctional triad help stabilize the
association between peer status and bullying, the two incoming arrows
build up this association, whereas the two outgoing arrows reduce it. As
indicated in the textual labels of these arrows, these tendencies can be
Fig. 2. The dysfunctional bully-victim-tertius triad (middle) and the surrounding network mechanisms.
3
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understood, formalized, and ultimately analyzed from the involved
actors’ perspective.
The student’s decision to bully
Past research has shown that students with high status tend to be
status-sensitive. They feel competition to maintain their high status and
can resort to bullying to achieve their goal (Fujimoto et al., 2017;
Garandeau, Lee, et al., 2014; Pattiselanno et al., 2015; Volk et al.,
2015). For instance, high-status students were shown to use verbal or
physical bullying to intimidate ‘fellow competitors’ who threaten their
social standing (Cillessen and Rose, 2005), and to overtly demonstrate
their superiority over competitors by exercising control over others
(Kolbert and Crothers, 2003). High-status students who challenge their
high status peers are likely to increase their influence and power over
others (Peets and Hodges, 2014; Volk et al., 2015). This can foster re-
lational bullying as high-status students are in an ideal position to ex-
clude peers and spread gossip (Faris, 2012; Faris and Felmlee, 2011;
Garandeau, Lee, et al., 2014; Reijntjes et al., 2013a,b). In addition,
high-status students may be less likely to abide by peer norms of pro-
sociality if they already entered a cycle of self-reinforcing status per-
petuation.
In sum, we hypothesize that having higher peer status will facilitate
bullying (Hypothesis 1). More precisely, with regard to Fig. 2, we expect
that high status will facilitate the bullying of new victims over time
(creation bullying tie, Hypothesis 1a), and that existing bullying is
continued (maintenance bullying tie, Hypothesis 1b).
The nature of peer status
Whether in a school class or in a workplace context, it is useful to
carefully differentiate between social acceptance or being liked by one’s
peers on the one hand, and the peers’ perceptions of how popular one is
in the whole group on the other hand (e.g., Dijkstra et al., 2015; Wolters
et al., 2014. The latter is revealed in the peers’ dyadic status attribu-
tions as studied in this paper, whereas the former is revealed in the
peers’ dyadic friendship nominations, which we do not examine here.
Acknowledging that both concepts are treated under the same label
“popularity” in different branches of the literature, we have added a
clarifying note on terminology in Appendix A. In particular, and in
contrast to friendship, it is possible that an individual attributes status
to someone whose behavior he or she personally disapproves of, simply
R. van der Ploeg et al.
because the individual thinks there are sufficiently many others who do
appreciate the behavior in question. Status attributions reflect dom-
inance, prestige, and visibility in the peer group as a collective entity
(Bellmore and Cillessen, 2006). Conceptually, a status attribution does
not require any personal relationship to the nominated person. As such,
peer status is not bound by the same resource constraints as personal
relationships are. Whereas there is a natural limit in the amount of time
and attention devoted to maintaining a personal relationship, the same
is not true for mere acknowledgements such as status attribution. Be-
cause of this, and again in contrast to friendship, status attributions can
show strong evidence for cumulative advantage processes (De Solla
Price, 1965; Merton, 1968).
The student’s decision to attribute status
During late elementary and middle school years, discussions about
who is popular or ‘cool’ are widespread (Lease et al., 2002; Shoulberg
et al., 2011), indicating that in this age range, status considerations play
an important role in the social life of students. In particular in early
adolescence, antisocial and ‘tough’ behavior, such as physical and
verbal bullying, tends to be perceived as ‘cool’ (Reijntjes et al., 2013a,b;
Rodkin et al., 2006; Salmivalli and Peets, 2009). Students sharing these
values are also inclined to socially reward fellow students for displaying
corresponding behaviors by attributing status to them. This way, they
are setting a social incentive to bully (see Fig. 1). That in almost all
bullying situations witnesses are present (e.g., Salmivalli, 2010) em-
phasizes that bullies depend on their classmates to gain peer status.
Why do they collectively set this incentive? As argued by Faris (2012),
peer status in any group is relative, and as such any loss of status for
victims is balanced by small status gains for everyone else. This is most
clear when considering status rankings. If a bullying act occurs in a
bully-victim-tertius triad among status-equals (Fig. 1), and if the small
visibility gains for the victim are outweighed by the losses in dom-
inance, then tertius ends up on a status rank higher than the victim
without having done anything. Tertius therefore is doubly motivated to
reward the bully. First as a personal gratification because the bullying
act allowed tertius to increase in status (essentially, for picking some-
body else as victim), and second as a reification of the ranking itself,
which one feels more comfortable with, the higher one’s own rank is.
In sum, we hypothesize that engagement in bullying behavior will
lead to higher peer status in the classroom (Hypothesis 2). More pre-
cisely referring to the transitions depicted in Fig. 2, we expect that
students who bully will attract more new peer status nominations than
students who do not bully (creation status attribution tie, Hypothesis2a),
and they will also be able to maintain more of their existing incoming
status attributions than students who do not bully (maintenance status
attribution tie, Hypothesis 2b).
Interfering network mechanisms
Our hypotheses are roughly in line with theories that link the
sending or receiving of positive or negative ties to latent individual traits
and/or postulate a self-reinforcing, Matthew-effect type of mechanisms.
Addressing the former case of exogenous explanatory variables, in par-
ticular the motivational traits to strive for high social status in the
classroom or to avoid losing status have been argued to constitute a la-
tent dimension explaining adolescents’ differences in terms of bullying
and peer status (e.g., Gangel et al., 2017; Puckett et al., 2008; Cillessen
and Mayeux, 2004; Sijtsema et al., 2009). Unfortunately, our data set
does not allow us to test this underlying explanation. Concerning the
latter case of endogenous explanatory variables, we will make sure that
self-reinforcing mechanisms are assessed and controlled for when
testing our hypotheses. Specifically, we will test to what degree there is
evidence for students (a) bullying a victim because other students al-
ready are bullying the same victim (Matthew effect in bullying), (b)
attributing status to a fellow student because other students already do
4
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the same (Matthew effect in status attribution), (c) withdrawing status
from students who get bullied, and (d) bullying those who are low in
status.
Method
The association between bullying and peer status is the result of a
dynamic interplay of the actions of bullies on the one hand and an
audience of status attributors on the other hand. Any empirical in-
vestigation into these relational processes therefore requires a long-
itudinal approach. We will apply stochastic actor-based modelling
(Snijders et al., 2010) to a unique data set on bullying in elementary
schools. By linking antecedents to consequences in a longitudinal study
and by incorporating feedback between the two variables of interest on
a fine-grained, dyadic level, we are able to differentially assess evidence
for all network mechanisms.
Data and sample
Data stem from the evaluation of the Dutch implementation of the
KiVa anti-bullying program (Kaufman et al., 2018). An overview of
published studies using these network data is given in Appendix B. Data
collection covered 99 Dutch primary schools and took place in three
waves: May 2012 (pre-intervention), October 2012, and May 2013.
Prior to the pre-assessment in grades 2–5 in May 2012 – and for new
students prior to the other assessments – schools sent information on
the study and permission forms to parents. Passive rather than active
parental consent was sought in order to obtain the high response rates
that are necessary for meaningful social network analysis (note that
observational research does not fall within the ambit of the Dutch Act
on research on human subjects). Parents who did not want their child to
participate in the assessment were asked to return a form. Students
were informed at school about the research and gave oral consent. Both
parents and students could withdraw from participation at any time.
Participation rates were high: at most two students per classroom did
not have consent.
When the pre-assessment was finished, schools were randomly as-
signed by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB)
to the control condition (33 schools) or the intervention condition (66
schools). Control schools were asked to continue their “care as usual”
anti-bullying approach until their participation in the KiVa program
began in June 2014.
In the Netherlands, especially in large schools, it is not uncommon
to change the classroom composition each year. However, our aim was
to longitudinally investigate developments in relatively stable peer
groups. We therefore used data only from single-grade classrooms (N =
83). Moreover, we needed classrooms networks present at all three
waves with less than 20% missing cases to perform social network
analyses (Ripley et al., 2018). As in one classroom 92% of the students
did not participate in wave 3, 82 classrooms from 15 schools (11 KiVa
schools and 4 control schools) were suitable for the analyses. The total
number of students was 2,055 (Mage = 9.71, range 6.76–13.06 in wave
1; 50% boys). Missing data were handled the default way (Rigby et al.,
2018, see section 4.3.2). All students were included, despite the pos-
sibility of having missing values for the variables at one of the waves,
for instance caused by absence during the assessment or non-consent
(wave 1: 1%, wave 2: 1%, wave 3: 3%). These absent students could
nevertheless be nominated by others and were thus included in the
networks.
Procedure
Students completed online questionnaires on the schools’ computers
during regular school hours, under supervision of their classroom tea-
chers who were supplied with detailed instructions before the data
collection started. Teachers were present to answer questions and, if
R. van der Ploeg et al.
needed, help students in such a way that it would not affect their an-
swers (e.g., by asking them questions such as “Which words are unclear
to you?”). The order of questions, items, and scales used in this study
were randomized to prevent any systematic order effects.
Difficult topics were explained in several instructional videos. In
one video at the start of the questionnaire, students were told that their
answers would remain confidential, but that their teacher might be
given general feedback to improve the classroom climate. Before an-
swering the questions about bullying and victimization, the term bul-
lying was defined as formulated in Olweus’ Bully/Victim questionnaire
in another video (Olweus, 1996). Several examples covering different
forms of bullying were given, followed by an explanation emphasizing
the intentional and repetitive nature of bullying and the power im-
balance between bullies and victims.
Measures
Bullying
At each time point, students were first asked to indicate whether
they were being victimized, using 11 bully/victims items covering the
various types of bullying (Bully/Victims Questionnaire, Olweus, 1996).
Those who indicated that they were victimized at least once on any of
the items were asked to nominate the classmates who were victimizing
them ("Who in your class always starts bullying you?"). A roster with
the names of all the children in class was presented on the computer
screen. Bully nominations were coded 1 and non-nominations 0. As our
study aimed to investigate active bullying behavior and not being no-
minated as a bully, the resulting network matrix was transposed so that
the presence of a relation indicates a bully-victim relation instead of a
victim-bully relation. It is likely that a different subgroup of bullies
would have been identified if we had asked students to indicate whom
they bully. Dutch students seem more inclined to admit that they are a
victim of bullying than to confess that they bully as the prevalence of
self-proclaimed bullies was found to be lower compared to the pre-
valence of self-proclaimed victims (Veenstra et al., 2007).
Peer status attribution
Students could nominate an unlimited number of classmates they
perceived as popular (“Who is popular in your class?”) at each time
point. Similar to the bullying network, peer status nominations were
coded 1 and non-nominations 0, resulting in status attribution network
matrices consisting of directed peer status nominations for each class-
room. Please consult Appendix A for understanding the use of the term
popularity in this context.
Analytical strategy
Our hypotheses were tested using longitudinal social network ana-
lysis with the RSiena software (Ripley et al., 2018). This software es-
timates the parameters of stochastic actor-based models of the (co-)
evolution of (multiple) social networks over time (Snijders et al., 2010,
2013). Under this approach, the first observation of a networked social
system is conditioned upon, and subsequent observations are inter-
preted as the cumulative outcome of an unobserved series of small
changes applied to the preceding observation. These unobserved small
changes are modelled as decisions made by individuals in the network
about maintaining, dissolving, or creating the ties they have to others.
Parameter estimates are obtained through simulation-based inference,
which is common for fitting models with intractable likelihood func-
tions to complex data sets (e.g., Gourieroux and Monfort, 1996).
Model specification
There are two main model parts, one for each dependent network
variable (referring to bullying and status attribution). Because our hy-
potheses are about the effects of the two networks on each other, we
will first describe how these hypotheses are operationalized. We then
5
Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
give a detailed description of the other effects used for modeling the
dynamics of status attribution, and finish with a sketch of the corre-
sponding model for bullying dynamics.
Stochastic actor-based models of a single network distinguish be-
tween effects modeling the speed of the change process (rate effects) and
effects modeling the nature of the network changes (jointly con-
tributing to the objective function). In our case of two co-evolving net-
works, there are rate and objective function effects for the status at-
tribution network on the one hand, and for the bullying network on the
other hand. We used an intercept model for the rate functions, referring
to that the rate function was not allowed to differ according to actor
attributes or network position. To test our hypotheses about peer status
(referring to status attribution indegree) going together with bullying,
in Model 1 we estimated two effects. The status to bullying effect in-
dicates whether high indegree in status attribution (referring to being
considered high in status by more others) implied high outdegree in the
bullying network (referring to bullying more others, Hypothesis 1).
Conversely, the bullying to status effect indicates whether a higher
outdegree in the bullying network implied a higher indegree in the
status attribution network (Hypothesis 2). In Model 2, these two effects
are further nuanced according to whether they explain the creation of
new ties (Hypotheses 1a and 2a) or the maintenance of existing ties
(Hypotheses 1b and 2b). We tested, as a second type of network-crossing
effects, whether a high indegree in bullying (referring to being a victim)
implied a lower indegree in status attribution (victimization to status
effect), or whether the converse was the case (status to victimization
effect).
In addition to these cross-network effects, we included univariate,
structural effects of network change for both networks, which capture
the tendencies of individuals to form and maintain relationships under
specific network-structural conditions. These effects also serve to opti-
mize the goodness of fit of the model (Huitsing et al., 2014; Rambaran
et al., 2015; Snijders et al., 2010).
The following univariate, structural effects were added to explain
the dynamics of status attribution. The outdegree effect expresses the
overall tendency of individuals i to attribute status to other individuals j
in the network (notation: i→j). The reciprocity effect models the ten-
dency to reciprocate a status nomination (i→j facilitates j→i). Two ef-
fects of triangular closure (referring to group formation) were included.
The first is the transitive triplets effect, which reflects the tendency of
individual i to attribute status to peers k who received status nomina-
tions from peers j that i also attributes status to (transitive closure: i→j
and j→k together facilitate i→k). This group formation effect is in line
with the assumption of a status hierarchy inside the group, which can
be seen from a simple tie count: k receives two ties, but sends none
(high status), i sends two ties, but receives none (low status), and j sends
and receives one tie (middle rank; Snijders and Steglich, 2015). The
second group formation effect is the three cycles effect, which in-
vestigates the tendency of individuals i, j, and k to form a non-hier-
archical group (cyclical closure: i→j and j→k together facilitate k→i).
In order to differentiate between individuals who received or sent
many ties, three degree-related effects were included. The degree-re-
lated effects were all measured with the square roots of the degrees
instead of the raw degrees (Huitsing et al., 2014; Snijders et al., 2010).
Indegree attractiveness reflects the tendency for those who receive many
status attributions to receive even more over time – known as the
Matthew effect on status reputation (Merton, 1968). This effect expresses
status differences that are (exclusively) captured in standardized peer
status measures (Cillessen and Rose, 2005), and accordingly we expect
it to be strong in the data. Outdegree activity is about the tendency for
those who attribute status to many others to send even more attribu-
tions over time. Finally, indegree activity models the tendency to attri-
bute status to others when being attributed status often oneself. One
more effect we included was sex similarity, accounting for whether in-
dividuals were more likely to attribute status to others of the same sex
than to the opposite sex.
R. van der Ploeg et al. Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

The effects used to explain bullying dynamics are generally the

same as for status attribution dynamics. However, instead of the in-
degree activity effect, we included the outdegree attractiveness effect
which reflects the tendency to being victimized for those who bully
others (we expect a negative effect). Moreover, because of the low
density of the bullying network, the effects of reciprocity, transitive tri-
plets, and three cycles could not be identified in most classrooms. The
group formation effects therefore were dropped from the model speci-
fication, whereas the reciprocity effect was not estimated, but score
tested (we tested whether the model lacked fit, compared to an en-
riched model including the effect). Also the direct tie-level effects that
examine the main effects of dyad-level status attribution on bullying,
and vice versa, were included in the score tests.

Model building
The co-evolution of the bullying and status attribution networks was
analyzed in two steps. The first model included the main effects to test
hypotheses 1 and 2. We added endowment and creation parameters in
the second model so that the effects for the maintenance and formation
of ties could be distinguished (hypotheses 1a,b and 2a,b). The two
models were estimated separately for each classroom, using all three
time points, and then combined in a meta-analysis (Snijders and
Baerveldt, 2003).
Fig. 3. Changes in bullying (referring to outdegree in the bullying network)
over time by initial bullying and dyadic status attribution pattern over time.
Note. Unit of analysis is the tertius-bully (T-B) dyad; each actor contributes to
multiple dyads.
Stable: T attributes status to B at two subsequent observations.
Lost: T attributes status to B at the first, but not at the second observation.
New: T attributes status to B at the second, but not at the first observation.
None: T does not attribute status to B neither at the first nor at the second
observation.

Results reliable estimates of endogenous network effects (social ties explaining

Descriptive results
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of the bullying and status at-
tribution networks. The average degree shows that students bullied on
average one to two classmates, and they on average attributed status to
around three classmates. Status attributions tend to rise somewhat over
time, whereas bullying nominations decrease. For both bullying and
status attribution, reciprocation tends to increase in the year under
study, and there was evidence for transitive closure. In both networks,
the majority of nominations occurred between students of the same sex
(57–69%), but this level is far below the age-specific, almost complete
sex segregation in friendship networks.
The Jaccard index indicates the proportion of stable relations
among the total number of new, lost, and stable ties between observed
time-points. It needs to be sufficiently high if one wants to obtain
other social ties). For the status attribution networks the Jaccard in-
dices were sufficiently high for RSiena analysis to proceed without
problems (referring to larger than .30; Ripley et al., 2018). For bullying,
the indices were low (.18 and .19), but this is common across negative
tie studies and the indices were not critically low (Ripley et al., 2018).
We therefore estimated model specifications with reduced complexity,
for which the analyses gave no numerical problems .
We investigated how changes in bullying activity from one ob-
servation moment to the next were associated with changes in dyadic
status attributions while controlling for initial level of bullying. The
results are depicted in Fig. 3. We see an overall pattern of regression to
the mean: below-average bullies (white bars) tend to increase their
bullying whereas above-average bullies (grey bars) tend to strongly
decrease it. The differences between the four dyadic status attribution
change patterns are completely analogous for the two bully groups.
Stable status attribution goes together with more bullying than lost

Table 1
Class-level descriptive statistics for bullying and status attribution networks per wave.
Bullying network Status attribution network

Wave 1 Wave 2 M (SD) Wave 3 Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3 M (SD)

M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Average degree 1.94 (1.06) 1.38 1.17 (0.80) 3.11 (1.25) 3.16 (1.39) 3.37 (1.69)
(0.79)
SD indegree 3.06 (1.24) 2.48 (1.11) 2.23 (1.22) 3.51 (1.64) 3.73 (1.67) 4.00 (1.76)
SD outdegree 1.96 (0.78) 1.58 (0.71) 1.41 (0.75) 3.16 (1.23) 3.18 (1.19) 3.27 (1.51)
Reciprocity .16 (.10) .17 (.10) .19 (.17) .19 (.08) .19 (.09) .21 (.15)
Same sex nominations .57 (.14) .62 .68 (.19) .69 (.12) .68 (.10) .66 (.11)
(.17)
Transitivity .52 (.18) .47 .58 (.23) .53 (.14) .55 (.14) .57 (.14)
(.22)
Average class size 25.2 25.1 (4.4) 25.0 25.2 25.1 (4.4) 25.0
(4.2) (4.4) (4.2) (4.4)
Non-respondents 1% 1% 3% 1% 1% 3%
Wave 1→ 2 Wave 2→ 3 Wave 1→ 2 Wave 2→ 3
Hamming distancea 53.6 43.4 77.3 77.6
Jaccard indexb .19 (.10) .18 (.12) .32 (.12) .34 (.12)

Note.
a
Hamming distance is the number of tie changes.
b
Jaccard index is the fraction of stable ties among the new, lost, or stable ties N = 82 classrooms in 15 schools.

6
R. van der Ploeg et al. Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 2
Meta-analyses of multiplex network analysis: bullying and status attribution.
Model 1 Model 2

Est. SE Est. SE

Bullying network
Structural network effects
Outdegree (density) −6.02 0.19***
maintenance −4.12 0.31***
creation −7.50 0.29***
Indegree attractiveness 1.27 0.05*** 1.19 0.04***
Outdegree attractiveness 0.16 0.14 −0.11 0.09
Outdegree activity 0.69 0.06*** 0.57 0.05***
Individual effects
Sex similarity 0.39 0.09*** 0.35 0.06***
Between networks effects
Fig. 4. Changes in peer status (referring to indegree in the status attribution
Status → victimization −0.09 0.06 −0.10 0.07
network) over time, by initial status and dyadic bullying pattern over time.
Status → bullying 0.24 0.04***
Note. Unit of analysis is the bully-victim (B–V) dyad; each actor contributes to maintenance bullying −0.41 0.15*
multiple dyads. creation bullying 0.82 0.19***
Stable: B bullies V at two subsequent observations.
Status attribution network
Lost: B bullies V at the first, but not at the second observation.
Structural network effects
New: B bullies V at the second, but not at the first observation. Outdegree (density) −5.34 0.16***
None: B does not bully V neither at the first nor at the second observation. maintenance −2.89 0.18***
creation −7.25 0.15***
Reciprocity 0.24 0.05*** 0.25 0.04***
status attribution. For the above-average bullies, this means they reduce Transitive triplets 0.08 0.02*** 0.07 0.01***
their bullying less under stable status attribution than they do under Three cycles −0.10 0.03*** −0.06 0.01***
lost status attribution. For the below-average bullies, it means that they Indegree attractiveness 0.90 0.03*** 0.88 0.02***
increase their bullying more under stable status attribution than they do Indegree activity 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.03
Outdegree activity 0.57 0.03*** 0.57 0.03***
under lost status attribution. When comparing dyads without an initial
Individual effects
status attribution in terms of whether there still is none at the next time Sex similarity 0.61 0.04*** 0.60 0.03***
point (pattern “none”) or whether there is one (pattern “new”), we see Between networks effects
the same differences: new status attribution goes together with more Victimization → status −0.02 0.02 −0.03 0.02
bullying than continued absence of status attribution. Taken together, Bullying → status 0.09 0.03**
maintenance status 0.13 0.07
these descriptive results are consistent with our hypotheses about creation status 0.25 0.07***
higher peer status being associated with more bullying (Hypotheses 1).
We also examined how changes in bullies’ peer status from one Note: Rate of change effects were omitted from the table. All effects, except for
observation moment to the next were associated with changes in their status attribution reciprocity, show significant variation over classrooms.
dyadic bullying behavior, while controlling for the initial level of peer N = 74 classrooms.
status (Fig. 4). We again see the overall pattern of regression to the * p < .05.
mean: students of below-average status (white bars) tend to increase ** p < .01.
*** p < .001 (two-tailed tests).
their peer status strongly, whereas students of above-average status
(grey bars) tend not to. There are some interesting modulations on
these general change patterns. Let us first compare initial bully-victim
dyads in terms of whether the bullying continues at the next time point students attributed status to those who provided status to them too).
(pattern “stable”) or stops (pattern “lost”). For the low-status bullies, Additionally, when students attributed status to one of their classmates
there are only negligible differences, but for the high-status bullies, the and this classmate attributed status to a third classmate, students were
difference is remarkable: they gain, on average, peer status under inclined to also attribute status to this third classmate over time
continued bullying of the same victims, whereas they lose peer status (transitive triplets, OR= 1.08, p < .001). The three cycles effect was ne-
when bullying is stopped. Second, we compare initial non-bullying gative (OR = 0.90, p < .001), which indicates that status attributions
dyads in terms of whether non-bullying continues (pattern “none”) or led to local hierarchies.
bullying is observed at the next time point (pattern “new”). For the low- The positive indegree attractiveness effects for both bullying (OR =
status as well as the high-status non-bullies, there is a clear status gain 3.56, p < .001) and status attribution (OR = 2.46, p < .001) showed
advantage in favor of starting a new bully-victim relation. Taken to- that often-bullied students attracted more being bullied nominations
gether, these descriptive results are in line with Hypotheses 2 about over time (Matthew effect in victimization), and that high-status students
engagement in bullying being associated with increased peer status. attracted more peer status nominations over time (Matthew effect in
status attribution). Moreover, students who bullied many others or who
Structural network effects attributed status to many others, tended to increase this tendency fur-
ther (outdegree activity, OR = 1.99 for bullying; OR = 1.77 for status
Table 2 presents mean estimates and their standard errors obtained attribution, p < .001).
from meta-analyses of RSiena-results for all school classes. To facilitate Lastly, the positive sex similarity effects in both networks indicated
interpretation of the results, we calculated the exponential function of that bullying relationships and status nominations were more likely to
the estimates (odds ratios, presented in text). Model 1 shows that stu- occur between students of the same sex (OR = 1.48 for bullying; OR =
dents tended to be selective in nominating classmates as a bully (out- 1.84 for status attribution, p < .001).
degree, OR = 0.002, p < .001) and in attributing status to classmates
(outdegree, OR = 0.005, p < .001). The positive reciprocity parameter The interplay between bullying and peer status
in the status attribution network (OR = 1.27, p < .001) indicated that
status nominations were likely to be reciprocated (referring to that The “between-network” effects in Model 1 revealed that a high

7
R. van der Ploeg et al.
indegree in status attribution increased the likelihood of a high out-
degree in bullying over time (status to bullying, OR = 1.27, p < .001).
This is in line with our hypothesis that having higher peer status is
associated with engagement in bullying over time (Hypothesis 1).
Moreover, it was shown that a high outdegree in bullying is associated
with receiving more status attributions over time (bullying to status, OR
= 1.09, p = .004). In other words: being a bully makes you high in
status. This outcome is consistent with our hypothesis that bullying was
a way to gain peer status (Hypothesis 2).
Model 2 unraveled the interplay between bullying and peer status
by distinguishing effects for the dissolution, maintenance, and forma-
tion of ties. The outcomes concerning the development of bullying
demonstrated that students with high status discontinue bullying their
former victims (maintenance bullying, OR = 0.66, p = .006) and start
bullying classmates whom they did not bully before (creation bullying,
OR = 2.27, p < .001). Whereas the latter result is in line with our ex-
pectation that high status is associated with the formation of new bully
relations over time (Hypothesis 1a), the former, negative result is in
contradiction to our expectation that high-status bullies would continue
bullying their former victims (Hypothesis 1b); in fact they discontinued
bullying them.
For the status attribution network it turned out students who bullied
gained new status attributions over time (creation status, OR = 1.28,
p < .001). Put differently, students who bullied received status from
classmates who did not provide them status before. This finding is
consistent with what we expected (Hypothesis 2a). The maintenance
status effect was positive, but not statistically significant (OR = 1.14,
p = 0.065). Whereas the sign of the coefficient is in line with our ex-
pectation (Hypothesis 2b), there was no significant evidence for existing
status attributions to be affected by bullying. Among classmates who
already considered you high in status, your bullying seems not to make
a decisive difference in their decision whether or not to continue pro-
viding you status.
The mean results of the score tests for the two omitted model
parameters in the bullying network were significant for bullying re-
ciprocity (M = 0.61, p < .001) and the direct tie-level effect of bullying
on peer status (M = -0.15, p = .013). Inclusion of these effects in the
model led to instability of the estimation algorithm, indicating that they
refer to small fractions of the data in a few classrooms only. Because of
this, we consider it unlikely that their omission challenges our main
results.
Supplementary analyses: grade differences
We additionally tested whether the results were homogeneous
across grades (see Appendix C). For the higher grades patterns, results
were comparable to the findings in Table 2. Students who bullied tend
to gain peer status among classmates and high-status bullies tend to
choose new victims. However, for students in the lower grades, bullying
led to less peer status (creation status, OR = 0.81, p = .001 in grade 2)
or did not contribute to peer status (creation status, OR = 1.17, p = .079
in grade 3).
Discussion
This study focused on bullying as strategic behavior linked to high
social status in the classroom. The aim was to unravel the complex
interplay between bullying and one’s peer status on the dyadic level
over time, which fills a serious gap in the existing literature on bullying.
We argued that bullying and peer status reinforce each other, and we
used longitudinal multiplex network analysis to get more insight into
the relational patterns of bullying and peer status. Our study is the first
that investigated how bullying ties affect the creation, dissolution, and
maintenance of status attribution ties, and vice versa, in a social net-
work framework.
In line with previous studies employing an actor-level framework
8
Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
(Cillessen and Borch, 2006; Cillessen and Mayeux, 2004; Reijntjes et al.,
2013a,b; Sentse et al., 2015), we found that bullying generally increases
peer status among classmates. We also found that high status in-
dividuals tend to bully, but here the results are more nuanced than what
actor-level analyses can reveal. When differentiating between the
creation and maintenance of specific ties in our two networks, we could
demonstrate that unlike low-status bullies, high-status bullies tended to
discontinue bullying the same victims, but replaced those with new
victims. Furthermore, when looking into the age-dependency of these
effects, we could show that bullying is rewarded by peer status attri-
butions only for the higher grades of elementary school (grades 4 and
5). For the youngest age group (grade 2) classmates even sanctioned
bullying by a withdrawal of status attributions. Taken together, our
findings reiterate that bullying is a complex group phenomenon in
which obtaining and maintaining high social standing plays a decisive
role (e.g., Salmivalli, 2010; Volk et al., 2014), and that a network
perspective deepens our understanding of the interplay between bul-
lying and peer status.
We think that our approach to analyze peer status not as actor-level
construct, but on the dyad level as a network of status attributions has
broader potential in adolescence research. This is illustrated by our
unexpected finding of high-status bullies replacing their victims over
time, referring to discontinue existing bullying ties, but establish new
ones. Already previous social network analyses on bullying (Huitsing
et al., 2014) had indicated that, on the relational level, bullying is not
stable over time, whereas aggregated on the actor level (referring to the
number of victims of a bully) it is. By design, an actor-level analysis
overlooks these dyad-level changes in bullying pattern. Thus, such
dynamic patterns become only visible to the researcher by adoption of a
longitudinal network perspective.
This study raises new theoretical questions into how bullying and
peer status are intertwined. If high-status students replace their victims
on a regular basis, it would be interesting to investigate whether they
start bullying particular fellow students who threaten their social
standing in the classroom (referring to other high-status classmates, see
also Peets and Hodges, 2014), or whether they seek new, low status
targets. In other words: is bullying behavior driven by the motivation to
keep high status, opportunity, or both? Empirically, this could be in-
vestigated by further describing the differences in the dynamics of
bullying and status attribution. For instance, by distinguishing bullies
with reciprocated versus unreciprocated bullying relationships and test
how these networks evolve over time.
Another important question is to what extent the classroom context
influences the interplay between bullying and peer status, as bullying
and peer status by definition both depend on the peer context
(Salmivalli, 2010; Salmivalli et al., 1996). Several anti-bullying inter-
ventions aim to change group norms such that bullies are less supported
by bystanders and that their antisocial behavior is less rewarded among
peers (Salmivalli, 2014; Wölfer and Scheithauer, 2014). Future research
should examine whether the interplay between bullying and peer status
is different in classrooms with strong anti-bullying norms and in-
vestigate among which students these differences occur.
Various ramifications of our analyses can be thought of. First, the
bullying and peer status networks in our study were examined in stable,
single-grade classrooms only. In many countries, classroom composi-
tion is homogenous and remains the same during the students’ entire
elementary school career. In the Netherlands, multi-grade elementary
school classrooms are common and the composition of the classroom is
likely to change between school years (Veenman, 1995). Especially
status differences are very strong in these multi-grade classrooms. Now
that we have developed a framework to investigate the relational pro-
cesses behind bullying and peer status, it would be interesting to ex-
amine whether these processes differ in age-heterogeneous, unstable
classrooms. Second, seeing that a substantial share of the bullying and
victimization takes place outside the classroom (Huitsing et al., 2014;
Van der Ploeg et al., 2015), it might be fruitful to move beyond the own
R. van der Ploeg et al. Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

classroom and analyze cohort-wide or even school-wide networks.
Third, the focus of our study was on bullying in general. Nevertheless,
bullying behavior can occur in several forms (Salmivalli et al., 2011):
physical, verbal, material, relational, and cyberbullying. Some types are
more visible or more rewarded than others, which makes it likely that
the different types of bullying are also differently related to peer status.
Practical implications
Increasingly, researchers are collecting rich data on relations be-
tween children and adolescents through network questions (Veenstra
et al., 2013; even from 6-years on: Verlinden et al., 2014). Such net-
work analyses provide insights in selection processes, referring to that
bullies or victims flock together, and influence processes, referring to
that friends’ bullying behavior or friends’ victimization is contagious
(Lodder et al., 2016; Sentse et al., 2013; Turanovic and Young, 2016).
Our results illustrate that peer status plays an essential role in in-
volvement in bullying behavior. The use of longitudinal social network
data helps to better understand the relational patterns of bullying and
peer status. The findings imply that bullying is an effective strategy to
obtain and maintain high status in the classroom, particularly in higher
grades. However, our study also reveals that not all high-status students
engage in bullying and that not all bullies gain peer status. This might
reflect that other factors or behaviors explain status attributions. In
previous studies, prosocial behavior has been linked to peer status
(Slaughter et al., 2015). Next to interventions aimed at changing group
norms and enhancing defending behavior (Salmivalli, 2014), teaching
bullies in higher grades prosocial ways to gain or maintain high status
therefore is probably essential to effectively intervene in school bul-
lying (Ellis et al., 2015; Swearer et al., 2010).
Our finding that bully-victim relations in the higher grades of ele-
mentary school seem to be unstable over time might be an important
finding for the design of new anti-bullying interventions or the eva-
luation of existing ones. Indicated anti-bullying interventions that aim
to solve existing bullying situations (Garandeau, Poskiparta et al., 2014;
Van der Ploeg et al., 2016) should acknowledge that bullies tend to
switch victims and refine their strategies to effectively target the
complexity of bullying. Rather than solving specific bullying situations
or helping particular victims, it is the norm that bullying is a way to
achieve peer status that should be altered.
Acknowledgements
The data used in this study are collected for the evaluation of the
Dutch version of the KiVa anti-bullying program.We thank all the stu-
dents, teachers, and school administrators who participated in the data
collection. This research was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education
(Onderwijs Bewijs nr: ODB10025) and NWO VICI453-14-016. The
funders had no role in the analyses, decision to publish, or preparation
of the manuscript.

Appendix A. A clarifying note on the notion of popularity

Because of diverging definitions in the two different disciplinary communities that constitute our intended readership, we decided to avoid using
the notion of popularity. These two disciplines are adolescent development (AD), and social network analysis (SNA). As one aim of our study is to provide
a bridge between these disciplines, a clarifying note is expedient. In SNA, the notion of popularity is essentially a synonym for indegree in any
directed network, referring to the number of ties received (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). It is commonly contrasted with expansiveness or activity,
defined as outdegree, referring to the number of ties sent – and it is in particular agnostic to the content of the network. You could, for example, be
SNA-popular in a bullying network, which simply means that you are bullied by many classmates.
In the sociological and psychological literature on AD, however, popularity is very narrowly defined by relationship content, namely as peer-
acknowledged social status (popularity among peers; Eder, 1985; Adler and Adler, 1998;Cillessen et al., 2011). It is typically assessed as indegree in a
binary network of peer nominations in response to the question, “Who is popular in your class?” and it is commonly contrasted with similar constructs
based on other relationship content, such as social acceptance or likeability, which are assessed as indegree in networks obtained with other name
generators (Whom do you hang out / play with?; Whom do you like?; Who is your friend?). The AD literature identified important differences
between these concepts (e.g., Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, 1998; LaFontana and Cillessen, 1999; De Bruyn et al., 2010; Dijkstra et al., 2010; Schwartz
et al., 2010), which is why researchers in this tradition strongly insist on not using the word popularity for the indegree in networks other than the
one assessing popularity in the narrow sense.
Whereas AD-popularity satisfies the formal definition of SNA-popularity, the opposite obviously is not the case. When you are bullied by many
classmates (referring to when you are popular as a victim in SNA terminology), it certainly does not mean you have high social status among them
(AD-popularity). However, if you are SNA-popular in a status attribution network, then the definition coincides with AD-popularity. As this little
excursion illustrates, using the word popularity is ambiguous and would obfuscate our message to the reader. Because of this, we chose to use the
words indegree (with an explicit reference to the network on which it is calculated) when we mean SNA-popularity, and (peer) status when we mean
AD-popularity. And we speak of status attribution when we refer to the directed network of AD-popularity nominations.

Appendix B. Studies on the same data as ours or taking a similar approach

So far, only a few studies investigated bullying and related behaviors, such as defending, as a directed dyadic relationship. One of the first studies
(Huitsing and Veenstra, 2012) used dyadic information on bullying and defending to obtain an impression of the social structure of a classroom. It
turned out that ingroup and outgroup effects were important in explaining the group process of bullying. In general, most bullies were boys, with
boys bullying both boys and girls (Huitsing et al., 2014; Huitsing and Veenstra, 2012). Defending occurred mostly among same-sex classmates
(Huitsing et al., 2014; Huitsing and Monks, 2018; Sainio et al., 2011).
From two studies focusing on defending behavior (Oldenburg et al., 2018; Sainio et al., 2011) we know that aspects of liking, peer status, and
friendship play a role. Victims liked their classmates who defended them and perceived them as popular (Sainio et al., 2011). In addition, victims
were likely to be defended by classmates who they perceive as friends or who perceive them as friends, whereas, it was unlikely that victims were
defended by classmates they disliked or by whom victims were disliked. Moreover, defending was more likely when the victim and (potential)
defender shared friends or disliked the same classmates (Oldenburg et al., 2018).
In a study on the coevolution of defending, bullying and victimization networks, it was found that over time victims with the same bullies
defended each other, defenders were at risk of becoming victimized by the bullies of the victims they stood up for, bullies with the same victims
defended each other, and defenders of bullies started to bully those victims too (Huitsing et al., 2014). These findings show that using a social
network approach can be fruitful for investigating complex relationships such as bullying and peer status.

9
R. van der Ploeg et al. Social Networks xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Appendix C. Meta-analyses of multiplex network analysis per grade: bullying and status attribution

Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade4 Grade 5

Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE

Bullying network
Structural network effects
Outdegree (density)
maintenance −4.27 0.58*** −3.47 0.61*** −4.86 0.86*** −3.56 0.24***
creation −7.76 0.50*** −7.01 0.53*** −7.38 0.46*** −7.69 0.80***
Indegree attractiveness 1.19 0.12*** 0.98 0.04*** 1.19 0.07*** 1.38 0.07***
Outdegree attractiveness 0.08 0.15 −0.16 0.16 −0.11 0.18 −0.27 0.27
Outdegree activity 0.66 0.04*** 0.60 0.05*** 0.60 0.08*** 0.43 0.17**

Individual effects
Sex similarity 0.17 0.12 0.22 0.10* 0.50 0.11*** 0.57 0.15***

Between networks effects

Status → victimization −0.27 0.25 −0.24 0.14 0.04 0.07 0.01 0.10
Status → bullying
maintenance bullying −0.22 0.37 −0.13 0.22 −0.96 0.27*** −0.29 0.29
creation bullying 0.32 0.40 0.79 0.43 1.29 0.38** 0.88 0.24***
Status attribution network
Structural network effects
Outdegree (density)
maintenance −1.81 0.19*** −2.69 0.32*** −3.25 0.29*** −3.91 0.55***
creation −6.82 0.27*** −6.57 0.27*** −7.30 0.23*** −8.37 0.31***
Reciprocity 0.27 0.07*** 0.32 0.08*** 0.25 0.09*** 0.18 0.07*
Transitive triplets 0.11 0.02*** 0.06 0.03* 0.07 0.02*** 0.04 0.02*
Three cycles −0.11 0.05* −0.03 0.03 −0.07 0.03* −0.06 0.02*
Indegree attractiveness 0.78 0.05*** 0.83 0.04*** 0.90 0.04*** 0.99 0.05***
Indegree activity 0.05 0.09 −0.01 0.05 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.03*
Outdegree activity 0.44 0.03*** 0.54 0.04*** 0.62 0.05*** 0.70 0.08***

Individual effects
Sex similarity 0.60 0.07*** 0.58 0.07*** 0.63 0.07*** 0.59 0.05***

Between networks effects

Victimization → status −0.01 0.04 −0.01 0.03 −0.02 0.03 −0.07 0.05
Bullying → status
maintenance status 0.22 0.13 0.18 0.15 0.13 0.16 0.02 0.15
creation status −0.21 0.06** 0.16 0.09 0.37 0.10*** 0.53 0.15***

Note. Rate of change effects were omitted from the table.

Grade refers to wave 1, in waves 2 and 3 students were in grades 3–6.
All effects, except for status attribution reciprocity, show significant variation over classrooms.
*p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

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