Understanding the connection between peer relationships and mental health concerns for girls: Bullying, victimisation and internalisation · ICGS Research Library

Title

Understanding the connection between peer relationships and mental health concerns for girls: Bullying, victimisation and internalisation

Author

ICGS

Year Published

2025

Description

New research that explores the connection between peer relationships and mental health concerns has been released by the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. Focussing on 176 schools from Greater Manchester, England, as a case study this article provides new understandings of the longitudinal relationships between peer relationships and mental health concerns, especially the differences between experiences based on gender. This includes a focus on the benefits of friendship and social support, and the effect of bullying victimisation and internalising of symptoms. These research findings are important for educators given the increasingly significant role of peer relationships for students as they reach adolescence, begin to seek greater levels of independence, and develop their own identities.

The data for this article was drawn from #BeeWell, which is a study that follows “young people attending schools across Greater Manchester”. It includes an annual online survey that the authors combined with data from local authorities and school records (Cheng et al., 2025, pp. 5-6). The case study is based exclusively on schools in Greater Manchester, England. This includes schools with “higher levels of socio-economic deprivation and greater ethnic diversity than is seen across England”, which should be considered when assessing the applicability of the study results to other locations (Cheng et al., 2025, p. 16). For the purposes of this article and analysis of the data, bullying was considered to include physical, verbal and cyber-bullying. The internalising of symptoms was understood to include factors such as feeling lonely, unhappy, worried, shy, scared and experiencing difficulty sleeping.

The researchers identified a link between bullying victimisation and friendship, including social support. Adolescents with higher stable levels of bullying victimisation had lower stable levels of friendship and social support. For girls, this resulted in decreased levels of friendship and social support. Ultimately, this means that bullying victimisation poses the risk of having a negative impact on friendships for girls. The researchers suggest this has increased significance for girls compared to boys because they are more likely to experience relational bullying, whereas boys are more likely to be exposed to physical bullying (Cheng et al., 2025, p. 14). Higher levels of bullying victimisation were also correlated with higher levels of internalising symptoms for both boys and girls in the study, but this was particularly significant for girls.

Despite these findings, the project also showed that having pre-existing positive peer relationships could lead to important outcomes, especially for girls. It was observed that increased levels of friendship and social support had a compensatory effect, especially in terms of increased resilience and coping when faced with adverse social experiences. This was particularly relevant for girls in the study. When friendships and social support were already present, there were lower levels of internalised symptoms of bullying victimisation at a later date. A key finding of the article, this showed that when higher levels of friendship and social support existed, girls experienced a reduction in the internalisation of symptoms. This reinforces the benefits of established, pre-existing, positive peer relationships and is consistent with other recent studies that reinforce the benefits of these relationships, especially in girls’ schools.

This research shows that there exists a reciprocal and transactional relationship between peer relationships and internalising difficulties for adolescents. The key is that this varies by gender, and the type of peer relationship, with the biggest impact being seen in girls. A consideration of how different forms of bullying (relational, verbal, physical, and cyber bullying) could impact girls’ relationships differently is important when approaching bullying and adolescent relationships. These findings are significant because compared to other studies, this is a large, long-term case study that gives greater insight into these challenges.

The authors present some key outcomes that are of particular relevance for girls’ schools. The first is a reinforcement that the prevention of bullying is a priority, both to reduce rates of bullying, but to also reduce the internalisation of symptoms that can potentially lead to other challenges in early- and mid-adolescence. The impact of peer relationships on these issues also reinforces that this needs to be a “comprehensive, whole-school response” that incorporates “peers, bullies and victims… parents and teachers; and implementation of classroom rules and curriculum materials” (Cheng et al., 2025, p. 16).

For girls, the study highlights the importance of friendships and social support, and also shows the critical issue that bullying victimisation can lead to reduced friendships and