It has been speculated that defending victims of bullying is stressful for youth, and may contribute to poor mental health among those who regularly intervene to defend their victimized peers. However, the extant literature is thus far primarily limited to correlational, single-informant studies. The current study examined the concurrent and prospective mental health costs (e.g., social anxiety, depressive symptoms) of peer-reported defending among 4085 youth (43.9% boys; M_age = 14.56, SD = 0.75). Moreover, we examined two potential moderators (victimization and popularity) of the association between defending and internalizing problems. Analyses revealed that there was no evidence of a direct, positive relationship between defending and internalizing symptoms. However, a positive, concurrent association was found between defending and social anxiety, but only among youth who reported that they were also victims – the association was negative among non-victimized youth. In addition, both peer-reported victimization and social status were found to moderate the longitudinal relationship between defending and later symptoms of depression. Specifically, among low-status highly victimized youth, defending was associated with an increased risk of experiencing symptoms of depression, whereas high-status youth who were rarely seen as victims reported decreased symptoms of depression at T2 if they also had a reputation for defending others. The findings suggest that defending others is likely not a risk factor for youth who are not already vulnerable and/or have the protection of high status, and may actually have a protective effect for these youth.

据推测，捍卫欺凌行为的受害者对青年人来说压力很大，并且可能在定期干预以捍卫受害同龄人的人们中造成不良的心理健康。然而，迄今为止，现有文献主要限于相关的单信息研究。当前的研究调查了4085名青年（43.9％的男孩；M_年龄 = 14.56，SD）中同伴报告的抗辩的同时发生的和预期的心理健康成本（例如，社交焦虑，抑郁症状） = 0.75）。此外，我们研究了捍卫和内部化问题之间联系的两个潜在主持人（受害人和受欢迎程度）。分析表明，没有证据表明防御和内在症状之间存在直接，积极的关系。但是，在辩护和社交焦虑之间发现了积极的并发关联，但只有在报告自己也是受害者的青年中才有关联–在未受害的青年中这种关联是消极的。此外，发现同伴报告的受害和社会地位都减轻了辩护和以后的抑郁症状之间的纵向关系。具体来说，在地位低下，受害严重的年轻人中，捍卫与患抑郁症的风险增加有关，相反，很少被视为受害者的地位高的年轻人如果也以捍卫他人的声誉而在T2时表现出抑郁症状的减轻。研究结果表明，捍卫他人对那些尚未变得脆弱和/或具有较高地位的青年来说，可能不是危险因素，实际上可能对这些青年有保护作用。