What are the Features of Playful and Harmful Teasing and When Does it Cross the Line? A Systematic Review and Meta-synthesis of Qualitative Research on Peer Teasing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Peer teasing is a complex, versatile, and universal form of social interaction, common within youth’s peer relationships. Despite its prevalence, a comprehensive understanding of how youth themselves define this interaction, and the myriad features of playful and harmful teasing experience is lacking in the field. The current review aimed to coalesce the evidence detailing youth’s definitions and experiences of teasing from qualitative studies in a two-part systematic review and meta-synthesis. Part 1 of this review applied a conceptual framework of features of teasing (e.g., content, perpetrator, relationship between target and perpetrator) to understand (1) how youth define teasing and (2) the features present in playful versus harmful teasing experiences. In Part 2, additional analysis examined (3) how combinations of teasing features yield playful versus harmful interpretations by youth, (4) how youth conceptualize teasing across development, and (5) which features of teasing are most salient for youth when determining whether teasing “crosses the line” from playful to harmful. A total of 4134 records were screened, of which 35 were included in the review. Using thematic analysis, results in Part 1 indicated that youth defined teasing along a continuum from playful to harmful. There was substantial overlap in the features of harmful and playful teasing (e.g., teasing meant to be playful could still cause harm). Playful teasing was more likely among friends, whereas harmful teasing often focused on appearance and personal characteristics. Further, the experience of positive emotions and relationship benefits were only found in youth’s descriptions of playful teasing experiences whereas harmful teasing experiences incurred relationship damage. In Part 2, analysis revealed that certain combinations of features are important for the differentiation between playful and harmful teasing (e.g., interaction between teasing content, relationship, and context). In terms of developmental patterns, younger children tended to view teasing as primarily harmful whereas adolescents recognized the capacity for play in teasing interactions, especially among friends. Lastly, when determining whether teasing crossed the line from playful to harmful, youth considered key features including the tone and content of the tease, perpetrator identity, whether the teasing was repeated, and whether the tease was intended to—or did—cause harm. Implications for the growing understanding of the complexity and nuance in playful versus harmful teasing are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.081 | 0.230 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.014 | 0.014 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".