This study proposes a model explaining the association between physical abuse of childrenand children's social and affective status as one in which children's socialexpectations and behavior, developed within the context of abusive parenting, mediate currentfunctioning in these two outcome domains. Subjects included one hundred 9 to 12-year-oldphysically abused children recruited from consecutive entries onto the New York State Registerfor Child Abuse for New York City and 100 case-matched classmate nonabused comparisonchildren. Sociometric assessments were carried out in classrooms, interviews were conductedwith the children and their parents, and teachers, parents, and classmates rated thechildren's behavior. Path analysis was utilized to test the conceptually derived models.Children's social expectations regarding peers, and two social behaviors—aggressivebehavior and prosocial behavior—were found to mediate between abuse and positive andnegative social status, as well as between abuse and positive and negative reciprocity. Socialexpectations and withdrawn behavior mediated between abuse and positive social status, but onlywhere withdrawn behavior was a function of social expectations. Social expectations weregenerally found to mediate between abuse and internalizing problems. Negative social status (peerrejection) added to social expectations in producing internalizing problems. Identification of thesemediating pathways can serve to guide secondary preventive intervention efforts so that they bestaddress the problems abused children face in the absence of adequate parental and peer support asthe children enter adolescence.