Ch13 Peer Relationships

Question 1

Play

Answer 1

activities that children engage in for
inherent enjoyment

Question 2

Benefits of engaging in Play

Answer 2

Learning and practicing empathy
 Fostering cognitive and language development
 Enhancing motor development and skills
 Promoting emotion regulation and increasing
positive emotions

Question 3

The Development of Social Play

Answer 3

Social types of play
 Parallel play
 Associative play
 Cooperative play

Question 4

Anna Freud and
Sophie Dann’s Research

Answer 4

Studied a group of orphans liberated
from a Nazi concentration camp at the
end of World War II
 Provided evidence that relationships with peers can help
very young children develop (some) social and emotional
capacity for social relationships that usually emerge in the
context of parent-child relationships
 Similar findings were obtained two decades later in
research with monkeys
 Although peers alone cannot produce optimal
development in children, peers can contribute to
children’s development in meaningful ways

Question 5

Choice of Friends: Preschoolers

Answer 5

proximity is the key factor in
friendship selection
 In most industrialized countries, similarity in age is
also major factor in friendship
 Preference for same-sex
friends emerges in
preschool and continues
through adolescence
 To lesser degree,
children tend to be
friends with peers of
same race

Question 6

Effects of Friendships

Answer 6

Reciprocated best friend
 In preadolescence
 relates to positive social outcomes in middle childhood and self-
perceived competence and adjustment in adulthood
 …but it’s correlational research, causal relationship unclear
 Children who have antisocial and aggressive
friends tend to exhibit antisocial and aggressive
tendencies themselves
 Again, correlational
 unclear whether having aggressive friends actually causes aggressive
behavior or if aggressive children gravitate toward one another

Question 7

Choice of Friends: By age 7

Answer 7

children tend to like peers similar
to themselves in cognitive maturity of their
play and in their aggressive behavior

Question 8

Choice of Friends: 4th to 8th Grade

Answer 8

riends are more
similar than nonfriends in prosocial
behaviors, antisocial behavior, peer
acceptance, and academic motivation

Question 9

Choice of Friends: Adolescents

Answer 9

friends tend to have similar
interests, attitudes, and behavior

Question 10

The Role of Technology in
Friendships

Answer 10

Online social media, instant messaging, and
texting important in peer interactions
 Creation and maintenance of electronic
communication facilitates
 Greater anonymity
 Less emphasis on physical appearance
 More control over interactions
 Finding similar peers
 24/7 access, and it’s fun

Question 11

Perspectives on use of technology

Answer 11

Rich-get-richer hypothesis: Internet beneficial
to those who already are proficient using Internet
skills
 Social-compensation hypothesis: online
communications benefits over face-to-face
communication for lonely and socially anxious
youths.
 In contrast: high levels of Internet use primarily for
entertainment or for communication with strangers
can harm the quality of friendships and predicts
increases in anxiety and depression.

Question 12

Effects of Friendships

Answer 12

Extent to which friends’ use
drugs/alcohol may put an
adolescent at risk depends, in
part, on nature of the child-
parent relationship
 If adolescent’s parents are
authoritative in their
parenting rather than
cold/detached, adolescent is
more likely to be protected
against peer pressure to
use drugs

Question 13

Peer Stress, Parent Support, and
Children’s Depressive Symptoms

Answer 13

When children have high
peer stress and low parent
support, they experience
high levels of depressive
symptoms.
 In contrast, if they have
supportive parents, children
have the same level of
depressive symptoms
regardless of the amount of
stress from their peers

Question 14

sociometric status

Answer 14

a measurement of the degree to
which children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group

Question 15

Popular Peer Status

Answer 15

A category of sociometric status that refers to
children or adolescents who are viewed positively by
many peers and are viewed negatively by few peers
 These individuals…
 Tend to be skilled at initiating
interactions with peers and at
maintaining positive
relationships
 Tend to be cooperative, friendly,
sociable, and sensitive to others
 Are not prone to intense
negative emotions and regulate
themselves well
 Tend to be less aggressive than
average children

Question 16

relational aggression

Answer 16

hurt others by spreading rumors or
withholding friendship

Question 17

Rejected Peer Status

Answer 17

Refers to children or adolescents who are liked by few peers and disliked by many peers