Friendship

Question 1

How do you define a friend?

How does freind prefernece change with age?

Answer 1

More time in peer interaction: (Higgins & Parsons, 1983)
At 2, only 10% of time is spent with peers
On entry into school, 30% of time is spent with peers
Greater preference for peer interaction (Ellis et al., 1981) as you get older, preference for adult companion decreases wit hage from 1/2-11/12
During school years children become increasingly concerned about their acceptance by the peer group (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998)

Question 2

why is friendship important to us psycholgically?

Answer 2

Development of social skills

Links with mental health, well-being, school success

Links to feelings of selfworth (Maunder & Monks, 2018)

Question 3

What is the differecne between a freind and a peer?

Answer 3

Friend = mutual liking 
Peer = another in the same social group

Question 4

give 9 ways to measure friendship

Answer 4

Observation
Peer (sociometric) nominations
Reciprocal nominations
Revised Class Play (Reputation Measure)
Rating Scales
Sociometric ratings (will they help you, will they tell you when you do something wrong etc.)
Friendship Quality
Paired comparisons of nominations/ratings
Social network analyses

Question 5

What is a sociometric diagram?

Answer 5

A diagram which shows who is friends with who in a group of people, small clusters indicate friendship group, large clusters indicate peer group

Question 6

how do you measure peer relations

Answer 6

how much someone is liked can be done on a 4x4 table
Number of like nominations: few and many on one side
number of dislike nominations: few and many on another side of the table

Question 7

outline what has been found in sociometric studies?

Answer 7

Popular children:
Good social skills
Not typically aggressive
In adolescence, they do begin using more relational aggression.

Rejected children:
Aggressive-rejected children (40-50% of rejected children)
Withdrawn-rejected children (10-25% of rejected children)
Interpret benign situations as intentional, and have difficulty coming up with solutions for difficult social situations.

Neglected children:
Less sociable and disruptive than average children

Controversial children:
Have characteristics of both the popular and rejected children
Socially active and often group leaders

Question 8

give some examples of social-conitive development friendship helps build

Answer 8

Cooperation- taking part in a more complex play need to work together to achieve something
Negotiation
Mental state awareness- start to understand what other people think and believe
Emotional awareness- understand when to talk and when to hold back

Question 9

Outline how Piaget and Vygotsky’s views on the social-cognitive development and freindship

Answer 9

Relatively equal in perceived power
Piaget
-peers are useful in the construction of one’s own explanations & rules of how things work
Cognitive disagreement would lead peers to be aware of and explore differing perspectives on a problem

Vygotsky
-cooperation in relationships is useful in the construction of one’s skills and abilities
-Zone of proximal development: Adults and peers as tutors (scaffolding)
First intimate relationship
Friendships support social-cognitive development

Question 10

define friendship

Answer 10

A voluntary and reciprocal relationship between 2 individuals

Question 11

Outline Early friendship development according to selman 1981

Answer 11

Between 3 and 7:
Intimacy refers to children’s physical location
e.g. Conflicts arise over toys and space

Between 4 and 9:
Friendships are one-way: exist because fulfil some function that the self wants
A close friend is someone they know likes and dislikes of

Question 12

Outline later friendship defined by selman 1981

Answer 12

Between 6 and 12:
Are able to reflect on joint experiences
Concerned with coordinating and approximating likes and dislikes
Fairweather friendships… (specfic argument with friend but as soon as there is an argument friendship is over.

Between 9 and 15: Can have intimate and mutually shared relationships
Have a mutual understanding and concern –share personal problems

Between 12 and adulthood:
Accepts independence and dependence

Question 13

outline factors imortant in considering friendships

Answer 13

PROXIMITY: Young children have friends who are close in proximity
Older children accept more distance
SAME AGE
-Early & Middle childhood = same-age friends

SIMILARITY:
Young children like similarity of location or features Older children select similarity on the basis of personality features, common interests & attitudes, etc.
Epstein 1989

Question 14

Outline friendships in infancy

Answer 14

Infants have peer preferences (Howes & colleagues)
12- to 18-months: more smiling, reaching, touching specific peers
12- to 24-months: 3 times more likely to comfort preferred peers
20 months: selectively initiate interactions (and play) with some peers over others

Question 15

how does friendship display itself in early childhood?

Answer 15

Reciprocated friendships appear
Young mixed-sex friendships become more gender segregated
Children begin to recognize that some peers are more dominant than others – reflected in conflict situations

Question 16

what is the sex cleavage?

Answer 16

Sex segregation occurs early on: Infants prefer to look at same-sex images
At 2, boys are more likely to respond when a boys asks them to play than a girl
Childhood, >90% peer time spent with same-sex
Adolescence, preference for same-sex interactions declines

BUT, cross-sex friendships do exist (McDougall & Hymel, 2007) 81% of 9- to 18-year-olds agree
64% of these children judge that the types of friends differ

Question 17

Outline ethnicity and freindship?

Answer 17

Minority children tend to be more accepting of cross-race friendships (Leman & Lamm, 2008)

80% of African and European Americans had best friend from same ethnic background (Hamm, 2000)

60% of Asian Americans had best friend from same ethnic background (Hamm, 2000)

Question 18

outline how interactions differe between friends and non-freinds

Answer 18

greater cooperation & coordination
 more pretend play
 more conflict, but also more likely to resolve conflict in controlled way

Question 19

Explain similarity between friends

Answer 19

11- to 15-year-olds
Friends behaviour more similar than non-friends
Socially accepted friends more alike on nominations of having friends, being liked, and being a victim
Friends reported more similar depression levels
Gender differences:
Girls: friends more similar in cooperation, offers help and liked most nominations
Boys: friends more similar in shyness and victimization nominations
(Haselager et al., 1998)

Question 20

outline the findings of Poulin et al. 1997

Answer 20

9 year old group
significant findings found for similarity in starting fights, leadership, direct observation and peer ratings for friends but not non-freinds
E/g/ if you’re friends with someone who starts a fight you’re more likely to do so yourself.

Question 21

outline similarity in adolescence

Answer 21

Friendships were made on similarity of dimensions that matter, such as
attitudes to school and school achievement
normative behaviour (e.g., drug use, drinking, antisocial behaviour)
What’s normative varies by:
Sex. Difference in similarity of sexual behaviour and attitudes
Ethnicity. Differences in similarity of academic
orientation
(Hartup 1998, and Hamm, 2000)
Could these findings be accounted for by what is important for social reputation?

Question 22

Do boys and girls friendship groups differ?

Answer 22

Girls had larger social networks
Girls social networks were more ethnically diverse
Girls had 62% of reciprocated friendships being cross-ethnic, boys had 54%
Lee, Howes and Chamberlain, 2007

Question 23

What is important for group composition?

Answer 23

Sex appears to be more important than ethnicity  Cross-sex dyads comprised of 7% of friendships  Cross-ethnic dyads comprised of 59% of friendships
Lee, Howes and Chamberlain, 2007

Question 24

Outline Cliques and crowds in adolescence

Answer 24

In adolescence
Often belong to more than one clique
Greater stability of cliques
Important to conform to group dress & behaviour

In adolescence, crowds become more important than what clique one belongs to:
Crowds are groups of individuals whose reputations fits with stereotypes (e.g., ‘freaks’, ‘geeks’,’ losers’, ‘jocks’) Often does not choose their association with a crowd voluntarily.
Assigned by peer group and may spend little time with the crowd. Important to conform to the clique

Question 25

What is a clique?

Answer 25

Cliques are friendship groups that children will form or join, but members do not always see themselves as close friends. They have shared similarities (e.g., academic motivation, aggressiveness, bullying, shyness, popularity, cooperativeness, adherence to conventional values, etc.)

Question 26

Outline cliques in middle childhood

Answer 26

In middle childhood
Usually between 3-9 children in the group (often same sex & race)
Usually stable for only a few weeks (Cairns et al., 1995) In middle childhood, cliques function as:
Group of peers to socialize with
Validation of features the group has in common Provide sense of belonging

Question 27

Outline the parental role in peer relations in terms of attachment style and parent and child interaction styles

Answer 27

Attachment style
Secure attachment: children display positive emotions and have good social skills (long lasting effects through adolescence)
Insecure attachment: tend to be more aggressive, whiny, and socially withdrawn

Parent-child interaction styles
Interactions differ for popular children and their parents in comparison to unpopular children and their parents.

Question 28

Outline the parental role in peer relations in terms of parentla belief

Answer 28

Coaching behaviour: Mothers may coach in prosocial behaviour
Modelling behaviour Children demonstrate similar conversational styles as they have experienced at home
Long-term implications for child’s behaviour: after adolescence- feel peers more important but early parental influence is still significant in later behaviours

Question 29

define bullying

Answer 29

The abuse of physical and psychological power for the purpose of intentionally and repeatedly creating a negative atmosphere of severe anxiety, intimidation, and chronic fear in victims. (Marini, Spear, and Bombay, 1999, p.33)

Question 30

What is bullying?

Answer 30

Repeated exposure to negative actions from one or more others (Slater & Bremner, 2003)
Negative actions are:
Physical contact
Words
Making faces or obscene gestures
Intentional exclusion from a group
around 10% of children are subject to persistant bullying

Question 31

outline the multi-dimensional apprach

Answer 31

see picture document

Question 32

Woh bullies?

Answer 32

Mainly boys…
 60% of bullied girls were bullied by boys
 15-20% of bullied girls were bullied by both sexes
 80% of bullied boys were bullied by boys
 BUT, victims of bullying also bully

Question 33

Outline bully charactersitics

Answer 33

Tend to have:
more positive attitude towards aggressive behaviours than other children
conduct problems
Social problems
Generally are characterized by impulsivity and a strong need to dominate others, and have little empathy for their victims

3 motivations: 
power and dominance 
hostility towards the environment 
to gain reward 
(Kljakovic & Hunt, 2016; Perry, Perry, & Kennedy, 1992

Question 34

Outline victim charactersitcs

Answer 34

Victims have been found to have:
Internalising problems: including more anxious and insecure; lower self-esteem, more likely to be depressed
Social problems
Have greater difficulty adjusting to school
But, some also have externalizing problems
Conduct problems
Proactive versus reactive aggression

Question 35

Outline bulying stability

Answer 35

Kochenderfer & Ladd (1996) found that in kindergarten 20.5% of children were victimized.  BUT, only 9% of victims were consistently victimized.

Sourander et al. (2000) examined bullying at age 8 and again at age 16 and found that:
Boys had greater stability in bullying and victimization than did girls.

30% of bullies and 30% of victims had been referred to mental health services
BUT only 18% of bullies and 15% of victims went

Question 36

Outline how friends can protect in bullying?

Answer 36

Bukowski et al. (1995) found that children who had reciprocated friendships were less likely to be victimized.
Hodges et al. (1999) investigated this further by examining:
internalizing and externalizing behaviours,
reciprocated friendships,
protection, companionship, security, conflict

Question 37

summarise the findings that friendships increase victimization

Answer 37

Summary of findings for increases in victimization:
Children without a best friend had increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviours
Too much time spent with best friends had increases in internalizing problems when victimized.

Question 38

Summerise the findings that friendships decrease victimization

Answer 38

having a best friend predicted decreases in victimization
Security, companionship, and conflict did not predict changes in victimization
Protection was related to decreases – but what kind of protection??

Question 39

how do reactive children help with bullying

Answer 39

Reactive children: aversive & provocative?!
 Protective factors against victimization: Prosocial friends?
Siblings?
Age
Why/How might they protect?!
offer new stratgeies
use their skills to facilitate resolution

Question 40

outline the important points of friendship in development

Answer 40

Similarity is important for all friendships, it is just our idea of what is a similar person that changes

There is great stability in our skills to develop and maintain friendships evidenced from early childhood

Boys and girls interactions with friends are different

Parents can play a role in the development and maintenance of peer relationships