Peer Relations Flashcards
What is a peer group?
The other children or young people with whom a child engages with
They’re of a similar age and not a family member
How is interacting with peer groups different to interacting with adults? What do children do without adults there when they interact with peer groups?
Requires social skills not required by interactions with adults
Peer groups: working on the same level, same social powers
Adults: provide structure, guidance, security
Without adults, children share, have conflict resolution, cooperation and reciprocity
Between the ages of 3-4 months, 6 months, 1-2 years how do peer interactions develop? What is reciprocal play?
3-4 months: looks and touches
6 months: peer directed smiles and babbles
1-2 years: coordinated interaction, mutual imitation, turn-taking.
Known as reciprocal play.
What is nonsocial and parallel play? What were the 3 steps in social development according to Mildred Parten in 1932 between 2-4 year olds?
Looked at nonsocial play (unoccupied, onlooker behaviour, solitary play)
Parallel play(limited social participation, children plays near other children, play with similar materials but not interacting with each other)
- True social interaction
- Associative play (children interact with others in the same activity)
- Cooperative play (share and support each other by playing in a well-coordinated and complimentary play)
What did Smith 1978 find about the 3 types of play? How does this contradict what Parten argued?
Children divide their time between the 3 categories: nonsocial, parallel and social
Balance shifts as they get older
Contradicts what Parten originally thought, who believed each stage replaced the other as they got older
At what age does fantasy or pretend play begin? Are objects and events used?
Fantasy/pretend play
From 15 months
Represent an object or an event that is absent
At what age does make believe play occur? How does it develop? Is it imaginary and do they incorporate toys? How can other children develop make believe play? What do they need to do this?
Make believe play
2-3 years
First alone, then incorporate others
Act out real events, not imaginary and no substituting items
Starts with toys then involves peers
Combine ideas for more complex storylines
Need for reciprocation
What is perspective taking? Why is it useful? What can help increase perspective taking at schools? How can this help facilitate make believe play?
When children start school they are exposed to peers who are different: age, ethnicity, interests, personality
Increased variety helps perspective taking
Perspective taking helps with communication, better at interpretating others thoughts and emotions
Engaging in games with rules and make believe play, understand roles and can cooperate
What is rough and tumble play? Is it aggressive? Which gender is it more common in? Why? How can it help future interactions with other peers?
Rough and tumble play e.g. rolling, hitting, running away
Good natured, social able, not aggressive
originate in father-son interactions
More common in boys (fathers are rougher towards boys than girls)
Important for establishing dominance in hierarchy, children can assess and predict who will win if conflict arises
In middle childhood, how does play with each gender change? Why? How is boys peer groups differ between girls?
Sex segregation is established
Due to activity and play style preferences
Boys: larger, mixed age groups, competitive games, evidence of political play like leadership
Girls: smaller and same ages, emphasis on intimacy and exclusiveness of friendships
How do relationships with peers change in adolescence?
Peers influence beyond parents
Nature of friendships can change
What is an indirect influence on peer social ability? What is a direct influence on peer social ability? How does a mixed age group of children affect social ability?
Indirect influence: secure attachment, more harmonious peer interactions, large peer networks
Direct peer influence: arrange play dates, enrolling organised activities
Age mix of children: children can adapt to lower abilities from the ages of 3/4 years. Older children prefer to be around those of the same age
What are the 3 methods that can be used to measure peer relations? What should researchers look for to measure peer relations?
Direct observation
Report by parent or teacher
By asking the child about peer nominations e.g. who is liked?
Look at who is accepted, rejected, popular
Size of network, structure of peer networks and density
What is a sociogram? What are keys? What do the lines represent?
Sociograms
Key for each gender e.g. triangle for boys and circles for girls
Number of lines between each key shows the number of observations that were made when they were interacting with other children
What did Burke et al 2022 find on children with larger networks and perspective taking?
Children with larger networks have superior perspective taking skills because their network provides more opportunities to use their perspective taking skills
How has covid impacted peer interactions between children? Why has this happened?
Peer interactions is important to reduce prejudice, discrimination and intergroup bias. Also useful for learning group norms, understanding conversations and emotions.
Because of covid there have been reduced opportunities for peer interactions at an important age
What is the definition of friendship? What do adults look for when building friendships? What do children look for in building friendships?
Children: based on a shared activity
Adults: indicated by attachment and trust
Friendship: close relationship, whether each partner wants to be with the other
What happens in the first stage of friendship? At what age does this occur? What does friendship mean at this age? What does concrete friendships mean? Are they long term?
4 to 7 years
Someone who likes you, who you enjoy spending time playing with, share toys with them
Viewed as concrete, so friendships easily begin e.g. saying hi
Not long term, can dissolve when hit, don’t share
In stage 2 of friendships, how can violating trust impact friendships? Why are they difficult to begin? How do they develop from stage 1?
Idea of friendship is more complex and psychologically based e.g. she helps me when I’m sad, I’ve known her for longer
Each child responds to the others needs
More difficult to begin since both children have to want to be friends
Like each other’s personal qualities
Trust is important
Violating this can cause rifts e.g. gossip
In stage 3 of friendships, how can friendships support mental wellbeing? Why is loyalty and intimacy important? At what age does this occur?
Teenagers stress with these relationships
11 to 15 years
Intimacy: psychological closeness and understanding, trusting with secrets
Loyalty: want their friends to stick up for them and for them to leave others for them
Important to relieve psychological distress
What are the consequences of having friendships and being rejected in childhood?
Affect later educational achievement
Help for dealing with stress
Provide foundations for future relationships
But some friendships can increase aggressive or antisocial behaviour
What does rejected children mean? There are two subtypes. One is rejected aggressive. What is it? Why does it occur? And the other is rejected withdrawn. What is this? How is it mad worse? How does this affect adolescence?
Unpopular, least liked
Display a wide range of negative social behaviours
Most concerning
2 subtypes:
Rejected aggressive: antagonistic, severe conduct problems
Driven by poor perspective taking, poor emotional regulation
Rejected withdrawn children: passive, socially awkward, overwhelmed by social anxiety, lonely
Reduced social interaction which makes the situation worse
In adolescence: drop out, act out, do poorly at schools
In adolescence, what are dyads, cliques and crowds?
Dyads: pair of close friends or lovers
Cliques: groups of several friends who interact frequently, similar backgrounds, attitudes, values
Crowds: larger collectives of people with similar images and affinities e.g. brains, jocks
Do young people acknowledge that peer pressure exists? What are some examples of pressures that teenagers conform to in regards to peers?
Young people are dismissive of social pressure, they don’t believe it exists
Peer conformity does exist, it includes: appearance, clothes, hair, places to go, dating
they’re more pro-social than antisocial activities
Berndt 1979 investigated conformity on antisocial and social pressures between the ages of 11 and 12 and 14 and 15. What was found?
Imagine peers encouraging them in antisocial or prosocial activities
Conformity to social pressures: peaked at 11-12 years
Conformity to anti-social pressures peaked at 14 to 15 years
Why? At 11-12 there are a stronger need for rules
At 14-15 they struggle for autonomy from parents
What influences the crowds and cliques that teenagers join? Do parenting styles impact these? What about gender?
Personality and interests
As well as parenting style
Young people with authorative parents are more likely to join the studious or preppy crowd
Boys with permissive parents join the partyer crowd
If the parents are uninvolved they are usually headbangers or partyers
In adolescence, how do feelings of one’s develop because of peer groups? What do peers provide support on?
Act as a reference group: adolescence is a time of uncertainty about yourself, peers provide support and guidance on defining one’s role and one’s values
Peer groups support feelings of self worth
