Peer Relationships

Question 1

How do friendships differ to peer relationships?

Answer 1

Peers are people of approximately the same age and status

Friendships are intimate, reciprocated positive relationships between two people

Question 2

How do friendships change with age?

Answer 2

At around 2 its mainly preferences the progresses into cooperative play

At around 3/4 best friendships are formed and they engage in pretend play - develop trust

5-8 : shared liking in activities - conflict and resolution

Overtime there is an increased role of shared values, admiration and loyalty

Level of importance and intimacy changes over time

Use of self exploration and experimentation in adolescence through making different friends

Question 3

What are the benefits of friendship?

Answer 3

Affirmation

Support and validation when child feels lonely

Emotional support and security - especially in transition periods

Buffer - against problems with peers and teachers and unpleasant experiences

Children learn about norms through gossip etc and increase openness and critique to help each other expand and develop ideas

Question 4

What are the costs of friendships?

Answer 4

Aggression and disruptiveness

Contagion of negative affect - listening to negativity can cause you to become negative

Alcohol and substance abuse - experiment with dangerous things - some will be more vulnerable to addiction which can be long term

Socialisation vs individual selection - influence the choices we make

Question 5

What is the difference between cliques, crowds and gangs?

Answer 5

Cliques - friendship groups that children voluntarily form or join - similarities bind them

Crowds - groups of adolescents who have similar stereotyped reputations - may be assigned by peers - don’t necessarily have to interact

Gangs - cliques that engage in illegal activities

Question 6

Factors influence choice of friends

Answer 6

Prosocial behaviour

Similar interests

Similar level of cognitive maturity

Cooperation and acceptance

Similar level of negative emotions and tendencies to attribute hostile intentions

Proximity (not so much with internet access)

Age (school segregation) and gender (reduces over time)

Race and ethnicity can also influence friendships

Question 7

Mutual exchange of encouragement

Answer 7

Difficult to infer directionality of influence in friendship selection:
> similar people are more likely to be friends
> friends can influence people to act in similar ways

Most likely to be an equal combination of both

Question 8

How does technology affect friendships

Answer 8

Greater anonymity – reduce social inhibitions (can be negative if goes too far)

Less emphasis on physical appearance

More control over interactions

Finding similar peers is much easier

24/7 access

It’s fun to share photos, videos and game together

Question 9

rich get richer hypothesis

Answer 9

suggests that those with good social skills benefit from internet socialisation

Question 10

Social compensation hypothesis and study to support

Answer 10

Implies that social media may be beneficial for lonely, depressed and socially anxious adolescents as they can spend time deliberating replies and may be more likely to disclose personal information online that in person.

Peter et al (2005) - these people prefer online conversation

Question 11

Koutamanis et al (2013)

Answer 11

Conducted a longitudinal study involving nearly 700 Dutch
children and found that the more they used instant messaging the more comfortable they were introducing themselves to new people and suggesting to new friends to hang out.

Question 12

Glick and Rose (2011)

Answer 12

Showed children with high quality friendships showed improved strategies for helping friends deal with social stressors.

Question 13

Bagwell, Newcomb and Bukowski (1998)

Answer 13

Found children with a best friend at 10 showed greater college success, social lives higher self esteem, less psychopathology 13 years later.

Question 14

Gender differences in friendships

Answer 14

Girls more likely to desire closeness and worry about abandonment, loneliness, peer evaluations and hurting others

Girls rely more on friends for advice

Girls friendships are more fragile and last less long

Question 15

Cliques and social networks in adolescence

Answer 15

Number decrease with age and become more stable and variable

Importance of belonging to popular group and conforming to group norms reduces

Question 16

Downwaard et al (2012)

Answer 16

Followed 1313 Dutch adolescents and found that those who affiliated with non conventional crowds were associated with consistent problem behvaiours, data came from self report.

Question 17

Negative influences of cliques and social networks

Answer 17

Preadolescents and adolescents are more likely to rebel if their peers do.

The desire to be accepted and liked by peers can result in them doing out of character behvaiours to gain this.

Gangs provide members with a sense of belonging in but encourage/require members to engage in crime.

Youths with poor parental relationships are more likely to get involved with negative cliques or gangs.

The shared experiences of violence in the gang help shape their identity.

Question 18

Bullying

Answer 18

Bullying can take four major forms; physical, verbal, social or cyber bullying.

Children engage in bullying to seem powerful and gain status but is influences by a range of factors.

Bullies tend to be callous and antisocial, susceptible to peer pressure, in higher social status and have harsh or insensitive parents.

Victims are likely to be rejected by peers, feel depressed and do poorly in school.

There is a bidirectional relationship between aggression and victimisation so its often the case bullies were bullied.

Question 19

Sainio et al (2011)

Answer 19

Found that 3⁄4 of victims report having a classmate who defends them against bullies.

Overtime victimisation increases children’s aggression, withdrawal, depression and loneliness.

Question 20

Sociometric status

Answer 20

Reflects the degree to which children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group. The system classifies people into five groups; popular, rejected, neglected, average or controversial.

Those who are popular or rejected tend to remain in the same category but others are fairly dynamic.

Similar studies have been done in other cultures finding the same patterns. Although in China children who are withdrawn, sensitive and shy were deemed socially competent and as leaders and liked by peers, most likely because their culture values self-effacing, withdrawn behvaiour.

Question 21

Popular individuals

Answer 21

Different to just likeable as they tend to be more influential, not necessarily have more friends and show aggression (relational usually).

Question 22

Relational aggression

Answer 22

Is kind of aggression that involves excluding others from the social group and attempting to do harm to other peoples relationships; spreading rumours about peers, withholding friendship to inflict harm, ignoring peers when angry or frustrated and trying to get one’s own way.

Question 23

Rejected children

Answer 23

Children or adolescents who are liked by few peers and disliked by many peers.

They tend to differ in social motives and how they process social information and report more hostile solutions to social problems. This may be because of a a poorly developed TOM causing a lack of understanding.

Aggressive-rejected children are especially prone to physical aggression, disruptive behaviour, delinquency and negative behaviour such as hostility and threatening others.

A key question is whether peer rejection causes problems at school and in adjustment or whether children’s maladaptive behvaiour leads to both peer rejection and problems at school. Withdrawn- rejected children refers to rejected children that are social withdrawn, wary and often timid.

They are frequently victimised by peers and many feel isolated, lonely and depressed.

Question 24

Neglected children

Answer 24

Children or adolescents who are infrequently mentioned as either liked or disliked, they aren’t noticed much by peers. It’s suggested they are usually socially competent but just withdrawn.

They tend to be less sociable and disruptive than average and receive less support from peers.

Question 25

Controversial children

Answer 25

Children are liked and disliked by quite a few peers.

They tend to have characteristics of both popular and rejected individuals e.g it could be that they are extremely aggressive and have a lot of aggressive friends but also have a lot of victims that dislike them.

Question 26

Gate keeping strategy

Answer 26

Thoughtful and active parenting that fosters positive interaction with peers, stability in friendships, easier friendship formation.

Facilitating contact with the local community, social activities, and extracurricular activities are associated with social competence and peer liking.

Question 27

Monitoring strategy

Answer 27

Parents spend considerable time orchestrating and monitoring their children’s interactions with peers.

Parents decide who their children interact with and how much time they spend with them and doing what activities.

As they grow older the parent has less control over their peer interactions so monitoring becomes more important.

Parental knowledge which is reported by adolescents themselves can show the extent to which their parents are actually aware of their whereabouts, higher levels are correlated with less substance abuse etc.

Question 28

Coaching strategy

Answer 28

Parents teach children strategies for gaining entry to a group that are effective and prosocial associated with accepted children.

Mothers of children low in socio-metric status were found to encourage their child to direct the activity of the group or encourage their child to initiate activities inconsistent with the group’s current activity.

There are various forms such as emotion coaching which provides children with explanations about the acceptability of emotions and how to manage them.

Enhances social skills and negotiation of interpersonal conflict.

Question 29

Attachment style and peer relationships

Answer 29

Affects future social competence and quality of the child’s relationships with others.

It argues that secure attachment style promotes competence with peers in at least three ways; positive social expectations and so in better at more readily, develop understanding of reciprocity in relationships and are confident, friendly and enthusiastic.

Insecure attachment is likely to impair social competence. If parents are hostile or neglectful, the child is more likely to develop a hostile attribution bias. Insecurely attached infants and toddlers tend to be more aggressive, whiny and socially withdrawn (Bohlin et al 2000).

Question 30

Parent child relationships and peer relationships

Answer 30

Warm, accepting and positive parent child interactions is correlated with positive peer relationships.

Parenting that is harsh, authoritarian discipline and low levels of child monitoring is often associated with children’s being unpopular and victimised.

Parents can also serve as a buffer when their children’s peer relationships are not going well. They are less likely to experience depressive symptoms if they had positive close relationships with their parents.

Intergenerational transmission of domestic violence.

Adolescents are unlikely to report violence in a romantic relationship due to engaging in sexual activity early without parental consent due to guilt.

Question 31

Puberty

Answer 31

Development of the capacity to reproduce.

Changes in sex hormones and physical appearance begin around age 11 for both boys and girls.

Although puberty is a normative event the timing of it varies and can account for developmental difficulties.

The timing of pubertal transition in particular is argues it be an important determinant of the relationship between pubertal maturation and psychopathology.

Question 32

The stressful change hypothesis

Answer 32

Caspi and Moffitt (1991)

suggest that pre-existing differences are magnified and accentuated during life course discontinuities.

It’s a period of vulnerability that passes as people catch up.

Change is stressful and effects are immediate and transient.

Question 33

The off-time/deviance hypothesis

Answer 33

Argues departure from the norm for the group is liked to adjustment problems because of social expectations about the timing of developmental events (e.g parents and peers).

Early and late matures are at risk because development is incongruent with others, parents may not be ready for their child to mature so early and put a strain on the dynamic of the relationship.

Late maturation is also associated with problematic parent child relationships because girls strive for individuation but the mothers are less accepting.

Question 34

The early timing hypothesis

Answer 34

more prone to experiencing difficulties because they are less well prepared for pubertal change as their pubertal development may exceed cognitive development.

Curtails the time available to individuals to acquire and assimilate the skills that allow them to successfully adapt to stressful experiences.

Higher levels of depressive symptoms, psychopathology, psychosomatic complaints and eating problems are correlated with early maturation in girls as well as conduct problems, sexual activity and antisocial behaviour including substance use.

Similarly parent child relationships in the families of early maturing boys and girls is characterised by more conflict and decreased closeness, with girls being more vulnerable to fathers hostility. This may be because they push for independence at younger ages that their parents do not allow.

Early matures are also more likely to affiliate with older peer groups that are more likely to be experimenting.

Question 35

Contextual amplification hypothesis

Answer 35

Implies social processes and pubertal transition interact to heighten risk for adjustment problems.

There is evidence that early maturing girls can be heavily stigmatised in a school environment and boys who experience harsh parenting are more likely to affiliate with deviant peers.