Peer Relationships
How Children Develop (3rd ed.)
Siegler, DeLoache & Eisenberg
Chapter 13
I. What’s Special About Peer Relationships?

Peers are people of
approximately
the same age and status.

Theorists such as Piaget,
Vygotsky, and Sullivan have
argued that peer
relationships provide a
unique context for cognitive,
social, and emotional
development.
 In their view, the equality,
reciprocity, cooperation, and
intimacy that can develop in
peer relationships enhance
children’s reasoning ability
and their concern for others.
Overview

Friendships

Status in the Peer Group

Role of Parents in Children’s Peer
Relationships
Friendships
Friendships

Intimate, reciprocated
positive relationships
between people

The degree to which
the conditions of
friendship become
evident in peer
interactions increases
with age during
childhood.
Early Peer Interactions

Some researchers have argued that children can
have friends by or before age 2.

Even 12- to 18-month-olds seem to select and
prefer some children over others.

Starting at around 20
months of age, children
also increasingly
initiate more
interactions with some
children than with
others.
Early Peer Interactions

By the age of 2, children begin to
develop skills that allow greater complexity
in their social interactions.

These include imitating other
people’s social behavior, engaging in
cooperative problem solving, and
reversing roles during play.

These more complex skills tend to be in
greater evidence in the play of friends than
of nonfriends.
Developmental Changes

Between ages 6 and 8,
children define friendship
primarily on the basis of
actual activities and view
friends in terms of rewards
and costs.

Between the early school
years and adolescence,
children increasingly
experience and define their
friendships in terms of
mutual liking, closeness,
and loyalty.

More than younger friends,
adolescents use friendship
as a context for selfexploration and working out
personal problems.
Dimensions on Which Elementary School
Children Often Evaluate Their Friendships
Dimension
Validation and
Caring
Conflict
Resolution
Conflict and
Betrayal
Help and
Guidance
Indicators
Makes me feel good about my ideas.
Tells me I am good at things.
Make up easily when we have a fight.
Talk about how to get over being mad.
Argue a lot.
Doesn’t listen to me.
Help each other with schoolwork a lot.
Loan each other things all the time.
Companionship
and Recreation
Intimate
Exchange
Always sit together at lunch.
Do fun things together a lot.
Always tell each other our problems.
Tell each other secrets.
Functions of Friendships




Friends can provide a source of emotional support, validation
and security.
Can help to develop social and cognitive skills by providing
feedback.
The support of friends can be particularly important during
difficult transition periods.
Friendships may also serve as a buffer against unpleasant
experiences.

Among children who were
victimized by peers, children
who showed increases in
adjustment problems a year
later were those who did not
have a reciprocated best
friendship (i.e., a friendship
in which two children view
each other as best or close
friends).
Possible Costs of Friendships

In elementary school, children who
have antisocial and aggressive
friends tend to exhibit antisocial and
aggressive tendencies themselves.

However, it is unclear whether
having aggressive friends actually
causes children and adolescents to
behave aggressively or if aggressive
children gravitate toward one another.
Possible Costs of Friendships

Whether having an aggressive friend
affects a child’s own behavior over time
may depend on the child’s baseline
level of aggression.

Young adolescents who are somewhat
aggressive and disruptive, but who do
not yet exhibit a high level of such
behavior, seem to be the most
vulnerable to the negative influence of
aggressive and disruptive friends.
Possible Costs of Friendships

The extent to which friends’
use of drugs and alcohol may
put an adolescent at risk
seems to depend, in part, on
the nature of the child-parent
relationship.

If the adolescent’s parents are
authoritative in their
parenting rather than cold
and detached, the adolescent
is more likely to be protected
against peer pressure to use
drugs.
Choice of Friends

By age 7, children tend to like peers who are similar
to themselves in the cognitive maturity of their play
and in their aggressive behavior.

Fourth- to eighth-grade friends are more similar than
nonfriends in prosocial behaviors, antisocial
behavior, peer acceptance, and academic
motivation.

Adolescent friends tend to have similar interests,
attitudes, and behavior.
Status in the
Peer Group
Measurement of Peer Status

The most common method used to assess
peer status is to ask children to rate how
much they like or dislike each of their
classmates or to nominate some of those
whom they like the most or least, or whom
they do or don’t like to play with.

The information from these procedures is
used to calculate children’s sociometric
status – a measurement of the degree to
which children are liked or disliked by their
peers as a group.
Characteristics
Associated with Sociometric Status

Peer status is affected by the child’s:







Attractiveness
Athletic ability
Social behavior
Personality
Cognitions about self and others
Goals when interacting with peers
Peer status is also influenced by the status
of the child’s friends.
Common Sociometric Categories
Category
Popular
Description
Children who receive many positive nominations and
few negative nominations.
Rejected
Children who receive many negative nominations and
few positive nominations.
Neglected
Children who are low in social impact (i.e., they receive
few positive or negative nominations). These children
are not especially liked or disliked by peers; they simply
go unnoticed.
Average
Children are designated as average if they receive an
average number of both positive and negative
nominations.
Controversial Children who receive many positive and many negative
nominations. They are noticed by peers and are liked by
a quite a few children and disliked by quite a few others.
Popular Children


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.
Popular Children

Important to differentiate between children who are
popular in terms of sociometric measures and those
who are perceived by peers as being popular with
others.

Individuals with high status in the peer group are
often labeled “popular” by peers, but tend to be
above average in aggression and use it to obtain
their goals.

The relationship between perceived popularity and
aggression is especially high in adolescence,
particularly among high-status girls, who may use
relational aggression to hurt others by spreading
rumors or withholding friendship.
Rejected Children

A category of sociometric status that refers
to children or adolescents who are liked by
few peers and disliked by many peers.

A majority of rejected children tend to fall
into two categories:
AggressiveRejected
WithdrawnRejected
Aggressive-Rejected Children

Are especially prone to hostile and threatening
behavior, physical aggression, disruptive
behavior, and delinquency.



About 40% to 50% of rejected children tend to be
aggressive.
When they are angry or want their own way, many
rejected children also engage in relational
aggression.
Aggressive behavior often underlies rejection
by peers.

However, not all aggressive peers are rejected;
some develop a network of aggressive friends.
Withdrawn-Rejected Children

Are socially withdrawn, wary, and
often timid


Make up about between 10-25% of the rejected
category
Not all socially withdrawn children are
rejected or socially excluded.

Rather, it appears that withdrawn behavior
combined with negative actions or emotions is
correlated with rejection, although this pattern
may change with age.
Social Cognition and Social Rejection

Rejected children, particularly those
who are aggressive, tend to differ
from more popular children in their
social motives and their processing of
information in social situations.

Are also more likely to attribute hostile
motives to others in negative social situations
and to have more difficulty than other children
in finding constructive solutions to difficult
social situations.
Neglected Children

A category of sociometric status that refers to
children or adolescents who are infrequently
mentioned as liked or disliked.

Display relatively few
behaviors that differ
greatly from those of
many other children

Appear to be
neglected primarily
because they are not
noticed
Controversial Children

A category of sociometric status that
refers to children or adolescents who
are liked by quite a few peers and are
disliked by quite a few others

Tend to have characteristics of both
popular and rejected children.

Some peers view such children as
arrogant and snobbish.
Fostering Children’s
Peer Acceptance

Social skills training is a common
approach for assisting rejected children.

Based on the assumption that rejected
children lack social skills that promote
positive interaction with peers.

These deficits are viewed as occurring at
three levels:
1.
2.
3.
Lack of social knowledge
Performance problems
Lack of appropriate monitoring and self-evaluation
Fostering Children’s
Peer Acceptance

Some social skills training programs
teach children:





To pay attention to what is going on in a group of
peers
To rehearse skills related to participating with peers
To cooperate
To communicate in positive ways
For aggressive-rejected children,
some training programs focus on
changing faulty social perception.
Peer Status as a
Predictor of Risk

Rejected children, especially those
who are aggressive, are more likely
than their peers to have difficulties in
the academic domain.

The tendency of rejected children to do
more poorly in school worsens over
time.

Approximately 25% to 30% of rejected
children drop out of school compared
with 8% or less of other children.
Relation of Children’s Sociometric Status
to Academic and Behavioral Problems
Problems with Adjustment

Children who are rejected in the elementary
school years, especially aggressive-rejected
boys, are at risk for externalizing symptoms
(i.e., showing outwardly expressed behavior
problems such as aggression, delinquency,
attention disorders, conduct disorder, and
substance abuse).

These symptoms appear to increase
between grades six and ten.
Problems with Adjustment

Peer rejection may also be associated with
internalizing problems (i.e., internally
expressed problems such as loneliness,
depressive, withdrawn behavior, and
obsessive-compulsive behavior).


In one study, both boys and girls who were
assessed as rejected in third grade were at risk for
developing internalizing problems years later.
Children in Western cultures who are very
withdrawn but nonaggressive with peers are also
at risk for internalizing problems.
Problems with Adjustment

Children, especially males, who are socially
withdrawn with familiar peers may differ in
important ways from their peers even in
adulthood.

Men who were withdrawn children have
been observed to have less stable careers
and marriages than their peers, and females
who were withdrawn as girls have been
characterized as less likely than other
women to have careers outside the home.
Problems with Adjustment

Rejected children who are
victimized, that is, who are targets
of their peers’ aggressive and
demeaning behavior, may be
especially at risk for loneliness and
other internalizing behavior.

Victimized children tend to be
aggressive as well as withdrawn
and anxious.
The Role of Parents in
Children’s Peer Relationships
Relations Between Attachment
and Competence with Peers

Security of the
parent-child
relationship is linked
with quality
of peer relationships.

Probably arises from both
the early and the continuing
effect that parent-child
attachment has on the
quality of the child’s overall
social behavior

Also possible that
characteristics of children,
such as sociability,
influence both the quality of
attachments and the quality
of relationships with peers
Quality of Parent-Child Interactions
and Peer Relationships

Parent-child interactions are associated with
peer relationships in much the same way that
attachment patterns are.

Mothers of popular children are more likely than
mothers of less popular children to discuss feelings
with their children and to use warm control, positive
verbalizations, reasoning, and explanations.

Fathers’ parenting practices in general appear to be
somewhat less closely related to children’s social
competence and sociometric status.
Parental Beliefs and Behaviors

Parents of children who are
socially competent with peers
are more likely to:


Believe that they should play an
active role in teaching their children
social skills
Provide opportunities for peer
interaction
Gatekeeping,
Coaching, and Modeling

Parents act as
gatekeepers,
controlling
opportunities for peer
interactions.

Preschoolers whose
parents arrange and
oversee opportunities
for them to interact with
peers tend to be more
positive and social with
peers and to have more
companions – so long
as their parents are not
overly controlling
during the interactions.
Gatekeeping,
Coaching, and Modeling

Preschool children
tend to be more
popular if their
parents effectively
coach them in how
to deal with
unfamiliar peers.

Parents also
influence their
children’s
competence with
peers by modeling
socially competent
and incompetent
behaviors.