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Peer Relationships in Childhood
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to describe the nature and significance of children's peer relationships. It is our intention to argue that such relationships represent contexts within which a significant degree of adaptive development occurs, and that without the experience of normal peer relationships, maladaptive development is likely to follow.
... When a child is socially accepted, he or she is included within the peer group (DeWall & Bushman, 2011;Leary, 2010). The level of children's social acceptance is determined by their social position within their peer group, which stabilizes during early childhood when children spend an increasing amount of time with peers (Deater-Deckard, 2001;Rubin et al., 2015; also see Van der Wilt et al., 2018a;Van der Wilt et al., 2018b). Because children who are accepted by peers have been found to engage in meaningful relationships and have a sense of belonging and worthiness (Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003;Rieffe et al., 2005;Rubin et al., 2015;Weyns et al., 2021), social acceptance is likely to impact children's well-being in school (Slee & Skrzypiec, 2016). ...
... The level of children's social acceptance is determined by their social position within their peer group, which stabilizes during early childhood when children spend an increasing amount of time with peers (Deater-Deckard, 2001;Rubin et al., 2015; also see Van der Wilt et al., 2018a;Van der Wilt et al., 2018b). Because children who are accepted by peers have been found to engage in meaningful relationships and have a sense of belonging and worthiness (Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003;Rieffe et al., 2005;Rubin et al., 2015;Weyns et al., 2021), social acceptance is likely to impact children's well-being in school (Slee & Skrzypiec, 2016). ...
... There are several theories that provide further explanation for the relation between social acceptance and school well-being. That is, according to Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory (1978), social interactions (for which social acceptance is likely to be a prerequisite; Rubin et al., 2015) support children's learning and development. Being able to learn together with peers and having the opportunity to develop oneself is in turn likely to contribute to child well-being (Clarke, 2020;Miller et al., 2013). ...
The present study investigated the relation between social acceptance and school well‐being in early childhood. Additionally, it was explored whether this relation depended on gender and age. In total, N = 311 children (aged 4–7) participated. Social acceptance was assessed with a peer nomination method and school wellbeing was measured with a parent questionnaire. Outcomes of hierarchical multiple regression analysis demonstrated a positive relation between social acceptance and school wellbeing. Regarding the role of gender and age, outcomes indicated that social acceptance was related to school wellbeing only for girls (not boys) and only for younger children (not older children). Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
... Although evidence for peer influences on children's behavior is prevalent, and although values have been said to play a role in the process of peer influence (Rubin et al., 2015), little is known about peers role in shaping children's values. In the present examination, we propose that one factor through which peers influence children's behavior is their personal values. ...
... Piaget (1932) distinguished between the effects of peers from those of adults, in particular, parents and other socialization agents. Whereas adult influence is by definition asymmetrical, exposure to peers provides children with the opportunity to examine or reject conflicting ideas and perspectives (Piaget, 1932;Rubin et al., 2015). More recently, group socialization theory suggests that peers are the most powerful source of influence on children's identity and personality development (Harris, 1995), and ample research demonstrates the impact of peers on children's behavior (e.g., Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011;Underwood et al., 2001;Vandell, 2000). ...
Values serve as guiding principles, motivating specific behaviors, and actions. Peers spend a considerable amount of time together, thus offering a unique platform for the acquisition and development of values. During adolescence, a stage of life when youth are actively defining their identities, peers emerge as vital social agents, contributing significantly to the process of value formation. In this article, I examine the ways peers contribute to the development of youth's values, with a focus on basic personal values theory. This theory sheds light on how and why peers play a role in shaping the values of adolescents. It examines the phenomenon of similarity in peer values ( values similarity ) and explores how factors such as gender, age, and culture act as potential moderators in the relation between peers' and youth's values similarity. I conclude by summarizing key insights and proposing directions for research.
... We believe that there is no group factor more closely related to the actual academic life of sixth graders than the peer relationships they construct through their interpersonal interactions. Peer relationships influence children's social behavior, social adjustment, academic performance and choice of peer conflict resolution strategies (Rubin et al., 2013), which naturally also affect children's decisions of resource allocation. Children will pay attention to the social identity of the recipient when allocating resources. ...
This study investigated the resource allocation of Chinese sixth-graders and the role of peer relationship in different resource conditions (N = 132, Mage = 11. 35 years, SD = 0.60). We designed the resource quantity as a between-group variable, with one group participating in a resource-limited experiment and another group in a resource-abundant experiment. Both groups of children allocated token resources to three types of peers relationships: good friends, disliked individuals, and strangers. Based on our experimental hypotheses, we presupposed three experimental outcomes: selfish allocation, equal allocation, and altruistic allocation. To analyze the data, we employed multivariate unordered regression analysis and performed two rounds of regression analyses using both selfish and altruistic allocations as reference categories to enhance the statistical power of regression model. Our results reveal that the resource quantity had a significant hindering effect on children's allocation behaviors, as the amount of available resources for allocation increased, so did their willingness to allocate selfishly. It was also found that an increase in resources led to a decrease in the proportion of children allocating equally. Nonetheless, the results still revealed generalized peer relationship preferences: children tended to allocate more resources to friends than to individuals they disliked. But when faced with disliked individuals, they were relatively more likely to allocate equally. Finally, we observed the proportion of equal allocation and discussed the similar impact of inequality aversion, different allocation contexts, and children's theory of mind on equitable allocation among sixth-graders.
... Classmate relationships are an important form of companionship that significantly influence the development of adolescents [76,77]. They are emotional connections that are established through specific activities among students in a learning environment [78]. ...
Background
Although previous studies have found a close relationship between sense of place and creativity, few studies have been conducted considering the micro-environment of the classroom. The mediating role of classmate relationships in the association between students’ sense of place and creativity remains unclear.
Methods
This study explores classmate relationships as a mediating factor in the relationship between sense of place and creativity. Therefore, we considered a sample of 1555 Chinese high-school students and used a paper-based questionnaire survey. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 24.0, PROCESS 3.2 plugin, and AMOS.
Results
Sense of place in the micro-environment of the classroom has a significant positive predictive effect on creativity. Sense of place also has a significant positive predictive effect on peer relationships. The mediation analysis reveals that peer relationships play a mediating role in the relationship between the sense of place and creativity.
Conclusions
This study revealed the associations between sense of place, classmate relationships, and creativity. Creativity is better expressed in students with a strong sense of place in the classroom. Moreover, a student’s sense of place can enhance their creativity by influencing their peer relationships. These findings enrich the research in educational psychology within the classroom, providing new insights for fostering creativity.
... Our results suggest that the positive qualities of these relationships may be limited for children whose mothers are currently experiencing depression. Prior research established that children of currently depressed mothers may be less likely to express positive affect (Isley et al., 1999), which has implications for behavior during play, a key aspect of friendship during middle childhood (Rubin et al., 2015). While relatively less research focused specifically on best friendships, Hipwell et al. (2005) found that children of depressed moms were more likely to display active aggression with their best friend. ...
... Interestingly, this effect was only found in 10-year-old youth, and not their younger peers. Although speculative, perhaps changes in (a) parental monitoring of media [23]; (b) knowledge about Internet complexity [24]; (c) importance and function of peer relationships [25]; and (d) myriad cognitive developmental processes (e.g., verbal working memory and visual spatial working memory [26]), play an important role. Juxtaposed with owning technology that affords the user the ability to harm another online, this creates an environment suitable for cyberbullying. ...
Cyberbullying has emerged as a societal issue, and the majority of the research examining cyberbullying perpetration samples adolescent and/or emerging adult populations. A paucity of empirical attention has focused on young children (aged 8-10) regarding their cyberbullying frequency and predictors. The current study sampled 142 US youth aged 8-10 years and assessed their cyberbullying perpetration rate and cellular phone ownership. Results indicated that (a) older participants were more likely to cyberbully than their younger peers; (b) higher rates of cyberbullying were found for youth who already owned a cellular phone; and (c) an interaction between participant age and cellular phone ownership was found, suggesting that cyberbullying was highest for only the 10-year-old group who owned a cellular phone. These findings have implications for (a) parents, school administrators, health care providers, and anyone else interested in better understanding the predictors of cyberbullying perpetration; (b) intervention specialists focused on reducing cyberbullying in youth; and (c) a researcher interested in understanding the basic theoretical underpinnings of cyberbullying. Based on these findings, we recommend that (a) cyberbullying interventions be administered to youth as early as elementary school; (b) parents/guardians carefully consider the positive and negative consequences of youth cellular phone usage; and (c) increased communication between youth and parents/guardians concerning youth cellular phone activities.
Sociocultural competence is the third goal of TWI programs, yet there is a lack of consensus on what it looks like in terms of student outcomes in the classroom. As an inherently social construct, sociocultural competence leads to successful interactions with people who are different from each other along various dimensions. Sociocultural competence in TWI classrooms, specifically, may manifest in successful friendship formation among students across different language and cultural groups. We use Social Network Analysis to investigate a friendship network in one TWI kindergarten classroom in Costa Rica using a measure of “homophily” – the tendency for people to create ties with people who are similar to themselves. Findings from the data in this study reveal patterns of friendship that indicate higher levels of sociocultural competence for bilingual students, both individually and as a group, in that they more regularly establish friendships across language groups in their classroom (showing less homophily) than do English or Spanish dominant students. A major contribution of this paper is to show how social network theory can be leveraged to help better specify and measure sociocultural competence in the TWI classroom by looking across different levels of analyses.
50 free copies available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XHP83TFS7VXRYPSTB42N/full?target=10.1080/15235882.2023.2279098
This study aimed to assess the influence of peer relationships on the self-consciousness and social adaptation of school-aged children in the Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used, with a population of 60,780 (29,968 males and 30,812 females). A multi-stage sampling method was employed to select 602 school-aged children from 58 schools in the Local Government Area, forming the sample for the study. For data collection, the study used questionnaires. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that more than half of the respondents (62.6%) showed moderate social adaptation, particularly when they were with their families (mean score of 4.53±2.31). The majority (76.6%) had low peer relationships, while 80.6% had high self-consciousness. The mean scores for peer relationships, self-consciousness, and social adaptation differed between male and female respondents. Females had higher peer relationships and social adaptation. The mean score for peer relationships was higher among students in private schools compared to those in public schools. A moderate positive relationship was found between peer relationships and social adaptation at a significance level of p<0.05. It is recommended that governmental and non-governmental organizations organize programs to facilitate peer relationships and social adaptation among school-aged children. Furthermore, teachers and parents should be educated to provide support to children in these areas.
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