CHAPTER 16
Peers
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
This chapter focuses on the importance of peers and play. It explores the roles that friends play in development and discusses peer and romantic relationships in adolescence.
1. Peer Relations
A. Peer Ggroup Functionss
1. Peers are children of about the same age or maturity level.
2. Functions of peer group
a) Social comparison
(1) Children receive feedback about their abilities from their peer groups.
(2) Children evaluate what they do in terms of whether it is better, as good as, or worse than what other children do.
b) Source of information beyond family
c) Support for normal development
(1) Inability to operate in a social network is associated with developmental problems.
(2) Social isolation is linked with many problems and disorders ranging from delinquency and problem drinking to depression.
3. Piaget and Sullivan stressed that peers provide context for learning the symmetrical reciprocity mode of relationships.
4. Peer relations are complex and can have both positive and negative influences on development.
B. The Distinct but Coordinated Worlds of Parents and Peers
1. Common characteristics (touch, smile, vocalize)
2. Healthy family relationships promote positive peer relations.
3. Parents also may model or coach their children in the ways of relating to peers.
4. Parents’ choices of neighborhoods, churches, schools, and their own friends influence the pool from which their children might select possible friends.
5. In times of stress, children often move towards their parents rather than towards their peers.
6. Peer relations are more equitable than parent-child relations.
C. Developmental Course of Peer Relations in Childhood
Distinct Worlds of Parent-Child and Peer-Relations
Common characteristics (touch, smile, vocalize)
D. Healthy family relationships promote positive peer relations.
E. Parents also may model or coach their children in the ways of relating to peers.
F. Parents choose contexts that influence peer selections.
G. Parents’ choices of neighborhoods, churches, schools, and their own friends influence the pool from which their children might select possible friends.
H. Rough-and-tumble play occurs in peer relationships.
I. In times of stress, children often move towards their parents rather than towards their peers.
J. Peer relations are more equitable than parent-child relations.
Development of Peer Relations
1. Infancy
a) The quality of peer interaction in infancy provides valuable information about social development.
b) As increasing numbers of children attend day care, peer interaction in infancy takes on a more important developmental role.
2. Childhood/adolescence
a) The frequency of peer interaction, both positive and negative, picks up considerably during early childhood.
b) Although aggressive interaction and rough-and-tumble play increase, the proportion of aggressive exchanges, compared to friendly exchanges, decreases.
c) Children tend to abandon their immature and inefficient social exchanges with age and acquire more mature ways of relating to peers.
d) Children spend an increasing amount of time in peer interaction during middle and late childhood and adolescence.
K. Social Cognition
Children spend an increasing amount of time in peer interaction during middle and late childhood and adolescence.
1. Social cognition includes thought about social matters.
2. Perspective taking involves taking another’s point of view.
3. Information-processing: A model of cognition that includes five steps:
a) Decoding social cues
b) Interpreting
c) Searching for a response
d) Selecting an optimal response
e) Enacting the response
4. Social knowledge is involved in children’s ability to get along with peers.
5. An important part of children’s social life involves choosing which goals to pursue in poorly defined or ambiguous situations.
L. Peer Statuses
1. Popular students are more frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers.
2. Popular children give out reinforcements, listen carefully, maintain open lines of communication with peers, are happy, act like themselves, show enthusiasm and concern for others, and are self-confident without being conceited.
3. Neglected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not disliked by their peers.
4.
5. Rejected children are infrequently nominated as someone’s best friend and are actively disliked by their peers. Rejected children often have more serious adjustment problems than those who are neglected. Not all rejected children are aggressive; about 10 to 20% of rejected children are shy.
6. Controversial children are frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked.
7. Girls who had controversial status in the fourth grade were more likely to become adolescent mothers than were girls of other peer classes..
Rejected children are infrequently nominated as someone’s best friend and are actively disliked by their peers.
8. Rejected children often have more serious adjustment problems than those who are neglected.
Not all rejected children are aggressive; about 10 to 20% of rejected children are shy.
9. Controversial children are frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked.
10. Girls who had controversial status in the fourth grade were more likely to become adolescent mothers than were girls of other peer classes.
M. Bullying
1. Bullying can be defined as verbal or physical behavior intended to disturb someone less powerful.
2. Significant numbers of students are victimized by bullies.
3. Bullied children report more loneliness and difficulty in making friends while bullies are more likely to have low grades and to smoke and drink alcohol.
Children’s behavior is influenced by their relationship histories
4. Certain parenting behaviors may be associated with bullying in children.
a) Rejection
b) Authoritarian parenting style
c) Permissiveness towards aggression
d) Families characterized by discord
5. Whipping boys tend to have anxious, overprotective parents and parents who take special care to avoid aggression.
6. Parents of well- adjusted boys promote the development of self-assertion rather than aggression or wimpish behaviors.
N. Gender and Peer Relations
1. There is increasing evidence that gender plays an important role in peer relations.
2. Children show a preference to spend time with same-sex playmates around age 5 and this increases during the elementary school years.
3. Boys are more likely to interact in large groups from about age five onward, while girls are more likely to play in dyads or triads.
4. Boys are more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play and competition and girls are more likely to engage in “collaborative discourse.”
II. Dimensions of Social Cognition
A. Perspective taking involves taking another’s point of view.
B. Information-processing. A model of cognition concerned with
a) how individuals process information about their world.
b) how information enters the mind, how it is stored and transformed
c) how it is retrieved to perform such complex activities as problem solving and reasoning affects peer relationships
C. Social knowledge is also involved in children’s ability to get along with peers.
An important part of children’s social life involves choosing which goals to pursue in poorly defined or ambiguous situations.
III. Play
A. Play is a pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake.is a pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake
Play is a pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake.
B. Functions of the peer groupPlay’s Functions
1. Peer affiliationInreases affiliation with peers
2. Tension releaseReleases tension
3. CognitionAdvancesd cognitive development
4. ExplorationIncreases exploration
C. Parten's categories of social playClassic Study of Play
1. Unoccupied play occurs when the child is not engaging in active play as it is commonly understood and may stand in one spot, look around the room, or perform random movements that do not seem to have a goal.
2. Solitary play occurs when the child plays alone.
3. Onlooker play occurs when the child watches other children play.
4. Parallel play occurs when the child plays separately from others, but with toys like the others are using or in a manner that mimics their play.
5. Associative play occurs when play involves social interaction with little or no organization.
6. Cooperative play involves social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity and organized activity.
7. Developmental changes in social play progress from solitary and parallel to cooperative associative and associative.cooperative.
D. Types of Play
Social and cognitive aspects of play are considered important today.
1. Sensorimotor play is behavior engaged in by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their existing sensorimotor schemas.
2. Practice play involves the repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skill are required for games or sports.
3. Pretend or symbolic play occurs when the child transforms the physical environment into a symbol.
4. Social play is pleasurable activity that involves social interaction with peers.
5. Constructive play combines sensorimotor/practice repetitive activity with symbolic representation of ideas. Constructive play occurs when children engage in self-regulated creation or construction of a product or a problem solution.
6. Games are activities engaged in for pleasure that included rules and often competition with one or more individuals.
E. The Sociocultural Contexts of Play
1. Modern children are more restricted than were children in previous years.
2. Modern children spend a large part of their lives alone with their toys, which was inconceivable several centuries earlier.
3. Some children may be capable of high-level imaginative, play but require adult prompting and encouragement to overcome their initial shyness.
4. Culture and socioeconomic factors influence form and content of play.
Culture and socioeconomic factors influence form and content of playy
The typical daycare or preschool environment is designed for middle-class children
a) Play experts recommend that children from low-income backgrounds be given considerable time to adapt to these new surroundings.
b) Educators should be ready to modify the environment to accommodate the diverse backgrounds of children.
IV. Friendship
A. Friendship’s Functions of friendship
1. Companionship. Friendship provides children with a familiar partner, someone who is willing to spend time with them and join in collaborative activities.
2. Stimulation. Friendship provides adolescents with interesting information, excitement, and amusement.
3. Physical support. Friendship give friends time,provides resources and assistance.
4. Ego support. Friendship provides the expectation of support, encouragement, and feedback that helps children to maintain an impression of themselves as competent, attractive, and worthwhile individuals.
5. Social Comparison. Friendship provides information about where children stand vis-à-vis others and whether children are doing okay.
6. Intimacy/affection. Friendship provides children with a warm, close, trusting relationship with another individual, a relationship that involves self-disclosure.
B. Sullivan's ideas: Adolescent friendship’s importancet
1. Sullivan argued that there is a dramatic increase in the psychological importance and intimacy of close friends during early adolescence.
2. Teenagers that fail to form close friendships feel lonelier and more depressed and have a lower sense of self-esteem than do teenagers with intimate friendships.
3. Adolescent friends support one another’s sense of personal worth. When close friends disclose their insecurities and fears, they discover they are not “abnormal.” They provide emotional support, and they provide informational advice.
C. Intimacy and Similarity
1. Two of the most common characteristics of friendships are:
a) Intimacy, which is defined narrowly as self-disclosure or sharing of private thoughts.
b) Similarity in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, and many other factors, is also important to friendship.
D. Mixed-age friendships
1. Friendships with older individuals are associated with more deviant behaviors.
2. Early-maturing girls are more likely to have older friends.
V. Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships
A. Early-maturing girls more likely to have older friends.
B. Peer Pressure and Conformity
1. Conformity to peer pressure in adolescence can be positive or negative.
2. Peer pressure is strongest in grades 8 and 9.
C. Cliques and Crowds
1. Cliques are smaller, involve greater intimacy among members, and have more group cohesion than crowds.
2. Crowds are the largest and least personal of adolescent groups.Cliques exist in secondary schools.
3. Cliques are smaller, involve greater intimacy among members, and have more group cohesion than crowds.
Crowds are the largest and least personal of adolescent groups.
4. The self-esteem of the jocks and popularss was found to be highest in research, whereas that of the nobodies was lowest.
5. One group of adolescents not in a clique had self-esteem equivalent to that of the jocks and the popularss; this group was comprised of independents who indicated that clique membership was not important to them.Clique membership is associated with higher esteem.
Allegiance to cliques, clubs, organizations, and teams exerts powerful control over the lives of many adolescents.
VI. The self-esteem of the jocks and populars was found to be highest in research, whereas that of the nobodies was lowest.
One group of adolescents not in a clique had self-esteem equivalent to that of the jocks and the populars; this group was comprised of independents who indicated that clique membership was not important to them.
A. Adolescent Groups Versus Child Groups
1. The members of children groups often are friends of neighborhood acquaintances, and their groups usually are not as formalized as many adolescent groups.
2. Adolescent groups tend to include a broad array of members, are more heterogeneous, and are more formal than child groups.
3. Mixed sex participation in groups increases during adolescence. Leaders and high status members form further cliques based on mixed-sex relationships.
4. In late adolescence the crowd dissolves as couples develop serious relationsipsrelationships and make plans to engage and marry.Children's groups are less formal, less heterogeneous, and less mixed-sex than adolescent groups.
B. Dating and Romantic Relationships
1. Functions of Dating
a) In past years, courtship was a major function of dating and romantic relationships.
Most girls in the United States begin dating at the age of 14, whereas most boys begin sometime between the ages of 14 to 15.
The majority of adolescents have their first date between the ages of 12 and 16.
b) Current functions: Status, achievement, recreation, learning about close relationships, and mate selection. learning about intimacy, sexual experimentation, identity formation
2. Types of dating and developmental changes
a) Developmental changes in datingcharacterize developmental changes in dating.