1. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 1 16—Peers Peer Relations Play Friendship Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic RelationshipsAdolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Summary

2. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 2 Peer Relations Peer Group Functions –Peers: Children of about the same age or maturity level. –One of the most important functions of the peer group is to provide a source of information and comparison about the world outside the family. –Peer interactions also fill socioemotional needs.

3. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 3 Peer Relations The Developmental Course of Peer Relations in Childhood –Some researchers believe that the quality of peer interaction in infancy provides valuable information about social development (Vandell, 1985). –The preference for spending time with same-sex playmates begins around age 3 and increases in early childhood, with reciprocity becoming important as children enter the elementary school years. –Children spend an increasing amount of time in peer interaction during middle and late childhood and adolescence.

4. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 4 Peer Relations The Developmental Course of Peer Relations in Childhood –Gender influences the composition and size of children’s interactions, with girls’ groups being smaller and more intimate. –Boys are more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play, competition, conflict, ego displays, risk taking, and dominance seeking, while girls are more likely to engage in collaborative discourse.

5. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 5 Peer Relations The Distinct but Coordinated Worlds of Parent- Child and Peer Relations –Parental Influence Affects children’s peer relations directly and indirectly. Parents coach their children in ways of relating to peers, and those who frequently initiate peer contacts for preschool children are more accepted by their peers and have more prosocial behavior. Parents manage their children’s lives and opportunities for interacting with peers.

6. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 6 Peer Relations Parental Influence (continued) Parent-child relationships serve as emotional bases for exploring and enjoying peer relations. –Bullies’ parents are rejecting, authoritarian, and permissive about aggression. –Whipping boys’ parents are anxious and overprotective. –Well-adjusted boys’ parents do not sanction aggression and are responsively involved.

7. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 7 Peer Relations Peer Aggression and Parent-Child Relationship Histories Refer to Figure 16.1

8. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 8 Peer Relations Social Cognition and Emotion –Perspective Taking: Taking another’s point of view. Perspective-taking skills have been linked with the quality of peer relations, especially in the elementary school years. –Social Information-Processing Skills Kenneth Dodge (1993) argues that children go through five steps in processing information about their social world: decoding social cues, interpreting, searching for a response, selecting an optimal response, and enacting it.

9. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 9 Peer Relations The Development of Communication Skills Refer to Figure 16.2

10. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 10 Peer Relations Social Cognition and Emotion (continued) –Social Knowledge The social cognitive perspective views children who are maladjusted as lacking social cognitive skills to interact effectively with others (Rabiner et al., 1991). –Emotion The ability to regulate emotion is linked to successful peer relations.

11. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 11 Peer Relations Peer Statuses –Popular children are frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers. –Average children receive an average number of positive and negative nominations from peers. –Neglected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not disliked by their peers. –Rejected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend and are actively disliked by their peers. –Controversial children are frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked.

12. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 12 Peer Relations Peer Statuses (continued) –Rejected children often have more serious adjustment problems than those who are neglected. –Being rejected by peers and being aggressive forecasts problems, but not all rejected children are aggressive. –Neglected and rejected children can be trained to interact more effectively with their peers; however, it is difficult to improve the social skills of adolescents who are actively disliked and rejected.

13. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 13 Peer Relations Bullying –Significant numbers of students are victimized by bullies. –Bullies are more likely to have low grades and to smoke and drink alcohol. –Victims of bullies are more lonely, have difficulty making friends, and have a higher incidence of headaches, sleeping problems, abdominal pain, fatigue, and depression. –Bully victims are the most troubled, displaying high levels of conduct, school, and relationship problems.

14. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 14 Peer Relations Bullying Behaviors among U.S. Youth Refer to Figure 16.3

15. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 15 Peer Relations The Role of Culture in Peer Relations –Peer groups are often segregated according to socioeconomic status and ethnicity. –Middle-SES students often assume leadership roles in formal organizations, but African American and low- income adolescents are able to gain parity or surpass middle- and upper-SES adolescents in athletic groups. –For many ethnic minority youth, their own ethnic group provides a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood. –In some cultures, peers assume adult responsibilities.

16. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 16 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 1 Discuss peer relations in childhood –Review What are the functions of peer groups? What is the developmental course of peer relations in childhood? How are the worlds of parents and peers distinct but coordinated?

17. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 17 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 1 –Review (continued) How is social cognition involved in peer relations? How is emotion involved in peer relations? How are peer statuses related to development? What is the nature of bullying? How are peer relations influenced by culture?

18. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 18 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 1 –Reflect Think back to your middle school/junior high and high school years. What was your relationship with your parents like? Were you securely attached or insecurely attached to them? How do you think your relationship with your parents affected your friendship and peer relations?

19. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 19 Play –A pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake; social play is one type of play. Play’s Function –Play is essential to a young child’s health. Play therapy is used by therapists to allow children to work off frustrations and to provide an opportunity for analyzing children’s conflicts and ways of coping. Children may feel less threatened and be more likely to express their true feelings in the context of play.

20. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 20 Play Play’s Function (continued) –Play releases tension, advances cognitive development, and increases exploration. –Play also increases affiliation with peers, raising the probability that children will interact and converse with each other. –During play, children practice the roles they will assume later in life.

21. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 21 Play Parten’s Classic Study of Play –Unoccupied play: Play in which the child is not engaging in play as it is commonly understood and might stand in one spot, look around the room, or perform random movements that do not seem to have a goal. –Solitary play: Play in which the child plays alone and independently of others.

22. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 22 Play Parten’s Classic Study of Play (continued) –Onlooker play: Play in which the child watches other children play. –Parallel play: Play in which the child plays separately from others, but with toys like those the others are using or in a manner that mimics their play.

23. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 23 Play Parten’s Classic Study of Play (continued) –Associative play: Play that involves social interaction with little or no organization. –Cooperative play: Play that involves social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity and organized activity.

24. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 24 Play Types of Play –Sensorimotor and Practice Play Sensorimotor play: Behavior by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their sensorimotor schemas. Practice play: Play that involves repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports. Practice play can be engaged in throughout life.

25. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 25 Play Types of Play (continued) –Pretense/symbolic play: Play that occurs when a child transforms the physical environment into a symbol. –Social play: Play that involves social interactions with peers.

26. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 26 Play Types of Play (continued) –Constructive play: Play that 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. –Games: Activities engaged in for pleasure that include rules and often competition with one or more individuals.

27. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 27 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 2 Describe children’s play –Review What are the functions of play? How would you describe Parten’s classic study of play? What are the different types of play?

28. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 28 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 2 –Reflect Do you think most young children’s lives today are too structured? Do young children have too little time to play? Explain.

29. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 29 Friendship Friendship’s Functions –Companionship –Stimulation –Physical support –Ego support –Social comparison –Intimacy/affection

30. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 30 Friendship Friendship’s Functions –Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) contended that in addition to parents’ influence on development, friends also play important roles in shaping children’s and adolescents’ well-being and development. The need for intimacy intensifies during early adolescence, motivating teenagers to seek out close friends who support one another’s sense of personal worth.

31. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 31 Friendship Developmental Changes in Self-Disclosing Conversations Refer to Figure 16.4

32. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 32 Friendship –Willard Hartup (1996, 2000) concluded that children often use friends as cognitive and social resources on a regular basis. –The quality of friendships is more positive when friends engage in prosocial behavior and more negative when they engage in aggressive behavior.

33. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 33 Friendship Similarity and Intimacy –Friends are generally similar in age, sex, ethnicity, and other factors; they often have similar attitudes toward school, similar educational aspirations, and closely aligned achievement orientations. –Intimacy in Friendship Self-disclosure or the sharing of private thoughts. Friendship intimacy is more prominent in 13- to 16- year-olds than in 10- to 13-year-olds. The friendships of girls are more intimate than the friendships of boys.

34. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 34 Friendship Mixed-Age Friendships –Parents’ concerns that adolescents who have older friends will be encouraged to engage in delinquent behavior or early sexual behavior are supported by the research, although it could be that younger adolescents were already prone to deviant behavior before they developed their friendships with older youths.

35. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 35 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 3 Explain friendship –Review What are six functions of friendship? What is Sullivan’s view of friendship? What role do similarity and intimacy play in friendship? What is the developmental outcome of mixed-age friendship?

36. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 36 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 3 –Reflect Examine the list of six functions of friendships at the beginning of this section. Rank order the six functions from most (1) to least (6) important as you were growing up.

37. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 37 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Peer Pressure and Conformity –Conformity to peer pressure in adolescence can be positive or negative. –Around eighth and ninth grades, conformity to peers peaks.

38. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 38 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Cliques and Crowds –Cliques and crowds assume more important roles in the lives of adolescents than children. Cliques: Small groups that range from 2 to about 12 individuals and average about 5 to 6 individuals. Cliques can form because of friendship or because individuals engage in similar activities, and members usually are of the same sex and about the same age.

39. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 39 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Cliques and Crowds (continued) Crowds: The crowd is a larger group structure than a clique. Adolescents usually are members of a crowd based on reputation and may or may not spend much time together. Many crowds are defined by the activities adolescents engage in.

40. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 40 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Adolescent Groups versus Child Groups –The members of child groups often are friends or neighborhood acquaintances, and their groups usually are not as formalized as many adolescent groups; adolescent groups tend to include a broader array of members. –Rules and regulations are usually defined more precisely in adolescent peer groups. –During adolescence, mixed-sex participation in groups increases.

41. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 41 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dunphy’s Progression of Peer Group Relations in Adolescence Refer to Figure 16.5

42. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 42 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dating and Romantic Relationships –It is through dating that more serious contacts between the sexes occur. –Heterosexual Romantic Relationships A number of developmental changes characterize heterosexual dating. Adolescents often find comfort in numbers and begin to hang out together in heterosexual groups. Cyberdating poses potential hazards; so does early dating.

43. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 43 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dating and Romantic Relationships (continued) –Romantic Relationships in Sexual Minority Youth Most sexual minority youth have same-sex experience but relatively few have same-sex romantic relationships because of limited opportunities and the social disapproval such relationships may generate.

44. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 44 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Age of Onset of Heterosexual Romantic Activity Refer to Figure 16.6

45. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 45 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dating and Romantic Relationships (continued) –Dating Scripts The cognitive models that adolescents and adults use to guide and evaluate dating interactions. Male dating scripts are proactive, those of females are reactive, and these gender differences in dating scripts give males more power in the initial stage of a dating relationship. Male and female adolescents bring different motivations to the dating experience.

46. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 46 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dating and Romantic Relationships (continued) –Emotion and Romantic Relationships The strong emotions of romantic relationships can thrust adolescents into a world in which things are turned upside down and ordinary reality recedes from view (Larson, Clore, & Wood, 1999). The strong emotions of romance can have disruptive effects on adolescents; conversely, they can also provide a source for mastery and growth.

47. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 47 Adolescence, Peers, and Romantic Relationships Dating and Romantic Relationships (continued) –Sociocultural Contexts and Dating The sociocultural context exerts a powerful influence on adolescent dating patterns and on mate selection (Booth, 2002; Stevenson & Zusho, 2002). Cultural values and religious beliefs often dictate structures for dating, thus dating can be a source of cultural conflict for adolescents whose families have come from cultures in which dating standards are more strict.

48. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 48 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 4 Characterize peer relations and romantic relationships in adolescence –Review What is peer pressure and conformity like in adolescence? How are cliques and crowds involved in adolescent development? How do adolescents’ groups differ from children’s groups? What is the nature of adolescent dating and romantic relationships?

49. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 49 Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 4 –Reflect What were your peer relationships like during adolescence? What peer groups were you involved in? How did they influence your development? What were your dating and romantic relationships like in adolescence? If you could change anything about the way you experienced peer relations in adolescence, what would it be?

50. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 50 Summary Peers are individuals who are at about the same age or maturity level. Peers provide a means of social comparison and a source of information about the world outside the family. Some researchers believe that the quality of social interaction with peers in infancy provides valuable information about social development. Healthy family relations usually promote healthy peer relations.

51. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 51 Summary Perspective taking, social information-processing skills, and social knowledge are important dimensions of social cognition in peer relations. Self-regulation of emotion is associated with positive peer relations. Popular children are frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers; average children receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations from peers.

52. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 52 Summary Neglected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not disliked by their peers; rejected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend and are disliked by their peers. Rejected children often have more serious adjustment problems than neglected children; controversial children are frequently nominated both as one’s best friend and as being disliked by peers.

53. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 53 Summary Significant numbers of students are bullied, and this can result in problems for the victim. Peer relations can be influenced by culture. The functions of play include affiliation with peers, tension release, advances in cognitive development, and exploration. Parten examined these categories of social play: unoccupied, solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, and cooperative.

54. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 54 Summary The contemporary perspective emphasizes both social and cognitive aspects of play. The functions of friendship include companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection. Sullivan argued that there is a dramatic increase in the psychological importance and intimacy of close friends in adolescence.

55. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 55 Summary Similarity and intimacy are two of the most common characteristics of friendships. Children and adolescents who become friends with older individuals engage in more deviant behaviors than their counterparts with same-age friends. The pressure to conform to peers is strong during adolescence, especially in the eighth and ninth grade.

56. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 56 Summary Cliques and crowds assume more importance in the lives of adolescents than children. Children’s groups are less formal, less heterogeneous, and less heterosexual than adolescents’ groups. Dating takes on added importance in adolescence, and it can have many functions. Early dating is linked with developmental problems.

57. McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.. Slide 57 Summary Male dating scripts are proactive, those of females are reactive. Many sexual minority youth have same-sex sexual experiences but relatively few have same-sex romantic relationships. Emotions are heavily involved in adolescent dating and romantic relationships. Culture can exert a powerful influence on adolescent dating.