Peer Group Relationships Increase During Middle and Late Childhood

Chapter 6 · Peers 1

CHAPTER 106: Peers

Introduction

Peer relationships fill a requirement that cannot be addressed by parents or siblings. They offer a forum for expressing feelings, learning rules, and establishing intimacy not achieved in other arenas.

· Peer group relationships increase during middle and late childhood.

· Peers contribute to the environmental context for normal development.

· Peer relations provide a base for reciprocity, justice, and exploration.

Parents consciously and unconsciously influence the types of peer relationships established by their adolescent children. Early attachment histories influence later relationships with peers. Parents choose environments in which adolescents live, go to school, and recreate. Parents suggest strategies for establishing and maintaining peer relationships. After peer relationships are established, it is likely that pressure to conform will be experienced with both beneficial and detrimental consequences. Peers influence opposition to parents’ preferences in only some areas. Nonconformity and anticonformity occurs, however, when adolescents refuse to conform to either peer or societal standards.

Peer status is an aspect of peer relationships influenced by numerous adolescent characteristics.

· Popular children are reinforcing, good listeners, enthusiastic, concerned, and confident.

· Neglected children are unlikely to be nominated as a best friend, but are not disliked.

· Rejected children tend to be impulsive and aggressive, and are disliked by their peers.

· Controversial children are unpredictable, nominated both as best friends and as disliked.

Adolescents overcome deficits by becoming better listeners, learning how to join groups, or demonstrating self-control of disruptive behavior. Social cognition represents adolescents’ ability to draw on positive relationship building behavior, to establish good social problem problem-solving skills, and to interpret the social behavior of others.

Conglomerate strategies for improving social skills include:

· Discussing rationale, describing acceptable alternatives, and modeling appropriate skills;

discussingDiscussing rationale, describing acceptable alternatives, and modeling appropriate skills;

· reinforcingReinforcing demonstrations of self-control and establishing skills in stress management; and

· engagingEngaging in social problem solving or decision making.

Responding successfully to threatening encounters with bullies requires added support from adults.

Friendships with peers provide the opportunity for adolescents to develop intimacy with someone who comes from the same place and time, and someone who sees things from the adolescent perspective. Friendships provide: companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection. Sullivan (1953) was the first to propose that adolescents require same-age friends to share intimacy; to bolster well well-being; to engage in light-hearted companionship; and to promote social acceptance, tenderness, and sexual relations. Subsequent research supported Sullivan’s ideas. Relationships with friends who are from markedly different age groupss do seem to result in more deviant behavior than same-age friendships.

Groups provide adolescents with norms or rules that all members are expected to follow. They also afford an opportunity for group members to take on roles to accomplish designated goals. Distinctions between group characteristics result from differences in age or culture.

· Children’s groups often are same-sex, based on chance (family friends or neighbors), and less structured than older groups progressing toward couples.

· Peer groups shift from (1) isolated, (2) unisexual groups, (3) transitioning unisexual, early mixed-sex groups, and (4) fully mixed-sex groups to (5) crowd disintegration and couples.

· Group membership in crowds (e.g., band membership) or cliques (e.g., jocks) contributemembership in crowds (e.g., band membership) or cliques (e.g., jocks) contributes to a sense of affiliation, positive self-esteem, and support separate from parents.

· Peer group affiliation often is based on social class and ethnicity that may define the group.

· Ethnic minority youth may depend on peers for affiliation within the larger majority culture.

· Group membership in crowds (e.g., band membership) or cliques (e.g., partiers, jocks) contribute to a sense of affiliation, positive self-esteem, and support separate from parents.

· Crowds provide opportunities to establish an identity, even if only temporarily.

· Crowds offer the possibility of trying out different roles if adolescents float between them.

· With maturity, adolescents are increasingly able to shift affiliation from one group to another.

Youth organizations are important groups that facilitate adolescent development by setting high standards, supporting achievement, and increasing adolescent involvement in community. Parents agree that youth programs are beneficial, but that not enough of them are available to youthadolescents. Program location may have an impact on participation by low-income and minority youth. Programs that encourage youth youth-directed entrepreneurial activities promote youth initiative and enthusiasm.

Peer groups are affected by gender and culture. Boys associated in larger groups than girls and engage in competition and risk taking more than girls. Girls are more oriented toward interpersonal relationships and intimacy than boys. Peer group affiliation often is based on social class and ethnicity that may define the group. Ethnic minority youth may depend on peers for affiliation within the larger majority culture.

Adolescents demonstrate serious heterosexual contact through dating. Dating and romantic relationships serve at least eight functions: recreation, status, socialization, intimacy, sexual experience, companionship, identity, and mate selection. Developmental changes in dating follow this sequence:

· Early dating helps adolescents to establish a sense of self and to identify acceptable behavior.

· Heterosexual groups and informal settings offer comfortable settings in which dating begins.

· First dates take place between 14 and 16 years of age; by 16 years, 90 percent have dated.

· About 50 percent of adolescents have a romantic relationship by tenth grade.

· Eleventh/twelfth-grade females spend 10 times as many hours with boys as fifth/ sixth-graders.

Much less research has been conducted with gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. Research has revealed great complexity on the romantic possibilities of sexual minority youth.

Cultural demands and gender roles influence courtship processes. High levels of emotion that accompany romance influence both male and female adolescents, and result in mood swings from day to day. Romantic love is experienced by most adolescents, followed by affectionate love typical with age. Attachment history, death of a parent, divorce, siblings, and peers influence intimate relationships.

Gender roles and cultural demands and influence courtship processes. Dating scripts are models that individuals use to guide dating interactions. The male script is proactive whereas the female script is reactive. The values and religious beliefs of a culture dictate when dating begins.

Total Teaching Package Outline

Chapter 106: Peers

Suggested Lecture Topics

Topic 6.10.1—Children Without Friends

Children and adolescents, who are unable to make friends or become a part of their peer group, experience tremendous risk for long-term psychosocial difficulties. Research suggests that about 6 to 11 percent of grade school children and almost 20 percent of adolescents are rejected by their peer group. The majority of students who do not graduate drop out due to lack of peer acceptance.

Several studies provide details about the circumstances that lead to students’' decisions to drop out of school. Gronlund and Holmlund noted that 46 percent of boys with low acceptance by peers stayed in school compared to highly- accepted boys with an 81 percent completion rate. Females show a dramatic 65 percent rate of completion when identified as low acceptance students. Conversely, females with high acceptance had a completion rate of 96 percent. Kupersmidt conducted as 6-year longitudinal study to identify the rate of dropping out. The reported rates for dropping out were 30 percent for rejected students, 10 percent for students identified as neglected, 21 percent of students identified as average, but only 4 percent for students identified as popular. Rejected students clearly experienced the least favorable outcomes of limited peer affiliation.

Teachers have the opportunity to observe students in the classroom, lunchroom, and unstructured settings. Direct observation of student interaction provides the clearest information about student involvement with peers. Teachers may begin by asking themselves the following questions:

· Do peers ignore, avoid or reject the adolescent?

· Does the adolescent initiate interaction with others? Are the initiations socially appropriate? Do peers respond favorably?

· Does the adolescent demonstrate misunderstandings of social cues or messages given by peers?

· Does the adolescent make requests or tactfully communicate personal preferences?

· Does the adolescent demonstrate an appropriate amount of assertiveness?

· Does the adolescent demonstrate an overly aggressive manner with peers?

· Does the adolescent disrupt classroom and/or unstructured activities?

Students can benefit from cognitive-behavioral interventions to improve social skill. First, establish rationale for learning social skills and develop skills to fit situations in which the adolescent is failing. Teach students to differentiate between skills so that they can use the best skill at the appropriate time and place. Learning and practicing appropriate social skills with peers, authority figures, and parents seems essential for generalizing skills in the future. It is important for teachers and other adults to provide positive feedback about the successful use of desirable skills early on. Ultimately, experiencing success with peers can greatly enhance the likelihood that students will establish a niche and subsequently develop competencies for fulfilling relationships.

References

Bullock, J. R. (2000). Children without friends: Who are they and how can teachers help? In E. N. Junn & C . J. Boyatzis (Eds.) Child growth and development (7th ed.) (pp. 97-–101). Guilford, CT: Dushkin McGraw-Hill.

Hazel, J. S., .; Schumaker, J. B., .; Sherman, J. A., & Sheldon-Wildgen, J. (1981). ASSET: A social skills program for adolescents. Champaign, IL: Research Press.

Topic 6.10.2—An Information-processing Model of Social Acceptance

Theorists who explain relationships from a social cognition view claim that immature or poorly functioning thought processes naturally result in antisocial or disordered social behavior. There are both Piagetian and information information-processing variants of this theme. Selman (1980) explains that socially dysfunctional youth lag behind peers in their stage of social cognitive thought, while whereas Dodge (1990) attempts to show that problems lie in the steps or processes of social cognition that youths follow.