Transcript Advanced Developmental Psychology

PSY 620P
March 31, 2015
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Parent-child relationships
Peer relationships
School and community influences
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Developmental Changes in Social
Participation (Parten)
Friendships
Peer Groups
Acceptance vs. Rejection
 Causes and Consequences
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Sullivan emphasized pre-adolescent
chumships as foundation of intimacy and
precursor to romantic coupling
Piaget emphasized moral development
occurring during give-and-take with peers
(rather than obedience to, or rebellion
against, adults)
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Kids are interested in kids
Preferring peers to adults early on and more
dramatically with development
 Finding appropriate models for their
developmental niche
▪ Fundamentally neglected are of research
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Infants have rudimentary abilities (to 1 yr)
 I.e., increased gazing at peers
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Toddlers
 Imitate and are aware of being imitated
 Have reciprocal relationships with specific kids
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Types of play
 Unoccupied, solitary, on-looking, parallel, associative,
cooperative
 Parallel play is important transitional activity
 Pretend play emerges (inter-subjectivity)
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Friendship emerges
 More prosocial and aggressive behavior with friends
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As do dominance hierarchies
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Peer interaction rises and changes
 10% (3 y olds) to 30% (middle childhood)
 Peer group increases and is less supervised
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Friendship develops
 Friends more likely to resolve conflicts with eye
toward protecting relationship
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Groups emerge
 and understanding of role and status in group
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29% of waking time with peers
 Out of classroom
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Friendship
 Autonomy granting and increased intimacy
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Groups
 Single sex cliques thought to mesh into looser mixed-sex
groups
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Crowds
 Druggies, loners, brains, jocks
 Increasingly prominent aspect of social life
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Is a child who spends a lot of time playing
alone necessarily at risk?
▪ Examples of different forms of nonsocial play
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Social Avoidance
 Low-social approach and high-social avoidance
 May be most at risk (childhood depression)
 Distinct from ?:
Shyness
 Wariness/anxiety due to social novelty and perceived evaluation
▪ Behavioral inhibition
 Linked to maladjustment across lifespan (Boys)
 Protective and Risk factors
▪ Protective: language ability, high-quality friendship
▪ Risk: parental overprotection, negative emotional climate classrooms
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Social Disinterest
 “Non-fearful” preference for solitary play, unsociability
 Independent of shyness, Assumed to be relatively benign
▪ Association: solitary play and peer rejection/internalizing problems
▪ Solitary play not a sufficient indicator of social disinterest? (Coplan et al., 2004)
(Spinrad et al., 2004)
Nayfeld
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Friendships provide:
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Support
Emotional security
Intimacy
Instrumental and informative assistance
Growth of interpersonal sensitivity
Prototypes for later romantic & marital
relationships
 Practice with conflict resolution
 Behaviors with friends differ vs. with non-friends
from early ages
 Children’s understandings of friendships change
with development (Bigelow & LaGaipa, 1980)
▪ Reward-cost stage (7-8 yrs)
▪ Normative stage (10-11 yrs)
▪ Empathic stage (11-13 yrs)
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In early childhood friends are similar in terms
of observable characteristics
 Age, sex, racial/ethnic background, behavioral
tendencies
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By adolescence friends are similar in terms of
attitudes
 School, academic aspirations, use of drugs/alcohol
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Most children have at least one friend, BUT 15%
estimated to be chronically friendless
 Associated with increased loneliness, poor self-esteem
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Presence of a mutual best friend as a protective factor
 e.g., Hodges et al. (1999); victimization predicts behavior problems only
for children without a best friend
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Although stable friendships can also have negative
consequences depending on characteristics of the friend
“Children with an early childhood history of
anxious solitude were more rejected, poorly
accepted (boys), and victimized (girls) by
peers and demonstrated more depressive
symptoms (girls) in 1st-grade classrooms
with a negative observed emotional climate.”
Messinger
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Pronounced role of peer group in Cuban
society regulating social behaviors.
 Withdrawal associated with loneliness in Cuban >
Canadian
 Aggression a correlate of loneliness in Cuba
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Social withdrawal and maladjustment in a very group-oriented society. Valdivia, Ibis
Alvarez; Schneider, Barry H.; Chavez, Kenia Lorenzo; Chen, Xinyin International Journal of
Behavioral Development. Vol 29(3), May 2005, 219-228.
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 Shy/Withdrawn Children
▪ Equal number and stability of friendships
▪ But those who lack best friend or have best friend who is
equally shy may be at increased risk for later problems
▪ Harder for shy boys?
 Aggressive
▪ Equal number of friendships but less stable
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Peer group as socialization context
 Cooperative activity in support of collective goals
 Skills associated with leading and following
 Regulation aggression/hostility
 Group loyalty
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5 or 6 same-sex peers
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Middle childhood  cliques
 Provide psychological support for autonomy
 Intimate, friendship-based groups
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Adolescence larger crowds
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Provide context for identity formation
Reputation-based groups
Defined by shared attitudes and activities
Less intimate
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Each child
in class
asked to
name 3 - 5
peers:
High Disliking
(Rejection)
Controversial
Kids
Rejected
Kids
 Like the
most
 Like the
least
Low Liking
High Liking
(Acceptance)
Neglected
Kids
Low Disliking
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Popular
Kids
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Peer-perceived popularity
 Select kids in your class you think are:
▪ Popular
▪ Unpopular
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Little agreement between sociometric
ratings and perceived popularity ratings
 Why?
Popularity within Peers
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Sociometrically popular: Tim
 Well liked by others
 High prosocial & cooperative behaviors
 Low aggressive behaviors
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Perceived popular: Jason
 Well known, socially central & emulated
 High prosocial behaviors
 High aggressive & antisocial behaviors
Fernandez
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Sociometrically Popular
 Skilled at initiating and maintaining positive
relationships
 Able to share frame of reference with new group;
cooperative
 Engage others vs. draw attention to self
 Negotiate and compromise in conflict
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vs. Perceived Popular
 = dominant, aggressive, stuck-up?
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Sociometrically Neglected
 Shy/withdrawn; few interactions with peers
 But not necessarily associated with anxiety or
extreme withdrawal
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Sociometrically Controversial
 Mix of positive and negative social behaviors
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Sociometrically Rejected
 Often due to aggression
▪ Forms of aggression?
 Other reasons for rejection?
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Popular pro-social boys
 High Academic, Affiliative,
Popular, Winning
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Popular anti-social boys
 High Aggressive, Popular,
Winning
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Differentiated by teacher
ratings
 And self & peer nominations
▪ Rodkin & Farmer. (2000). Heterogeneity of Popular Boys:
Antisocial and Prosocial Configurations. Developmental
Psychology, 36(1), 14-24
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Social
information
processing
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Differences
based on
sociometric
classifications?
See Rubin & Krasnor, 1986; Crick & Dodge, 1994
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Hypothetical stories depicting social exclusion
“What would you do?”
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Responses coded as:
• Assertive
• Indirect
• Withdrawal
• Redirect
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Real life exclusion – Ball Toss Game
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What does child do?
• Responses coded as:
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Assertive
Indirect
Withdrawal
Redirect
Video examples
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Aggressive rejection predicts externalizing
problems
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Anxious/withdrawn rejection predicts
internalizing problems
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Potential mechanisms?
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Temperament
 Difficult temperament
 Emotion regulation
 Shyness/Inhibition
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Parenting
 Attachment and internal working models of
interpersonal relationships
 Specific parenting behaviors
▪ Facilitating opportunities for peer interaction
▪ Socialization processes
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Different meanings assigned to social
behaviors in different cultural contexts
 Aggression
 Shyness