Studied by 3 peopleWhy it is important to study adolescent peer relationships
-interaction time: increases with peers in adolescence -long-term outcomes: issues with adolescent peer relationships tend to have long term impacts throughout their lives -cognitive changes: abstract thinking, egocentrism (imaginary audience) -judith rich harris: peers have more influence than parents
Friendship nomination
Telling an adolescent to nominate things like their best friend, or top 10 friends, etc. -limits on number -have to choose to look only at reciprocated friendships, or both
Cliques (how to study friendships)
Small friendship groups (4-8 people) that have a connection. -Social network analysis: where are these cliques present? Why is someone a part/not a part of one? -often doesn't look at reciprocation -peer contagion: what's the dynamic like?
Observe interactions (how to study friendships)
Bring dyad/pair into the lab and observe them through tasks (like a conversation, physical tasks, etc.)
Friendship quality vs. quantity
-Quantity: nomination --> how many friends do they have? -Quality: the parts and connections of a friendship rather than the amount of friendships
Forms of friendship quality
-Companionship: spending time together -Conflict: having disagreements/friction -Help/aid: physical help for one another (change a tire, give a ride) -Security: emotional support and help -Closeness: intimacy bond, want to be around them
Chumships
Friendships that are very important in defining adolescents and their relationships. Higher levels of intimacy than young children -harry stack sullivan
Formation of adolescent friendships
-Homophily: similarities and interests -Proximity: physically close to each other (same school, same neighborhood)
Levels of friendship
-Best: high intimacy and emotional closeness. Sharing everything -Close: not as much intimacy and emotional connection, but very similar amount of time spent together as with best friend -Acquaintance: companionship/quality time aspect is much lower. Less of an emotional connection
gender difference in adolescent friendships
Time spent together -Females: more diadic, one-on-one time spent. Conversationally based -Males: more often clique/group level hang outs. Group-based activities
developmental changes with gender and friendships
Mixed-sex groups: exists in early adolescence, but much more frequent in late adolescence
Other-sex friendships: very rare to see a reciprocated nomination of opposite-sex friendships for best friends
cultural gender differences in friendship
Traditional cultures: more restrictions on female adolescent friendships (who than can hang out with, how much time together, etc.) than males
Selection vs. Socialization (friendships)
Selection: homophily/proximity; occurs prior to friendship
Socialization: occurs after the friendship starts; what behaviors do they similarly exhibit?
Contagion effects (friendships and cliques)
Risk behaviors much more likely with contagion effect; if someone in the clique starts doing something, the others are likely to follow -investigated cliques specifically
Forms of friendship support
-Informational: support that is emotional in nature (security quality) -Instrumental: being there for in-person/physical help (help/aid quality) -Companionship: being there in times of emotional need -Esteem: praise, encouragement
friendship dissolution
Doesn't happen too often in adolescence, and not like a breakup happens
-break of trust (often no longer friends after) -communication issues -intimacy decreases -time spent together decreases
antipathetic relationships
Mutual antipathies: both nominated for disliking each other
Enemies: previous relationship; often avoiding or hating each other
Prevalence of antipathetic relationships
Start seeing them in late elementary school. Very prevalent by late adolescence -typically don't have more than 1 at a time
Who do adolescents have antipathetic relationships with?
-Tend to be previous relationships, now actively dislike -Incompatible person/personality behaviors -Jealousy: wants to be them/be like them
Youth culture
Adolescents as a group and their "style" of culture -Creates a group separating them from adults, and creates a stronger identity
Styles of youth culture
-Image: visual component; outward appearance; clothing; tattoos, etc. -Demeanor: gestures; dancing; dating; how they act with each other -Argot: how speech changes; dialects; slang; emojis
Peer nomination method
Focuses on categorization (most popular, most liked, etc.) rather than specific relationships like with friendship nomination -elementary school: nomination in a specific class -adolescence: whole-school nomination with a list of coded names -scores put into categories and behaviors and groups are created
Crowds (peer culture)
Connections of mutual interest, but not necessarily an emotional connection-- might not even know each other! -ex: jocks, brainiacs, deviants, etc. -develop in adolescence, increases through late adolescence
History of popularity research
-Psychologists, using labs and experiments, explored popularity as the idea of being well-liked and having high status
-Sociologists, using natural observation and ethnographies, found that popularity often doesn't equal being well-liked
Popularity vs. Social preference
Popularity: social status -visibility (well-known), dominance (influence), social status -commodity; limited and not everyone has it
Social preference: well-liked, NOT disliked -controversial status: being both well-liked and disliked so they cancel out -dispositional: possible for everyone to have high social preference
Sociometric status categories
-popular: high liked, low disliked -rejected: low liked, high disliked -neglected: low liked, low disliked -controversial: high liked, high disliked -average: anything else
Characteristics of sociometric status categories
-Popular: social skills, good at interacting and getting along with others -Rejected: "aggressive rejected" --> aggressiveness is why they're disliked; bullying, impulsive, disruptive. "non-aggressive rejected" --> disliked because of oddity experiences; socially awkward, weird -Neglected: not a lot of nominations; shy, introverted, wallflower
Stability of sociometric status categories
-Rejected: highest stability rate; more likely to stay rejected throughout adolescence; reputation -Neglected: least stable; often 'grow out' of this or someone falls into it
Social preference vs. social impact
Current use of social preference -Most-liked to least-liked; sometimes used instead of categories Social impact -most liked and least liked
Characteristics of popular adolescents
-Physical attractiveness -Athletic -Wealth: socioeconomic status, expensive clothes/car/etc.
Characteristics of UNpopular adolescents
-Socially awkward, weird behavior and quirks -High visibility because they stick out as weird -stability of popularity
Stability of popularity vs. social preference
-Status (popularity) is pretty stable; more stable amongst females -Likability (social preference) is less stable and more subject to change; more stable for males
Relationship of popularity and social preference throughout adolescence
-elementary school: very correlated and overlapping with each other -early adolescence: starts to separate and have differences amongst adolescents -late adolescence: almost completely separate from each other with less overlap
Gender difference with popularity vs. social preference
Boys: popular and well liked, becomes uncorrelated (no relationship)
Girls: popular and disliked, becomes negatively correlated (popularity increases as likability decreases) -popular girls often have controversial status (being both popular and disliked)
Status-aggression link
-Bi-directional effect: increase popularity, increase aggressiveness; increase aggressiveness, increase popularity -Resource maintenance: you want to gain social status, so you have to be aggressive to get it and keep it -Effect of knowing you're popular: more aggressive
Other links with popularity
Risk-taking -substance use: popular adolescents have higher rates of consumption for normalized drugs -sexual behavior: starting earlier, more sexual partners for popular kids
Academics -truancy increased, overall lower GPA for kids with high status and dislike
Parenting implication for popularity
"Should I be concerned about my popular child?" -popularity is defined by visibility, but likability is harder to identify (parental monitoring/closeness?) Takeaway: maybe, but less so if they're also well-liked.
Peer status in military/boarding schools
-Status comes from class or rank (if military) -Classes have more rank unity; cross-class teams as well
Peer status in small town schools
-Sports and physical attractiveness is magnified -Parents' reputations filter down to the kids (both positive and negative reputations) -Cross-status interactions: much more diversity than other schools; status doesn't predict as well who they interact with because there's less people to choose from
Peer status in church/religious schools
-Not that big of a difference from 'normal' schools -Dress/clothes: with uniforms, more popular kids might tweak this (hiking up skirts, wearing pins/buttons) or buy more expensive uniforms to stand out
Peer status in other regions
-Canada and Europe: very similar to US -China and Japan: academics is correlated with popularity and plays a big role in this -Africa and South America: language lacks similar term for 'popular'; used well-known/well-liked instead
Long-term effects of adolescent popularity
-Risk behaviors: higher rates of use; more long-term use, especially alcohol -Workplace harassment: aggression from adolescence carries over
Researching popularity in emerging adulthood
Hard to measure in this age group -dorms? smaller schools? Does it exist with college students? -some say no, popularity in college doesn't exist -some say yes, in Greek life
Overt aggression
In-your-face aggression -physical and verbal forms
Relational aggression + history
Timeline:
indirect aggression: shielding who the aggressor is, rather than overt; not necessarily social or physical. Ex: spreading rumors
social aggression: having some sort of social harm inflicted on another person, like self-esteem, status, etc. Often indirect and not physical
Relational Aggression: harming someone's relationship's in some way; peer, romantic, and relationships
Measuring aggression
Self-report: biased since they're asked to report unwanted behavior -often used for relational aggression in romantic relationships -victimization: how often are you a victim of aggressive behavior?
Peer nominations: -overt --> physical fights, hits, shoves, pushes, dominates/bullies -relational --> excludes, spreads rumors, ignores others
Teacher reports: -validity: aggression is often sneaky -very good at measuring physical aggressiveness (it's visible)
Gender difference of aggression
Boys: use all forms of aggressive behavior (overt and relational)
Girls: only use relational aggression forms but at the same level as boys; not really any overt aggression -have to use more 'shielded' forms of aggression
Aggression and social preference
Overt aggression: as we get older, a more negative relationship to social preference
Relational aggression: no relationship to social preference
Forms of aggression and friendships
Overt aggression: -less and lower quality friendships; conflict is higher -targeting people who aren't their friends; results in less people coming into their social circle
Relational aggression: -occurs inside and outside of relationships -if disliked, lower quality friendships -if popular, higher quality friendships; often good at concealing themselves as the aggressor
Aggression vs. bullying
Bullying: REPEATED aggression against a victim -a form of aggression
Bully profiles
Bully: individuals that bully people but don't experience victimization themselves -often aggressive-rejected category
Bully-victim: bullies people but are also victims of that same type of behavior
Victim: targets of bullying behavior -often people with noneffective retaliation toward the bully; or non-aggressive rejected category; or people without a lot of friends
Cyberbullying
Repeated and targeted aggression in an online form at a specific individual
Traditional bullying vs. Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is put under the bullying umbrella -bullying profiles and effects similar to traditional bullying -large group of people that got traditionally bullied, then got cyberbullied, and retaliated with their own cyberbullying
Policy implication: cyberbullying laws
-school districts often don't have authority over it because it's mostly not seen and mostly not on school grounds -often state-by-state policies -For Nevada, there's a criminal statute for cyberbullying. Schools can't sanction it if it happens off-campus, but there's still a policy outlined in schools
Efficacy of anti-bullying programs
-usually some reduction in bullying after program implementation -low consistency of efficacy with specific programs; need a match-fit technique
Externalizing problem behavior
Doing something towards the world; aggression, violence, acts toward the outside -occurs in undercontrolled situations (no rules or regulations from parents)
Internalizing problem behavior
Affects them internally; depression, anxiety -occurs in overcontrolled situations (overbearing parents, strict, high expectations)
Antisocial problem behavior
Going against societal norms; rulebreaking, vandalizing, violence, etc.
Adolescent risk behavior
Brain development: immature prefrontal lobes which controls decision making and emotional centers
Risky auto driving: highest mortality rate among teens. Why? -inexperience -personality; higher in sensation-seeking -cognitive factors: egocentrism, personal fable (won't happen to me)
Policy implication: graduate driver licensing
-Driver's ed could be mandated, or restrictions on driving lifted if it's completed -Driving curfews -Zero tolerance: any form of underage alcohol violation while driving results in license taken away until 21
Substance abuse in emerging adulthood
-College-bound adolescents: higher rates of alcohol use DURING college -Non-college-bound: higher rates of alcohol use BEFORE college age/graduation
Adolescent profile of substance abuse
-Experimental use: low level, not habitual, just 'trying it out' -Social use: only at parties, with friends, etc. -Medicinal use: self-medicating, using substances to deal with issues they're having, both internal and external problems -Addictive use: psychological or physical dependence on the substance
Risk factors with adolescent substance use
-Age: starting in early adolescence is more of a risk factor -Academic achievement: substances can result in low academics; can also be used as a coping mechanism for this which creates a cycle -Lack of parental closeness: higher risk factor -Unstructured socializing: not having a hang out plan, ends up using substances
Contextual substance use factors
-Normalized drugs (alcohol, cannabis, tobacco): higher in RURAL areas because of access and unstructured socializing -Elicit drugs (cocaine, meth, etc) higher in URBAN areas, but still overall low levels with adolescents
Peer factors with substance use
-Friends have a much stronger influence on substance use than just peers do -Peer contagion -Popularity (status): higher rates of normalized drug use
Public health policies (substance use)
Goal: reduce the amount of substance use that people are engaging in -ex: restricting access (age, hours of sale); taxation of substances
Harm reduction (substance use)
Goal: reduce the harm that can be associated with substance use, to others and to an individual -ex: drunk driving laws, turning in needles, police checkpoints
Policy implication: National Minimum Drinking Age Act
-Ties federal funds to states changing their drinking age from 18 to 21; huge incentive for state funding -Effect on traffic fatalities: reduced for people under 21 -Public health policy, but the effect was harm reduction
School-based substance prevention programs
-Marketed programs, like DARE. Not super effective -Evidence-based programs: teaches how to overcome these situations (content); active learning and practice (delivery)
Forms of delinquency (antisocial behavior)
-Life course persistent: delinquency started in childhood and persists into adulthood; biological component with this
-Adolescent limited: didn't really start until adolescence; stopped in adulthood; social component
Deviant talk
Not only engaging in the behavior, but talking about it and planning it out. -length of deviant talk increases for life-course persistent adolescents, especially boys
Early intervention programs (antisocial behavior)
Adolescents coming out of prevention programs actually increased in antisocial behavior -Peer contagion: putting delinquents together into group programs increased deviant talk and the competition of "one-upping" each other -Court mandated programs: they don't want to participate; and/or these programs are too late and serves as an aftereffect
Resiliency/protective factors
An adolescent may be at risk for negative factors, but because of something (a characteristic, relationship, etc.), this risk is reduced
Protective factors in adolescence
-Intelligence: higher cognitive ability often reduces risk factors -Healthy adult relationships: parents, teachers, coach, etc. -School climate: essentially the parenting style for their school; has rules and regulations while still being supportive -Religious effects: beliefs and practices can be protective factors
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