Chapter 9: Peers, Romantic Relationships, and Lifestyles

peers

Individuals of similar age or maturity.

What is one of the most important functions of the peer group?

To inform about the world beyond the family.

How does social media transform adolescent peer relationships?

By changing experience frequency, amplifying demands, altering interaction quality, facilitating compensatory behaviors, and creating new behaviors.

What did a recent study find about adolescent mental health during COVID-19?

Adolescents, especially girls, experienced increased depression and anxiety during the lockdown.

What did a longitudinal study about shyness find?

Childhood shyness predicted lower emotional stability extroversion in adolescents, mainly due to negative peer experiences.

When do boys and girls spend more time with peers?

During middle childhood and adolescence.

In one investigation, over the course of one weekend, young adolescent boys and girls spent more than _____ as much time with peers as with parents.

Twice.

Why are good peer relations necessary for normal social development in adolescence?

Good peer relations prevent social isolation, which is linked to problems like delinquency, drinking, depression, and academic issues.

positive peer influences

Adolescents learn fairness, justice, and relationship skills through peer disagreements and close friendships.

negative peer influences

Peer relations are linked to drug use, delinquency, depression, sexual activity, and self-injury among adolescents.

In one study, researchers found that college students with risky social networks were _____ more likely to engage in heavy drinking.

10 times.

Is it accurate to assume that movement toward peer involvement and autonomy is unrelated to parent-adolescent relationships?

No.

Does the success or failure of parent-adolescent attachments necessarily guarantee success or failure in peer relationships?

No.

How are the worlds of parents and peers connected?

Parents influence adolescent friendships through choices in neighborhoods, schools, and by modeling social behaviors; secure attachment to parents correlates with positive peer relations.

When does peer conformity peak?

Around eighth and ninth grades.

In what situations are adolescents most likely to confirm to peers?

Adolescents conform when they are uncertain about their identity or feel inferior to higher-status peers.

sociometric status

How much children and adolescents are liked or disliked by peers.

How is sociometric status assessed?

By rating or nominating peers liked and disliked.

What are the five types of peer statuses?

Popular, average, neglected, rejected, controversial.

popular adolescents

Frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers.

average adolescents

Receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations from their peers.

neglected adolescents

Infrequently nominated as a best friend, but are not disliked by their peers.

rejected adolescents

Infrequently nominated as someone’s best friend, and are actively disliked by their peers.

controversial adolescents

Frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked.

According to an analysis by John Coie, why do aggressive peer-rejected boys often have problems in social relationships?

They are more impulsive and have problems sustaining attention, they are more emotionally reactive, and they have fewer social skills in making friends and maintaining positive relationships with peers.

Which group does peer status research exclude, and why?

Late adolescence: it’s difficult to assess peer status in high school contexts, where students are in contact with large numbers of peers and aren’t likely to know all of their classmates.

social cognition

Thoughts about social matters.

In a recent study, social intelligence was related to _____, but not to _____.

Peer popularity, academic achievement.

From a social cognitive perspective, children and adolescents may have difficulty in peer relations because …

they lack appropriate social cognitive skills.

According to Kenneth Dodge, adolescents go through which 5 steps in processing information about their social world?

Decoding of social cues, interpretation, response search, selection of an optimal response, and enactment.

Moody and emotionally negative individuals experience _____ rejection by peers, whereas emotionally positive individuals are _____ popular.

Greater, more.

conglomerate strategies (or coaching)

Use a combination of techniques, rather than a single approach, to improve adolescents’ social skills.

What might a conglomerate strategy consist of?

Demonstration or modeling of appropriate social skills, discussion and reasoning about social skills, use of reinforcement for enactment of appropriate social skills in social situations.

In one study using a conglomerate strategy, teachers modeled and students practiced which six sequential steps?

1. Stop, calm down, think before you act.

2. Go over the problem and state how you feel.

3. Set a positive goal.

4. Think of lots of solutions.

5. Plan ahead for the consequences.

6. Go ahead and try the best plan.

Why is it difficult to improve the social skills of those who are actively disliked and rejected?

Many of these adolescents are rejected because they are aggressive or impulsive and lack self-control. Once an adolescents gains a negative reputation among peers, the peer group’s attitude is often slow to change, even after the adolescent’s behavior has been corrected.

Are social skills training programs more successful with children 10 years of age or younger, or with adolescents?

Children of 10 years of age or younger.

What functions can adolescents’ friendships serve?

Companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, intimacy/affection.

A 2-year longitudinal study showed that sixth-grade students who didn’t have a friend _____, _____, and _____ than their counterparts who had one or more friends.

Engaged in less prosocial behavior, had lower grades, and were more emotionally distressed.

What kinds of friendships do teenagers typically prefer beginning in early adolescence?

A smaller number of friendships that are more intense and intimate.

What did Henry Stack Sullivan say about adolescent friendships?

Whether or not our basic social needs are fulfilled largely determines our emotional well-being. During adolescence, friends become increasingly important in meeting social needs. The need for intimacy intensifies during early adolescence, motivating teenagers to seek out close friends. If adolescents fail to forge such close friendships, they experience loneliness and a reduced sense of self-worth.

Are Sullivan’s ideas still applicable today?

Yes: many of Sullivan’s ideas have withstood the test of time.

What did Willard Hartup say about child and adolescent friendships?

Children and adolescents use friends as cognitive and social resources on a regular basis.

Many aspects of friendship are _____ in adolescence and in emerging adulthood.

The same.

What difference between adolescent and emerging adult friendships was found in a longitudinal study?

Close relationships were more integrated and similar in emerging adulthood than in adolescence.

Another study indicated that best friendships often _____ in satisfaction and commitment in the first year of college.

Decline.

intimacy in friendship

Defined narrowly as self-disclosure, or sharing of private thoughts.

What is the most consistent finding in the last two decades of research on adolescent friendships?

That intimacy is an important feature of friendship.

homophily

The tendency to associate with similar others: throughout the childhood and adolescent years, friends are generally similar in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, and other factors.

Do older friends encourage adolescents to engage in delinquent behavior or early sexual behavior?

Adolescents who interact with older youths do engage in these behaviors more frequently. However, it’s not known whether the older youth guide younger adolescents toward deviant behavior or whether the younger adolescents were already prone to deviant behavior before they developed the friendship with the older youth.

Are associations with other-sex friends more or less common than is often thought?

More common.

The number of other-sex friendships _____ in early adolescence, with _____ reporting more other-sex friends than boys.

Increases, girls.

Research has shown that some other-sex friendships are linked to what?

Negative behaviors, such as earlier sexual intercourse, as well as increases in alcohol use and delinquency.

For some individuals, loneliness is a _____, linked with impaired physical and mental health.

Chronic condition.

What is loneliness often interwoven with?

The passage through life transitions, such as a move, a divorce, or the death of someone close. The first year of college may create loneliness, especially if students leave the familiar world of their hometown and family to enter college.

How do childhood groups differ from adolescent groups?

Childhood groups are often friends or neighborhood acquaintances, and are usually not as formalized as many adolescent groups. Adolescent groups tend to include a broader array of members.

What did a classic observational study by Dexter Dunphy indicate?

That opposite-sex participation in social groups increases during adolescence?

What was Dunphy’s progression of peer group relations in adolescence?

Stage 1: Precrowd stage; isolated same-sex groups.

Stage 2: Beginning of the crowd; same-sex groups start group-group interaction.

Stage 3: The crowd in in structural transition; same-sex groups are forming heterosexual groups, especially among upper-status members.

Stage 4: Fully developed crowd; heterosexual groups are closely associated.

Stage 5: Beginning of crowd disintegration; loosely associated groups of couples.

cliques

Small groups that range from 2 to about 12 individuals, and average about 5-6 individuals.

What is true about clique members? How can cliques form?

Members are usually of the same sex and are similar in age. Cliques can form because adolescents engage in similar activities, such as being in a club together, or on a sports team.

crowds

Larger and less personal than cliques.

What is true about crowd members? What are many crowds defined by?

Adolescents are usually members based on reputation, and they may or may not spend much time together. Many crowds are defined by the activities engaged in.

_____ crowds often first appear in early adolescence, and usually become less prominent with time.

Reputation-based.

What is included in the positive youth movement?

Youth development programs and organized youth activities.

Currently, there are more than _____ national youth organizations in the United States. What do these national youth organizations include?

400. These include career groups, groups aimed at building character, political groups, and ethnic groups.

Adolescents who join national youth organizations are _____ likely to participate in community activities in adulthood. What else is true about these adolescents?

More. They also often have higher self-esteem, are better educated, and come from families with higher incomes.

Structured voluntary youth activities are especially well suited for what?

The development of initiative.

There is increasing evidence that _____ plays an important role in peer groups and friendships.

Gender.

What is true about boys in friendships?

They give more importance to having a friend whom to share interests in activities, show more cooperativeness, and are successful at having fun and enjoyment, companionship coping when a friend violates friendship expectation, and continuing friendship when a friend gets other friends.

What is true about girls in friendships?

They show higher peer attachment, especially related to trust and communication, and emphasize expressing care, concern, and admiration; helping, sympathizing, and reassuring; and engaging in self-disclosure.

corumination

Excessively discussion problems: predicts not only an increase in positive friendship quality, but also an increase in depressive and anxiety symptoms.