friends and enemies

What is a friend?

• Relationship of mutual affection, reciprocal 

• Each member of dyad agrees are friends

• Voluntary relationship - first people they choose for themselves 

• Trust, talking to them about problems 

• Start to express preferences for particular peers in preschool years - ⅔, clear in who they want/dont want to play with 

• Behave differently with friends

• Can be volatile and have more conflict with friends than with non-friend peers. Could be because spend more time or because it means more to them.

• Resolve conflicts in different ways, more likely to negotiate with friends, think carefully about how to sort out conflict with friends. 

Similarity of friends

• Do we seek friends who are like us 

• Notion of homophily

• Similarity in: Gender, Age (who they'll see in school, be in classes with, dif developmental stage so want to do dif things), Behaviour (Berndt, 1982):

• More controversial – similarity or complementary? Eg introverts may want to be friends with extroverts

• Adolescents similar in attitudes towards school and towards culture, eg really into music or sport etc

• Selection (choose friends who are like us) or socialisation (influence each other - become more similar when become friends)?

• Both processes operating together - choose friends that are similar, then influence each other - become more similar to our friends

• Importance of similarity in behaviour depends on reputational salience of behaviour - how important is that beh in terms of child's peer status - accepted or rejected by other children 

Hartup (1996) - similarity in boys vs girls

• Peer ratings of 11 year olds in classroom

• Rated on prosocial behaviour, antisocial behaviour and emotional withdrawal

• Friends similar to each other in these types of beh (also asked to rate who was their friend) 

• Concordance greater for antisocial behaviour (more important for reputation and standing in peer group)

• Gender differences: girls show more similarity between friends on prosocial and antisocial (important things for girls in terms of reputational standing), boys on shyness. So shyness more important for boys social standings, eg shy boys less popular,  whereas more acceptable for girls to be shy

• Reflects differences in reputational salience of attributes

• So similar in beh that represent peer standing

Benefits of friendships

• Emotional support and validation

• Enhancement of worth

• Combat loneliness

• Also good at bringing people down to earth - shouldn't undermine self-esteem but may gave them a reality check 

• Buffering effect against victimization by peers:

• Victimization related to behaviours exhibited - certain beh make children more susceptible to being victimized - cry, anxious, lack of self-esteem - wont fight back if picked on 

Does this interact with social factors?

• Number of friends correlates with victimisation (Hodges et al., 1997)

• Behavioural risk and social risk both important

• Also mitigates effects of victimisation - reduces effects of victimisation, even having one good friends can make feel better, have fewer adjustment problems

• Development of social and cognitive skills - Friends use more constructive criticism, eg why dont we do it like this instead, elaborate on each others ideas

• Development of moral skills - Piaget: discover different points of view through peer interactions

Long-term benefits

• Longitudinal follow-up study from age 10 to age 23 (Bagwell et al., 1998)

• Those who had stable mutual friend at 10 vs. those who were ‘chumless’ (did not have a mutual best friend)

• At age 23, chumless lower self-esteem, more psychopathology, more adjustment problems 

• No correlation between whether had friends at 10 vs at 23

Disadvantages of friendships

• Negative friendships very damaging - High levels of conflict and rivalry can lead to negative interactions with others, may learn that that's how you interact with people - spills into other relationships 

Influence on antisocial behaviour 

• Aggression, disruptiveness, drug/alcohol use

• Magnification hypothesis (Berndt, 2004) - copy beh of those around us, friends also reinforce beh. If antisocial children friends with each other - become more antisocial 

• Influence increased when friendship high in quality

• Danger of grouping antisocial children together

• Social support theory

• Supportive social relationship always beneficial, regardless of who the friendship is 

• Some evidence consistent with social support

Types of aggression

• Physical aggression – damage or threat to another’s physical well-being

• Relational aggression – damage or threat to another’s relationships or feelings of inclusion, may occur between friends, trying to control other people’s beh. Social exclusion, threatening not to do things if don’t do what they want  

• Verbal aggression – threats or verbal insults

• Indirect aggression – covert behaviours (behind someone’ back), eg dont tell … but… - try to damage someone's relationship but not directly to their face

• Social aggression – damage to another’s self-esteem or social status

Subtypes of aggression

• Reactive aggression is a defensive response or angry reaction to provocation

• Intent is to retaliate

• Reactive relational aggression such as using social exclusion to retaliate against perceived provocation

• Proactive aggression is deliberate behaviour to achieve a goal eg hitting someone to make a point 

• May not be provoked

• Proactive relational aggression such as threatening to tell secrets to get control

Relational vs. Physical aggression

• Only a modest correlation between the two on reports by parents, peers, teachers (Crick et al., 1999) - seem to be quite distinct forms of beh 

• Connection higher for males?

• Informants agree more on physical aggression than relational - more visible, particularly to parents and teachers 

• Relational occurs more frequently in girls and physical in boys?

• When consider both, girls and boys equally aggressive

• Preschool + middle childhood - girls show more relational aggression, however girls develop lang sophistication earlier than boys 

• Children view relational aggression as an aggressive act - designed to harm them 

Social Information Processing Model (Dodge & Crick, 1990)

Explains the development of aggressive beh.

What cog processes are evoked in response to social stimuli. 

Stage 1: someone bumps into arm

• Then make an interpretation - they're always trying to get at me or busy halfway (meaning behind beh)

• Could ignore beh, push back, ask to apologize

• Evaluate according to social goal - eg get out of situation without any hassle, also based on expectations of outcome  

• Cognitive processes in response to social stimulus

• Looks at how perceive cues, make attributions, generate solutions, and decide how to respond behaviourally

• Stages 2 and 4 most studied in aggression research

• Physically aggressive children have hostile attributional biases (stage 2) 

• Cog processes affected by past experience, attachment relationships also come into play 

SIP model: relational vs physical aggression

Stage 2:

• Instrumental conflicts problematic for physically aggressive children

• Relational conflicts provoke hostile attributional biases in relationally aggressive children

Stage 4:

• Physically aggressive children show response decision deficits

• Relationally aggressive boys but not girls evaluated relationally aggressive responses positively 

Developmental course of physical aggression

• Second year of life: object possession struggles

• Preschool years: instrumental aim to acquire object, e.g. toy

• Verbal aggression increases and physical decreases

• Middle childhood: more concerned with individuals rather than objects 

• Large proportion of aggression at this age is bullying

• Adolescence: general decrease in physical aggression

• Small number increase in serious violence

• Gender differences are marked

Developmental course of relational aggression - preschool

• Not really been found before age 3 - need lang and sociocognitive skills 

• Preschool: Show RA in basic ways

• Only just learning social skills

• Tends to be in response to immediate problems

• “Child A (a girl) who wants to climb on some plastic blocks pushes child B (a boy) who is currently climbing on the plastic blocks. Child B yells “don’t push me” and pushes her back. Child A yells back “don’t scream!”. Child C (a girl), who was standing near them, moves away. Child A then moves beside Child C and says “I have to tell you something!”. She then whispers something to Child C, excluding Child B. Child B watches, looking very uncomfortable” (Crick et al., 1999)

• Trying to damage child b - very unsophisticated level, not manipulative beh seen later on in childhood 

developmental course - middle and adolescence

• Middle childhood: more sophisticated and complex acts of RA

• Need for friendships more salient 

• Manipulate peer group against child

• Relatively covert eg “They tell their friends not to be that kid’s friend”

• Retribution for action in the past

• Adolescence: RA continues and becomes more complex and subtle

• Contexts for expression of RA may change

• Opposite-gender relations become important

• Harm through damaging romantic relationship

• Or through standing with opposite-gender peers

• “Women hurt other women by the amount of affection from men they receive. For example, saying ‘Mark called and he likes me better than you’”

Bullying

• Bullying or victimization: exposing an individual to repeated negative acts perpetrated by one or more other individuals

• A) Aggressive behaviour carried out intentionally

• B) repeatedly and over time

• C) imbalance of power between bully and victim - victim finds it harder to defend themselves against the bully eg social/physical 

• Not provoked by beh towards the bully 

• Prevalence rates unclear - children may not admit to being bullies 

• Victims range widely, but may be around 25%

• Bullies could be as high as 20%

• Noticeable group of bully/victims - children who have been on both sides of the relationship 

• Victim is usually individual, bully is part of a group

Who are the victimised? (Olweus, 2003)

• Do they have “external deviations”? - how different they look etc. Not always supported

Passive, submissive victim

• Low self-esteem

• Lonely 

• Not aggressive or teasing in behaviour

• Physical weakness if boys

• Overprotective parenting? - havent learnt self-reliant/self-confident skills 

Provocative victim

• Small group who are anxious and aggressive

• Hyperactive - makes others notice them, not in a positive way

Who are the bullies?

• Not necessarily anxious and insecure, could be somewhat opposite

• Average or slightly below in popularity - popularity goes down with age 

• Show evidence of general conduct-disorder and anti-social behaviour

• More likely to be convicted of crime later in life

• Bullies show aggressive behaviour with weak control over impulses

• Tolerance for aggressive behaviour

• Physical strength if boys

• Use force dispassionately - not in the heat of the moment, but more manipulatively/calculated. Those who are relational bullies have quite strong social skills 

Gender differences in bullying/victimisation

• Trend for boys to be more exposed to direct bullying and physical victimisation

• Boys carry out more of the bullying

• 4 times more boys than girls (Olweus)

• Girls more relational victimization?

• Preschool: some evidence

• Middle childhood and adolescence: Unclear results (Crick, Casas & Nelson, 2002)

• Are the consequences of victimization  the same for girls and boys? Girls may be more affected by RA than boys are, girls more concerned about relationships during middle years 

Outcomes of victimisation

• Physical and relational have negative consequences

• Poor peer relationships - may not trust them, or peers avoid them because they don't want to be targeted by the bully 

• Increased anxiety and depression

• Increased externalizing problems - acting out, show aggressive beh themselves 

• Poor physical health

• Increased levels of psychosis like symptoms

• Effects are concurrent but also predictive

• RV – less research so further studies needed

• Mostly cross-sectional so far

• What factors contribute to risk of RV?

• More focus on small peer group and dyads

Outcomes for bully/victims? (Wolke et al., 2000)

1639 6-9 year olds

Direct : 4.3% bullies, 10.2% bully/victims, 39.8% victims

Relational: 1.1% bullies, 5.9% bully/victims, 37.9% victims  

Relational bullies rated lower in beh+emotional problems as teachers and parents dont see it 

bully/victim group most at risk 

Effects of new technology

• Impact of new technology on friendships?

• ‘Cyberbullying’ = “an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group of individual, using mobile phones or the internet, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself” (Smith et al., 2008)

• Awareness from about 2001 in UK

• What type of aggression is this?

• Relational, verbal, indirect, social 

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is there all the time - cant get away from it

Also anonymity - don't know who it is, makes it more scary

Cyberbullying and related factors

• Is role and prevalence of cyberbullying overstated?

• Reported rates vary from as low as 4-5% to up to 24%+

• Definition of cyberbullying? Date of survey? Age of sample?

Effects of cyberbullying

• increases risk of depressive symptoms

• Associated with psychosomatic problems

• Also with suicidal thoughts

• Associations with popularity - more popular people could be more at risk 

• Correlations between cyberbullying and traditional victims 

Cyberbullying vs “Traditional”

• Does it have to be repetitive? Less clear in cyberbullying what constitutes one act More impact act has (eg get a big audience), less repetition needed

• Reaches larger group - So more long-lasting? - hard to get rid of once posted. More bystander effects? 

• Does there have to be a power imbalance? Anonymity as power

• Age differences - Increases with age (especially perpetration), Peaks at age 15; later than for TB

• Gender differences - Mixed findings, Females more interested in social networking sites so more affected 

• Debate surrounding which has greater effects on victims’ mental health

• Prevalence currently less for serious incidents but suggestion TB decreasing over time whilst CB is not  

• More moral disengagement? Could say things online that you would never say in person

What can we do about bullying?

• Olweus – bullying intervention programme

• Children aged 11-14

• Reduction in bully/victim problems

• Reduced percentage of new victims

Core principles:

• Increase awareness of bully/victim problem, among other school children and teachers/parents

• Active involvement of teachers and parents

• ‘Zero tolerance’ - sanctions for bullies 

• Clear rules against bullying

• Support and protect victims

Does this approach work?

• Depends on what adults see - do they see what's happening, not as good effects for relational aggression 

• Effects seem to be small

• Wolke – improve coping competence of victim

• Adaptation to stressful events depends on use of active coping strategies

• Best environment to learn strategies is highly similar to environment in which they occur

• Use of virtual social environments

​​Sapouna, Wolke et al., 2010

• 18 UK schools, 9 German – children aged 7-11 years

• Classes in experimental or waiting control group

• Baseline assessments of bullying

• Intervention group 1x week for 30mins for 3 weeks

• Type in advice to someone thats been bullied, they then see the outcome of their advice

Virtual reality intervention findings

• Followed up one (T1) and four weeks (T2) after

• German teachers rated software poorly – 70% would not use it again

• Victims at baseline measure:

• Those in intervention group more likely to escape victimisation than those in control at 1 week

• Only significant for UK at 4 weeks 

• All students:

• Significantly lower victimisation rates at T1 for UK only

Cyberbullying strategies? 

• England schools worst for cyberbullying 

• Needs a multipronged approach 

Conclusions

• Children make friends with those who are similar to them on important attributes

• Friendships help emotions, peer adjustments, and other skills; effects last

• May be problematic if friends exhibit negative characteristics

• Children can be aggressive to each other using different forms of aggression

• Relational and physical aggressors differ in way in which social information is processed

• As children get older, become more skilled at using relational aggression

• Boys more bullied and bullying

• Both victims and bullies at risk for poor outcomes

• Cyberbullying – new form of aggression possible

• Cyberbullying can be as bad as face-to-face bullying?

• Interventions tricky – need several strands to them