PSYCH 3JJ3 Exam

Judy Harris

• Judith Harris argued that the amount of influence parents have on their child's development isn't as significant as we previously thought

• She raised the question: do parents have any long-term effects on the development of the child's personality?

• Proposed the group theory of social development

Judy Harris - Group Theory of Social Development

• Kids are influenced more by peer groups than just their parents

• Socialization depends on the situation (context matters)

• Most learning outside the home happens with other kids

• Group interactions (not just one-on-one) shape behavior and culture

How do peer relationships qualitatively differ than those with adults?

• They are briefer, freer, and more equal

• They are more likely to involve shared positive emotions and conflicts

• They offer opportunities for new types of interpersonal exploration

• They offer children a cultural community of their own

Peer

• another child roughly of the same age

• interactions are short and involve minimum commitment

• they may be one sided; they do not involve reciprocal liking or mutual respect

friend

• a peer whom with a child has a special relationship with

• interactions are regular, sustained, and involve reciprocal liking/respect

dyad

interactions between pairs of children

Groups

cliques, teams, and crowds with norms, rules, and hierarchies

Developmental patterns of peer interaction → first encounters in infancy

• in the first 6 months of life → babies touch and look at each other; they are responsive to each other’s behaviours

• after 6+ months → infants begin to recognize their peer as a social partner

  • Infants start trying to interact with other infants by vocalizing, waving, and touching - most behavior is friendly

  • They gain better awareness of their social role

Social exchanges between toddlers by age → 1ya

gains in locomotion and language increase the complexity of social exchanges

Social exchanges between toddlers by age → 1-2ya

• Toddlers play in groups and engage in complex social exchanges

• They increasingly prefer peer over adult interactions

• Toys are integrated into social exchanges - even at this young age, sharing and cooperativeness are effective social strategies

Social exchanges between toddlers by age → 3ya

Engage in play that has shared meaning, such as pretend play

Pretend play

• make believe activity in which objects are used symbolically

• the nature of pretend play varies cross-culturally

• development:

  • 2.5ya: pretend play first appears

  • 3ya: play becomes complex, cooperative, and dramatic

  • 4ya: longer play, with negotiated roles, rules, and themes

  • 6ya: peak pretend play with coordinated stories, quick role changes, and creative use of objects

• important for social competence

When does pretend play peak?

at 6ya

Importance of pretend play for social competence

• Permits children to experience the roles and feelings of others in a playful context

• Teaches children to function as apart of a social group and coordinate their activities with other children

Peer play in early childhood

• When looking at peer relationships, looking at early play behaviors is highly informative

• There are several types of play:

  • Onlooker

  • Parallel play

  • Associative play

  • Cooperative play

• Pretend play is significant

What are the types of play?

• onlooker

• parallel play

• associative play

• cooperative play

Types of play → onlooker

• Children watch or converse with other children engaged in play activities

• About half of 2 year olds engage in this type of play

• More withdrawn behaviour

Types of play → parallel play

• Children play in similar activities, often side by side, but do not engage with one another

• This type of play is common in 2ya, but diminishes by the time a child is 3- 4

Types of play → associative play

• Children play with other children but do not share the same goals

• They share toys and materials and may react to/common on another child's ongoing activities

• However, they are still not fully engaged with each other in a joint project

• This type of play is commonly seen in 3-4ya, less often in 2ya

Types of play → cooperative play

At ages 3-4, children begin to engage in play in which they cooperate, reciprocate, and share common goals

Peers in the school years

• Around the age of 2.5, children begin to spend more time with other children as companions and less social time with adult companions

• In addition, the nature of social interactions and types of peers children has changes

How does the nature of social interactions between peers change during the school years?

• There is an increase in prosocial behavior

  • Children are learning the rules and guidelines of society + social interactions

  • Physical aggression decreases; generosity and helpfulness increases

How do the types of peers children play with change across the school years?

• children’s preferences for peers the same ages increases → same-age peers share interests and similar abilities

• the gender of one’s peers becomes more significant

  • younger children (3-7ya) are equally likely to choose same gender / different gender peers

  • during the school years, children increasingly choose playmates of the same gender and exclude the other gender

gender differences in play styles → girls

• Quiet games, small groups, near school building, close to adult supervision

• Prefer play involving artistic endeavors, books, or dolls

• Like unstructured activities

• Are more intimate and exchange more information than boys

gender differences in play styles → boys

• Play high-energy, run-and-chase games in a large group that take up nearly 10x as much space as girls play

• More competitive in their play

• Prefer organized games controlled by the rules

peer interaction in adolescence

• adolescents spend 2x as much time with peers than their parents → this pattern is particularly marked in western cultures

• adolescents are usually engaged in recreation and conversation with minimal supervision by adults

• peer interactions offer the perspective of equals and ideas about how to act

  • i.e, peers influence many aspects of adolescents lives

peer interaction in adolescence → what do peers influence?

• The style of interpersonal behaviour, selection of friends, and the choice of fashion and entertainment

• The use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs (especially cannabis)

During adolescence, when are peers especially influential?

• Peers are especially influential if a teen lacks parental support

• However, authoritative parenting = less susceptibility to peer pressure

study: children's emotional regulation - self-report and physiological response to peer provocation → methods

• Investigated the concordance between self-reported emotional regulation and physiological measures by examining emotional regulation in a specific context

  • In this study, the context = peer provocation; children were brought into the lab and where asked to complete a difficult computer activity in the presence of an aggravating peer

• They recorded heart rate activity and recovery

study: children's emotional regulation - self-report and physiological response to peer provocation → results

• Children who reported greater dysregulation showed increased heart rate activity to provocative comments

• But, there was no difference in heart rate recovery

• Thus, child-level factors and peer context interact to influence autonomic (biological) measures of emotional regulation

surgency

a personality trait featuring positive affect, approach tendencies, and sensation seeking

study: adolescent peer interaction and trait surgency weaken medial PFC responses to failure → methods

• given that adolescent risk taking increases in the presence of peers, they wanted to see how peer provocation impacted risk-taking behaviour

• they expected mPFC activity would be reduced in those with greater surgency

• they had a sample of 15ya boys complete a driving simulator alone and then in the presence of peers (who heckled them); you earn points, so more points = more activity in the reward centre - but if you crash you lose all your points!

• FRN event-related potential was recorded in response to an impending car crash

study: adolescent peer interaction and trait surgency weaken medial PFC responses to failure → results excluding surgency

• When the participant is alone, their cognitive monitoring system works optimally

• However, we can infer that the brain doesn’t work as efficiently in the presence of a peer who is telling you to drive less efficiently

• Thus, context impacts this neural correlate (independent of personality traits or other differences) in a negative way

study: adolescent peer interaction and trait surgency weaken medial PFC responses to failure → results including surgency

• Greater surgency and peer presence were associated with reduced activity specific in the mPFC

• Riskier performance resulting in more car crashes resulted from the presence of peers only as an interaction with surgency

How do peers function as socializers?

• By modeling behaviour

• By reinforcing and punishing behaviour

• By providing a source for social comparison

How do peers function as socializers? → by modeling behaviour

• Children learn a great deal about how to behave simply by observing the actions of their peers (A bandura-esque perspective)

• Older children learn about social rules by watching their peers

• In adolescence, young people copy peer models to decide what to wear, how much to eat, and whether to engage in risky behavior

• Children are most likely to imitate peers who are older, more powerful, and more prestigious

How do peers function as socializers? → by reinforcing and punishing behaviour

• peers tell children how to behave and reinforce these behaviours

• approved behaviours are met with praise, thus becoming reinforced

• disliked behaviours are met with criticism, and become negatively reinforced, thus decreasing the  likelihood it happens again

• in adolescence, the “group” becomes a more impactful unit of social influence

How do peers function as socializers? → by providing a source for social comparison

• Using peers as a source of comparison is adaptive as it provides realistic appraisals of one's abilities

• Important for self esteem

Social comparison

the process by which people evaluate their own abilities, values, and other qualities by comparing themselves with others, usually their peers

What method do researchers use to study peer relationships?

the sociometric technique

The sociometric technique

• A procedure for determining a child's status within his/her peer group

• Each child in the group nominates others whom  he/she likes best and least and rates each child in the group for desirability as a companion

• Limitations → labor intensive, time consuming

• Produces five categories of peer status (popular, average, neglected, controversial, rejected)

• This technique has predictive utility

What are the 5 categories of peer status? (as produced by the sociometric technique)

• popular children

• average children

• neglected children

• controversial children

• rejected children

What are the 5 categories of peer status? → popular children

children who are liked by many peers and disliked by very few

What are the 5 categories of peer status? → average children

children who have some friends but are not as well liked as popular children

What are the 5 categories of peer status? → neglected children

children who are socially isolated; although they are not disliked they have few friends

What are the 5 categories of peer status? → controversial children

children who are liked by many peers and are also disliked by many peers

What are the 5 categories of peer status? → rejected children

children who are disliked by many and are liked by very few

Study: neurodevelopmental differences to social exclusion - an event related neural oscillation study of children, adolescents, and adults → methods

• used the cyberball task (to measure self exclusion) and recorded what was happening in the brain during the social exclusion (via EEG - they looked at theta waves and ERP) in a sample of children, adolescents, and adults

• specifically, they wanted to see the brain’s response to being rejected and how much energy/power was related to the event

cyberball task

• Participants come into the lab and are shown the profiles of peers of the same gender + age

• They engage in a "ball toss" with these peers

• Eventually, the peers stop passing the ball to the participant - they are being excluded

Theta waves

• 4-7 Hz

• Give us information about sensory processing and drowsiness

What important information can be derived from this image?

• This is a diagram of EEG scalp electrode sites; in the designated study they where measuring theta waves (used in sensory processing)

• F = frontal area

• P = parietal area

• These specific areas (F + P) capture the underlying brain areas involved in sensory processing

ERP (event related potential) responses

• Captures how active the brain is during a discrete event

• P = pos, N = n

Study: neurodevelopmental differences to social exclusion - an event related neural oscillation study of children, adolescents, and adults → neural correlates

• they saw quick engagement and more activity in the frontal area of the brain and at the midfrontal area after rejection

• thus, there are distinct brain correlates associated with being rejected

Study: neurodevelopmental differences to social exclusion - an event related neural oscillation study of children, adolescents, and adults → neural correlates x behavior

the functional link between theta power to rejection and self-reported distress was strongest among the adolescents (this was not seen in the other groups)

Perceived popularity

• ratings of how well a child is liked by their peers, made by teachers, parents, and children

• strongly related to popularity assessed with sociometric techniques

What are the two types of popular children?

• popular friendly

• popular aggressive

popular friendly children

friendly towards their peers and are well-liked

popular aggressive children

athletic, arrogant, and aggressive but at the same time are viewed as cool and attractive

study: the two faces of adolescents success with peers - adolescent popularity, social adaptation, and deviant behaviour → methods

• this study tested the longitudinal outcomes of individuals with varying levels of popularity in highschool (ranging from unpopular to popular) and the values of their social groups

• they examined levels of substance use and deviant behaviour

study: the two faces of adolescents success with peers - adolescent popularity, social adaptation, and deviant behaviour → results for substance use

• More popularity and high peer valuing of misconduct = higher likelihood of drug use

• Suggests differential susceptibility

study: the two faces of adolescents success with peers - adolescent popularity, social adaptation, and deviant behaviour → results for deviant behavior

• More popularity and high peer valuing of misconduct = higher relative changes in the level of minor deviant behavior

• Suggests diathesis stress

• Recall, peers are increasingly likely to reinforce each other as they get older and pressure each other to follow the rules of the group → so, if popular adolescents peers did not value misconduct they did not engage in it and vise versa

What are the two types of rejected children

• non-aggressive rejected

• aggressive-rejected

Non-aggressive rejected children

children who tend to be socially withdrawn and socially unskilled

Aggressive-rejected children

children who are not accepted by peers because of their low level of self-control and high level of aggression

What are the two types of neglected children?

• socially reticent-anxious

• uninterested-unsociable

Socially reticent-anxious children

• children who watch others from afar, remain unoccupied in social company, and hover near but do NOT engage in social interaction

• ex: children who engage in onlooking play behaviour

Uninterested-unsociable children

children who are not anxious or fearful but simply refrain from social interaction (they prefer to be alone)

What groups of children had the highest amount of loneliness?

• the neglected and rejected groups

• implication: popular children display more social skills and fewer behavioural problems

factors that affect peer acceptance

• temperament

• social cognitive skills

• children’s goals in social interaction

• one’s physical appearance

• one’s ability to blend in

factors that affect peer acceptance → temperament

• Temperament underlies many of the behaviours that affect peer status

• aggressive-rejected children = low effortful control + high extraversion-surgency

• non-aggressive rejected children = low extraversion surgency

• popular children = neither inhibited or impulsive temperament

research on temperament x environmental interactions

• Research has found that:

  • Poor effortful control and negative parenting leads to peer rejection

  • High shyness and negative parenting leads to social withdrawal

Study: inhibitory control, dyadic social behavior, and mental health difficulties in preschoolers → methods

• inhibitory control typically = positive outcomes, but some studies suggest too little AND too much is problematic

• they examined whether inhibitory control at T1 measurements of inhibitory control predicted observed social behaviour within an unfamiliar peer during a dyadic interaction and maternal report's of child's mental health difficulties at T2

Study: inhibitory control, dyadic social behavior, and mental health difficulties in preschoolers → results

• High and low levels of inhibitory control were associated with higher levels of avoidant social behaviours and mental health difficulties

• Thus, having moderate levels of inhibitory control predicted the lowest amount of avoidant social behaviour → the goldilocks effect

factors that affect peer acceptance → social cognitive skills

• Peer acceptance is associated with…

  • The social knowledge and skill to ask new acquaintances for information, offer information, or invite other children to join them in an activity

  • Better understanding of other people's mental states and more awareness of their emotions and motives

• Deficits in social understanding can lead to maladaptive behaviour, poor interactions, and reduced peer acceptance

Dodge’s social information processing model

• proposes that, in social encounters with peers, children follow these steps:

1. Attend to and understand other's social communications

2. Interpret other's behaviour

3. Formulate and clarify one's own goals based on these interpretations

4. Review possible strategies and actions to accomplish goals

5. Make decisions about how to act, evaluate likely responses of others, and assess the likelihood of success

6. Execute a social response or action

In social interactions, are children always reflective?

• Children do not always respond reflectively and thoughtfully; sometimes their behaviour is impulsive or automatic

  • i.e, they may have social habits, which save time and energy but can also lead to problems

• This has implications for social acceptance

• Step by step social information processing is more likely to be used in novel situations with unfamiliar others

factors that affect peer acceptance → children’s goals in social interactions

• Children whose goal is to create or maintain social relationships are likely to use prosocial strategies and to be accepted by peers

• Children whose goal is to dominate others may choose coercive strategies and thus be rejected

factors that affect peer acceptance → one’s physical appearance

• Everyone (from infancy to adulthood) bases their initial appraisals of people based on superficial physical characteristics

• Children expect to find characteristics such as friendliness, fearlessness, and willingness to share in good‐looking peers, and they expect unattractive children to be aggressive, antisocial, and mean

factors that affect peer acceptance → one’s ability to blend in

• Children who look or act odd are unlikely to be unpopular

• Children with disruptive or hyperactive behaviour are likely to be rejected

• Atypical behaviour becomes more salient to the peer group as children get older

Consequences of peer rejection

• Loneliness

  • But, the effects are minimized if a child has at least one friend

• Difficulties in school

• Behavioral and emotional problems

• Physical health problems

Can peer status change?

• Children's peer status is quite stable over time

• This is largely due to the reputational bias

• And, the child's own behaviour also contributes to this stability

Reputational Bias

the tendency to interpret peers behaviour on the basis of past encounters with and feelings about them

(textbook) how can parents act as promoters of peer acceptance?

• they can model being a positive partner

• they can coach and teach children a variety of social skills through direct instruction and reinforcement

• they can arrange social opportunities for their children and monitor them

(textbook) peer rejection of abused children

• Parental abuse of children is likely to interfere with children's development of good peer relationships

• Children who where physically abused = rejected due to high aggression

• In addition, being abused increases the likelihood that children will victimize other children

(textbook) gender x friendship patterns

• girls → friendships have more intimacy, self-disclosure, and co-rumination

• boys → friendships are more focused on sports and games; they do not share feelings

(textbook) dominance hierarchies

• Beginning at the end of the first year, infants have a rudimentary understanding of the concept of social dominance

• By 1.5-3y of age, children in a group form a dominance hierarchy

• Group hierarchies serve a variety of practical purposes

(textbook) clique

• a group of children based on friendship and shared interests

• across adolescence, cliques decline in importance

(textbook) crowd

• a collection of people who share attitudes or activities that define a particular stereotype

• ex: jocks, brains, populars, nerds, skaters, stoners, etc

• replaces cliques during adolescence

(textbook) gangs

• a group of adolescents or adults who form an allegiance for a common purpose

• The gang may be loose-knit or a formal organization (formal gangs are often involved in criminal activity)