Peers and Friendships

Friends

people with whom you develop a values, mutual relationship

Peers

people with whom you share certain aspects of your status

• examples are age or interests

Importance of Friendships in Adolescence

• no longer as dependent on family

• not yet responsible for new family

Free Time in Adolescence

• family

  • decrease in time/increase in conflict

  • time decreases by more than half from 5th to 12th

• Friends

  • time with same sex friends remains stable

  • time with opposite sex friends increases

• Activities

  • time at school

  • after school activities

  • hanging out on weekends

  • time with friends most enjoyable activity

Changes in Emotional Support

emotional support shifts over time as well

• 4th: most likely to go to parents

• 7th: same gender friends equally likely as parents

• 10th: same sex friends surpass parents

• emerging adults: romantic partners are main sources of support

Intimacy in Friendships

• friendships play major role in identity development

  • sharing mutual perspectives

  • feedback on merits and deficits

  • help us understand/make sense of the world around us

• major shift from childhood to adolescence

  • perspective taking leads to capacity for intimacy

  • intimacy common attribute to denote friendships

• adolescents rate trust and loyalty higher than younger children

Intimacy and Adolescent Development

• cognitive effects

  • more abstract thinking

  • perspective taking helps with intimacy

• environmental effects

  • first kiss

  • physical maturation

  • first romances

  • first job

  • choosing a career/college

  • transition into adulthood

Intimacy and Gender

• girls tend to have more intimate friendships

  • more time talking, rated as more important

  • higher in affection, helpfulness, nurturing

• boys more likely to emphasize shared activities

  • sports or hobbies

Choosing Friends

• one key factor is similarities

• we look for people with similar characteristics

Ethnic Segregation of Friendships

• in early childhood, ethnicity not as important

• more ethnically segregated with time

  • more aware of racial tensions

  • developing own ethnic identity

  • segregation of society

  • inter-ethnic friendships fairly uncommon throughout life

Friend Influence and Risk Behavior

• research suggests correlation between adolescent behavior and friend risky behavior

  • not necessarily causation

  • influence of friends

  • selective association

• influences

  • style of dress, grooming, school activities are all more likely to be influenced by others than risk behaviors

  • pressure against risk behavior more common than in favor

Types of Support From Friends

• informational

• instrumental

• companionship

• esteem

Informational Support

• advice and guidance in solving personal problems

• romantic relationships, parents, school, friendships

Instrumental Support

• help with different asks

• school work, chores

Companionship Support

• provide companionships in social activities

• hang out, go to dance together, go to a party

Esteem Support

• emotional support related to self-esteem

• encouragement, congrats when things go well, consolation when they don’t

Friendships in Emerging Adulthood

• more relationships with other sex

  • both platonic and romantic

• as we age, enduring serious romantic relationships begin to take precedence in our lives

  • increasing investment in romantic relationships

  • less time available for friendships

Cliques

smaller, close groups of friends who regularly spend time together

Crowds

larger, reputation based groups

Five Primary Groups in High School

• elites

• athletes

• academics

• deviants

• others

Why is Group Membership a Thing?

• ambiguous social hierarchy in school

• searching for an identity

• being part of a crowd helps person establish own identity

• clearly state “who they are” to the world

Fades as you get closer to emerging adulthood, individuality is valued the older you get because it sets you apart

Ethnicity in Group Membership

• tend to see uniformity in other ethnic groups

• see more diversity within our own ethnic group

• little crossing of ethnic boundaries in crowd membership

• exception: athletes

Relational Aggression

• non-physical aggression that harms others by damaging relationships

  • sarcasm, ridicule, spreading rumors, excluding others from the group

• gender differences in physical aggression and relational aggression during adolescence

Sarcasm and Ridicule

• adolescents begin to make use of sarcasm and ridicule

• targeted at both members within the group and outside the group

• within the group:

  • establishes dominance hierarchy

  • promotes group conformity

• outside the group:

  • establishes identity - us v. them

  • enforces conformity to society’s standards

Bullying

• extreme form of peer rejection

• cross-national phenomenon:

  • 10-20% of people reported being bullied at some point in life

  • peaks in early and mid adolescence, falls in late adolescence

  • cyberbullying on the rise

Three Components of Bullying

1. Aggression (physical or verbal)

2. Repetition (pattern, not just one instance)

3. Power Imbalance (higher status to bully over one being bullied)

Who Bullies? Who is Bullied?

• boys more likely to be both victims and bullies

• more common for lower status individuals

• high status - asserting dominance

• medium status - going along with crowd

• low status - looking for someone lower status to deflect attention/feel better about own insecurities

Problems Related to Bullying

• victims - higher rates of physical symptoms (headaches), loneliness, helplessness, anxiety, and unhappiness

• bullies - more likely to have problems in their relationships with parents and peers, as well as more psychological problems

• approximately 1/4th of bullies have been victims of bullying themselves

Popularity and Social Skills

• certain traits more likely to be associated with popularity

  • physical attractiveness

  • social skills

  • intelligence

• Intelligence

  • academics stereotyped to have poor social skills

  • highly correlated with social intelligence

  • better able to figure out what other people want/navigate social situations

• social skills most often associated with popularity

  • friendly, cheerful, good-natured, humorous

  • treat others kindly, sensitive to needs of others, good listeners

  • can take the lead without being arrogant, draw others in

Popularity and Social Skills

• unpopular adolescents

  • rejected (aggressive, quarrelsome)

  • neglected (ignored)

• rejected adolescents

  • defined by aggressiveness

  • actively disliked by their peers

  • excessively aggressive, disruptive, selfish, quarrelsome

  • more likely to interpret ambiguous information as hostile/poorer social processing

• neglected adolescents

  • barely noticed by peers

  • not liked or disliked

  • shy and withdrawn

Popularity

• self-pepetuating

  • reputation/status typically follows person over time

  • tied to social skills

  • cycle of reinforcement/punishment

• rejected teens

  • more likely to make similar-minded peers

  • get in more trouble/conflicts due to their aggressiveness

• intervention for rejected

  • aimed at controlling anger

  • encourage to stop, calm down, and think before acting

• neglected teens

  • lower self-esteem, depression, loneliness, alc abuse

• intervention for neglected

  • aimed at developing skills to make friends

  • how to enter a group, listen to others in attentive way, attract positive attention from peers