PYB203: Wk 8 - Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Development

Middle Childhood: Peer Relationships (8-12 years)

  • Deepening cognitive ability leads to increased social understanding.
    • Capacity to understand others' minds and predict behavior.
    • Use this knowledge to act in socially strategic ways.
  • Consolidation of pro-social and antisocial behavior patterns.
    • Behavior problems may impact school functioning.
    • Friendships and peer networks become a primary concern for children.
  • Friendships undergo change, strengthening, and firming.
  • Peer status becomes more entrenched, especially for rejected or victimized children.
  • Social networks exhibit gender differences.
    • Girls tend to form smaller groups.
    • Boys may have wider networks and move around in larger groups.
  • Gender segregation in play is strong in school environments.
    • Can be difficult for children who don't fit assigned gender roles.
  • Dominance hierarchies emerge and become established.
  • Friendship shifts and "argy bargy", particularly among girls aged 9-11, occur alongside a desire for intimacy.
  • Increased gender segregation is observed.
  • Problematic behavior patterns emerge.
    • Social withdrawal: anxious behavior, keeping to themselves.
    • Aggression: consistently aggressive in peer situations.
    • Peer victimization and bullying: become consistent patterns.
  • Cognitive development (concrete operational to formal operational thought) allows for deeper reflection on social functioning and peer relations.
  • Growing ability to reflect on dominance hierarchies and social dynamics.
  • Stronger links between peer relations and psychological functioning develop.
    • Anxiety and social withdrawal.
    • Bullying/rejection and depression symptoms.
    • Aggression often masks underlying depression and anxiety.
  • Peers increasingly influence each other's behaviors.
  • Peers become major socializing force.
  • Modern world: peer influence extends online, creating new challenges.

Sociometric Techniques

  • Methods to determine who is liked/disliked and affiliations within peer groups.
  • Surveys: children nominate classmates they like most/least.
  • Observation: tracking interactions and quality of interactions (friendly, hostile, etc.).
  • Ethical Considerations: Focus on asking children who they like, rather than dislike.
  • Example method: "Bus Trip" scenario (which classmates would you want on a bus trip?).
  • Digital trackers: record proximity and interaction between children.
  • Data mapping: creates complex visual representations of peer networks and relationship qualities.
  • Teacher/parent reports: can be unreliable compared to child reports.
  • Important to consider children's perspectives on peer dynamics.

Peer Status Classification

  • Five categories (Currie & Dodge, 1998):
    • Popular: well-liked by most, rarely disliked.
      • Recent research divides this category into popular (high status) and well-liked.
    • Rejected: rarely liked, often disliked.
      • Aggressive rejected and withdrawn rejected are two distinct subtypes.
    • Neglected: neither liked nor disliked, "float under the radar".
    • Controversial: well-liked by some, disliked by others.
      • Charismatic, socially skilled, but may use social power in discriminatory ways.
    • Average: have enough friends, not super popular.
      • Largest group (half to two-thirds of individuals) but least studied.

Deep Dive into Peer Status Categories

  • Popular (Well-Liked):
    • Demonstrate early and heightened social understanding.
    • Associated with social competence and skill.
    • Tend to be pro-social (cooperative, sharing, helpful, empathetic).
    • Show earlier and more advanced behavioral and emotional regulation.
    • May exhibit relational aggression that is often seen as defensible by peer group.
    • Difference between well-liked and perceived as popular (high peer status).
  • Rejected Children:
    • Aggressive Rejected:
      • Physically and verbally aggressive.
      • Unpopular with peers and adults.
      • Aggression leads to rejection, reinforcing a hostile view of the world.
      • Struggle academically and with emotional/behavioral regulation.
      • Difficulties understanding social situations.
      • Social information processing patterns: hostile attribution of intent, preference for aggressive goals, limited behavioral repertoire.
    • Withdrawn Rejected:
      • Socially isolated and friendless.
      • At risk of being bullied.
      • Social withdrawal can be both cause and effect of peer rejection.
      • Consequences: peer rejection increases across childhood and adolescence if social withdrawal persists.
  • Neglected Children:
    • No strong behavioral characteristics.
    • Neither aggressive nor anxious.
    • Few interactions with other kids.
    • Receive less negative attention but also less access to social support.
  • Controversial Children:
    • Liked by some, not by others.
    • Patterns might be different for males versus females.
    • Charisma and social power. Aware of their social power.
    • Can be aggressive but also social, humorous, cooperative, and socially skilled.
    • Mixed outcomes.
  • Peer Relations: Popularity, outcomes.
    • Popularity is affected by personal characteristics that a child typically can't change (attractiveness, intelligence, social competence, and emotional regulation).
    • Distinction between popular (high peer status) and well-liked children.
      • Better psychosocial outcomes for well-liked children in the long term.
    • Well-liked children tend to be more pro-social.
      • Higher quality friendships and better academic outcomes.
      • The "rich get richer": cumulative benefits of being well-liked.
    • Rejected children.
      • More behavioral and self-regulation difficulties.
      • Poor quality and less positive peer relationships.
      • Poor academic outcomes.
    • Controversial (high peer status, not well-liked).
      • Cause social harm.
      • Mixed outcomes, risk-taking, impulsive behaviors, mood disorders, and substance abuse.
      • Social power may be a reaction to lack of control in early life.

Understanding Friendship

  • Friendship: A special, voluntary, and mutually affirmed peer relationship.
  • Characterized by companionship, affection, and intimacy.
  • Debate around reciprocal vs. non-reciprocal friendships.
  • Just one good quality friendship can buffer negative effects of rejection and victimization.
  • Children describe friends as:
    • Someone who plays with you.
    • Shares their toys.
    • Likes you.
    • Is Kind to you.
      • Not really capable of friendship because they didn't talk in terms around disclosure or intimacy or being able to share secrets or being able to trust.
  • Early childhood friendship: It looks different from adult friendship.
  • Adolescents describe friends as:
    • Someone who "gets me".
    • Someone you can enjoy times with.
    • Someone I can trust.
    • Who has my back.

Gender Role Development

  • Biological sex: physical characteristics that define male and female.
  • Gender: socially constructed features associated with men and women.
  • Gender roles: societal expectations of males, females, and non-binary individuals.
  • Gender typing: acquiring gender-consistent behaviors.
  • Children learn to recognize sex differences through perception (physical attributes).
    *From a Vygotskyan point of view it is not a biological thing.
  • By age two, children expect typical behavior and attributes for men and women.
  • Children show consistent gender labeling of themselves and others.
  • Lack understanding of consistency and stability at this stage
  • Preschool and early school age: focus on "girl" and "boy" behavior.
  • Rigidity around gender stereotypes is high but decreases over time.
  • Consequences for non-conformity to gender stereotypes.
  • Maccabee: children may exaggerate gender roles to cognitively clarify them.
  • Gender identities more firmly established: more open to exceptions and flexibility.
  • Favor same-sex playmates as early as 30-36 months strengthening during school years.
  • Gender segregation and separate peer groups.
  • Possible incompatibility in boys' and girls' play styles.
  • Theories of gender role development:
    • Biologically based theories.
    • Learning theories.
    • Cognitive theories.

Adolescent Development: Parent-Child Relationships

  • Parent-child relationships differ from peer relationships.
    • Parents offer experience, maturity, resources, and authority (vertical power).
    • Peers are social equals (horizontal power).
  • Both types of relationships are critical developmentally.
  • Parent-child relationships should evolve as children enter adolescence.
    • Problems arise when relationships remain stuck in childhood patterns.
  • Adolescents spend less time with parents but parents remain important for practical and emotional support.
  • Parental responsiveness and monitoring are critical.
    • Monitoring: checking in, knowing who they're with, and how they are coping.
    • Linked to positive psychosocial adjustment across adolescence.
  • Adolescent parenting is a period of evolution between connection and differentiation between connection between the parent and the child and kind of an individuation process.
  • Most adolescents report reasonably close and warm relationships with parents.
  • Important for parents to find their own support and avoid seeking self-worth from adolescents.
    *The secure rock.
  • Quality of adolescent-parent relationship depends on pre-adolescent relationship.
  • Relationship becomes more egalitarian over time.
  • Adolescents increase self-regulation, seek control, choice, and autonomy with support.
  • Promotion of volitional functioning: parents guide decision-making without imposing solutions.
  • This is in the authoritative range rather then the authoritarian and the permissive.
  • Leads to greater autonomy and self-determination.
  • Conflict arises around:
    • Expectations of responsibilities and freedoms.
    • Views on appropriate behavior.
    • Everyday issues.
  • Conflict is more common in early adolescence (13-15).
  • Parents may be experiencing their own developmental challenges (menopause, midlife generativity crisis).
  • Increasingly, parents are part of the sandwich generation caring for older parents.
  • Less than 10% of families report significant intergenerational conflict.
    • Readjustment and relationship changes are a normative part of adolescent development

Adolescent Peer Relationships and Social Media

  • Spend more time away from family and with peers.
  • Peers are critical in shaping development.
    • Peer status becomes entrenched.
    • Impact: psychosocial adjustment.
  • Increase in gender behavior meaning: *Instead of being gender segregated, we see now different genders interacting more together, socializing together, so kind of more mixed groups, if that makes sense.
    • Those who identify as girls and whatever that means in terms of femininity might dress in a particular way.
    • Males, they might be doing whatever is seen as more attractive from a masculine point of view within their social context to try and actually amplify, if you like, that gender difference with a view to kind of sexual attraction or romantic attraction.
  • Increase in intensity of specific peer relationships and broadening of peer network.
  • Growing importance of romantic relationships.
  • Peer status becomes more stable across adolescence.
  • Lower peer status can follow an individual into different peer groups.
  • Aggressive rejected kids: disengagement with school, substance abuse, psychopathology.
  • Withdrawn rejected children: depression, anxiety.
  • Rejected and bullied children: worst outcomes.
  • Long-term consequences of peer rejection and victimization are stronger than positive effects of acceptance.
    *Longitudinal studies see this.

Theories of Adolescence

*Theory from an old Australian researcher called Dumphy.
*Dumphy talked about
*Changing peer networks over time, particularly across this adolescent phase.

  • Late childhood: boys/girls in same-sex cliques.
  • Early adolescence: gendered groups socialize more.
    • Provide secure base for romantic experimentation.
  • Mixed-sex groups more typical amongst high-status adolescents.
  • Gradually, less popular peers integrate into mixed-sex groups.
  • New peer groups go to the "crowd".
    • Facilitate organized social activities.
    • Offer opportunities to meet potential romantic partners.
      *This was a way for romantic partners to form.
  • Couples form, crowd disintegrates in later adolescence.

Social Media and Peer Relationships

  • Quality of connections depends on intent and pre-existing characteristics.
  • Not addicted to social media, but addicted to human relationships.
    *Social media is simply the modern form
  • Extroverted adolescents: self-disclose and form online friendships more readily.
  • Introverted adolescents: communicate online to compensate for lacking social skills.
  • Communication channels preferred for personal communication are determined by the level of intimacy
  • Adolescents choose communication based on social goals.
  • This happens in conscious thought.
  • The most influential predictor of the quality of an online interaction is the type or closeness of the relationship.
  • Adolescents in close high-quality relationships also have high-quality interactions regardless of the medium through which they interact.
    *Social media is just a channel.

Romantic Relationships in Adolescence