The chapter begins with a distinction made between the interactions children have with peers, the relationships they form with peers, and the groups and networks within which peer interactions and relationships occur. From this conceptual overview, a review of relevant theories is presented. Thereafter, a developmental perspective of peer interactions, relationships, and groups is presented covering the periods of infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Subsequently, methods and measures pertaining to the study of children's peer experiences are described. Next, we examine factors that may account for peer acceptance and rejection as well as qualitatively rich and poor friendships. Among the factors discussed are included temperament (biological factors), sex of child, parenting, parent-child relationships, and culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extent to which individual differences in peer acceptance, rejection and friendship (prevalence and quality) predict adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes and a suggested agenda for future research.


Keywords:

friendship;
peer interactions;
peer relationships;
peer rejection;
social acceptance;
social competence

Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups

The universality of Schwartz and Bilsky's (1987) theory of the psychological content and structure of human values was examined with data from Australia, Finland, Hong Kong, Spain, and the United States

Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and cross-cultural replications.

The authors argue that attribution patterns reflect implicit theories acquired from induction and socialization and hence differentially distributed across human cultures. In particular, the authors tested the hypothesis that dispositionalism in attribution for behavior reflects a theory of social behavior more widespread in individualist than collectivist cultures

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Culture and Cause: American and Chinese Attributions for Social and Physical Events

A survey of Chinese values was constructed and administered to university students in 22 countries around the world. An ecological factor analysis was run on the culture means for the 40 scale items and revealed four dimensions of cultural valuing. In a search for validities, country scores on these four factors were correlated with those derived from a Western survey of work-related values by Hofstede (1980). Three of the factors from the Chinese Value Survey (CVS) correlated at high levels with three of Hofstede's four, strongly suggesting the robust value dimensions of collectivism and compassion. The second CVS factor, Confucian work dynamism, was unrelated to any of Hofstede's, but correlated .70 with economic growth from 1965 to 1984. This validational evidence confirms the potential of instruments developed outside a Western cultural tradition for opening up new theoretical vistas to the attention of behavioral scientists.

Chinese Values and the Search for Culture-Free Dimensions of Culture

Socially withdrawn children frequently refrain from social activities in the presence of peers. The lack of social interaction in childhood may result from a variety of causes, including social fear and anxiety or a preference for solitude. From early childhood through to adolescence, socially withdrawn children are concurrently and predictively at risk for a wide range of negative adjustment outcomes, including socio-emotional difficulties (e.g., anxiety, low self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and internalizing problems), peer difficulties (e.g., rejection, victimization, poor friendship quality), and school difficulties (e.g., poor-quality teacher-child relationships, academic difficulties, school avoidance). The goals of the current review are to (a) provide some definitional, theoretical, and methodological clarity to the complex array of terms and constructs previously employed in the study of social withdrawal; (b) examine the predictors, correlates, and consequences of child and early-adolescent soc...

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Social withdrawal in childhood

The Political Culture of Kwun Tong: A Chinese Community in Hong Kong

Although 1949 is not a magical year in Chinese history in the sense of marking a total break with the centuries-old traditions and culture, it is appropriate to say that 1949 is the year which symbolizes the end of Chinese sociology. In this paper we attempt to give a socio-historical account of the genesis, development, struggle and then death of sociology in China, covering a period of more than half a century. The first part of the paper will deal with the institutionalization of sociology as a transplanted Western flower in Chinese soil; the second part describes and analyses how Chinese sociology struggled for its legitimacy for survival under Chinese Communism and how the battle was lost.

Ambrose Yeo-Chi King

Papers

The Political Culture of Kwun Tong: A Chinese Community in Hong Kong

The Development and Death of Chinese Academic Sociology: A Chapter in the Sociology of Sociology