Research on the relation between social information processing and social adjustment in childhood is reviewed and interpreted within the framework of a reformulated model of human performance and social exchange. This reformulation proves to assimilate almost all previous studies and is a useful heuristic device for organizing the field. The review suggests that overwhelming evidence supports the empirical relation between characteristic processing styles and children's social adjustment, with some aspects of processing (e.g., hostile attributional biases, intention cue detection accuracy, response access patterns, and evaluation of response outcomes) likely to be causal of behaviors that lead to social status and other aspects (e.g., perceived self-competence) likely to be responsive to peer status

A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment.

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

Cross-sectional quantitative designs are often used to investigate whether peer victimization is positively related to psychosocial maladjustment. This paper presents a meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies, published between 1978 and 1997, of the association of peer victimization with psychosocial maladjustment. Mean effect sizes were calculated for the association between peer victimization and each form of maladjustment (depression, loneliness, generalized and social anxiety, and global and social self-worth) assessed. The results suggested that victimization is most strongly related to depression, and least strongly related to anxiety. There was no evidence that victimization is more strongly related to social than to psychological forms of maladjustment. Effect sizes were stronger when the same informants were used to assess both victimization and maladjustment than when different informants were used. There were some design limitations to the studies reviewed, but all together their results provide a strong background for more complex research into the course and treatment of victims' distress.

Twenty Years' Research on Peer Victimization and Psychosocial Maladjustment: A Meta‐analytic Review of Cross‐sectional Studies

The differences model, which argues that males and females are vastly different psychologically, dominates the popular media. Here, the author advances a very different view, the gender similarities hypothesis, which holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. Results from a review of 46 meta-analyses support the gender similarities hypothesis. Gender differences can vary substantially in magnitude at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs. Overinflated claims of gender differences carry substantial costs in areas such as the workplace and relationships.

/pdf/the-gender-similarities-hypothesis-457sd4q0g5.pdf

The gender similarities hypothesis.

The authors first describe individual differences in the structure of the self. In the independent self-construal, representations of others are separate from the self. In the interdependent self-construal, others are considered part of the self (H. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991). In general, men in the United States are thought to construct and maintain an independent self-construal, whereas women are thought to construct and maintain an interdependent self-construal. The authors review the psychological literature to demonstrate that many gender differences in cognition, motivation, emotion, and social behavior may be explained in terms of men's and women's different self-construals. Recognition of the interdependent self-construal as a possible alternative conception of the self may stimulate new investigations into the ways the self influences a person's thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Models of the Self: Self-Construals and Gender

Prior studies of childhood aggression have demonstrated that, as a group, boys are more aggressive than girls. We hypothesized that this finding reflects a lack of research on forms of aggression that are relevant to young females rather than an actual gender difference in levels of overall aggressiveness. In the present study, a form of aggression hypothesized to be typical of girls, relational aggression, was assessed with a peer nomination instrument for a sample of 491 third-through sixth-grade children. Overt aggression (i.e., physical and verbal aggression as assessed in past research) and social-psychological adjustment were also assessed. Results provide evidence for the validity and distinctiveness of relational aggression. Further, they indicated that, as predicted, girls were significantly more relationally aggressive than were boys. Results also indicated that relationally aggressive children may be at risk for serious adjustment difficulties (e.g., they were significantly more rejected and reported significantly higher levels of loneliness, depression, and isolation relative to their nonrelationally aggressive peers).

/pdf/relational-aggression-gender-and-social-psychological-25c5pt974c.pdf

Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment.

Past research on peer victimization has focused on maltreatment through overtly aggressive behaviors. Although a relational form of aggression has been identified in recent research, studies of the victims of relational aggression have not yet been conducted. The present research was designed as a first attempt to address this issue. Four goals were pursued (n = 474; third- through sixth-grade children): (a) development of a self-report measure of victimization through relational and overt aggression; (b) assessment of the relation between overt victimization and relational victimization; (c) assessment of gender, grade, and sociometric status group differences in victimization; and (d) evaluation of the relation between victimization and social-psychological adjustment. Results showed that the newly developed victimization measure had favorable psychometric properties and that most of the identified victims were the targets of cither relational or overt aggression, but not both. Further, rejected children were more relationally and overtly victimized than their better accepted peers, and boys were more overtly victimized than girls. Finally, relational victimization, overt victimization, and the lack of prosocial treatment by peers were all significantly related to social-psychological adjustment difficulties (e.g., depression, loneliness).

Children's treatment by peers: Victims of relational and overt aggression

This study (n = 315 9-12-year-olds) was conducted to assess whether the social problems that relationally and overtly aggressive children typically experience in the peer group context are also exhibited in the dyadic, friendship context The qualities of children's friendships (eg, levels of intimacy) and of the importance of those qualities (eg, the importance of intimacy) were assessed with self-report instruments adapted from past research Results indicated that the friendships of relationally aggressive children were characterized by relatively high levels of intimacy, exclusivity/jealousy, and relational aggression within the friendship context In contrast, the friendships of overtly aggressive children were characterized by engaging together in aggressive acts toward those outside the friendship In addition, overtly aggressive children placed relatively high importance on these coalitional acts and on companionship with their friends Implications for our understanding of aggressive children and for our knowledge of children's friendships are discussed

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1131626

Relational aggression, overt aggression, and friendship

Numerous studies have demonstrated that physically aggressive children exhibit hostile attributional biases in response to instrumental peer provocations, a social information-processing pattern that has been recognized as a contributor to peer-directed aggression The present studies (N = 127 and N = 535) were designed to extend past research by evaluating the intent attributions and feelings of emotional distress of relationally and physically aggressive children in response to instrumental and relational provocation contexts Results indicated that physically aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for instrumental provocation situations, whereas relationally aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for relational provocation contexts Implications of these findings for the understanding of factors that may contribute to relational as well as physical aggression are discussed

Jennifer K. Grotpeter

Papers

Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment.

Children's treatment by peers: Victims of relational and overt aggression

Relational aggression, overt aggression, and friendship

Relationally and physically aggressive children's intent attributions and feelings of distress for relational and instrumental peer provocations.

Childhood aggression and gender: a new look at an old problem.