Peers Peers & Youth Culture FriendsCliquesCrowds Peer Popularity and Social Competence Peer Acceptance Characteristics of Popular and Unpopular Adolescents

Peers

Peers & Youth CulturePeers & Youth Culture

FriendsFriends

CliquesCliques

CrowdsCrowds

Peer Popularity and Social CompetencePeer Popularity and Social CompetencePeer AcceptancePeer Acceptance

Characteristics of Popular and Unpopular AdolescentsCharacteristics of Popular and Unpopular Adolescents

Social Cognition and Social CompetenceSocial Cognition and Social Competence

Peers

Peers & Youth Culture

Friends

Cliques

Crowds

Peer Popularity and Social CompetencePeer Acceptance

Characteristics of Popular and Unpopular Adolescents

Social Cognition and Social Competence

Peer Group Structure

Friends

Cliques

Crowds

Peers

Why study peer groups?

• Adolescents spend a lot of time with their peers• Hierarchically unique relationship (equal status)• Piaget thought peers were essential to moral

development– Realm of negotiation

– Creative co-establishment of rules

– Issues of distributive justice

Four major changes

• Increased time spent with peers

• Functioning with less adult supervision

• Increasing contact with members of opposite-sex

• Emergence of crowds– Q: Is this an artifact of the school system?

The Nature of Adolescent Peer Groups

Causes of Peer Culture

• Factor # 1: Educational system– Age Grouping– Isolating children from adult population– Putting large numbers of children together– Exposure to diversity

• Different ethnicities, different backgrounds

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Causes of Peer Culture

• Factor # 1: Educational system– Age Grouping– Isolating children from adult population– Putting large numbers of children together– Exposure to diversity

• Different ethnicities, different backgrounds

• Factor #2: Work/Family life– Tougher child labor laws – Both parents working

• Longer hours

• Factor #3: Population shifts– 1 to 7 ratio of adolescents to adults

The Origins of Adolescent Peer Groups in Contemporary Society

• Changes in the Population– Baby Boom created an “adolescent

boom” in the 1960s and early 1970s

– Adolescents comprised over 10% of U.S. population

• Teenage population is now about 7% of U.S. population

Youth Culture

• Is there a separate youth culture?– Many have same values as parents rather than

with those of same age – Young people maintain attitudes/values different

from the rest of society• Individuality, learning, knowledge

• Consumer behavior

• Music, movies/TV, technology

Problem of youth culture

• Development of counter values• Coleman: The Adolescent Society (1961)• Do adolescents (de)value academic achievement?

– Why or why not?

– Should we be concerned?

• Increase in counter-culture activities– Why would increased peer/decreased adult contact

promote this?

Benefit of youth culture

• Cultivation of universalistic norms

• Technological advancements– Postfigurative cultures– Cofigurative cultures– Prefigurative cultures

Technological Change & Youth Culture

Postfigurative Culture• Youth learn from their elders (e.g.,

traditional methods of farming)

Cofigurative Culture• Learning from both elders and peers

Prefigurative Culture• Jody teaches her father how to use

the Internet

(Mead, 1928)

Peers

Peers & Youth Culture

Friends discuss later with Intimacy

Cliques

Crowds

Peer Popularity and Social CompetencePeer Acceptance

Characteristics of Popular and Unpopular Adolescents

Social Cognition and Social Competence

The Nature of Adolescent Peer Groups

• Cliques and Crowds– Cliques are small groups defined by common

activities/friendship and form a regular social group– Crowds are larger, more vaguely defined groups, based

on reputation• Jocks, brains, nerds, druggies, toughs, punks,

populars, socies, and so on• not necessarily friends and do not necessarily spend

time together

Adolescents and Their Cliques: Similarity among Clique Members

• Cliques typically are composed of people of: – same age – same race– same socioeconomic

background– same sex – at least during

early and middle adolescence

• Selection or Socialization? – Antisocial activities, such as delinquency?– Aggression?– Alcohol, tobacco, depression?

Adolescents and Their Cliques: Similarity among Clique Members

Cliques (cont’d)

• Shared interests and activities– Orientation toward school

– Orientation toward the teen culture

– Involvement in antisocial activity

• Deviant peer groups– Aggressive adolescents gravitate toward each

other

Adolescents and Their Cliques:Common Interests among Friends

• Three factors are important for determining clique membership– Orientation toward school

– Orientation toward the teen culture

– Involvement in antisocial activity


• Role of family in friendship choice– Parents socialize certain traits– Predispose teens toward certain

crowds– Crowds reward them for the

traits that led them there in the first place

– Traits are strengthened

• Antisocial peers reinforce antisocial traits

Adolescents and Their Cliques:Common Interests Among Friends

• Deviant peer groups

– Aggressive adolescents gravitate toward each other

– Are gangs just deviant peer groups?

• Process of antisocial peer group formation in adolescence begins in the home during childhood

– Parent-child relationships that are coercive and hostile


• How stable are friendships over time?– Moderate stability over the

school year

– More stable during later years of high school

– Actual composition of teens’ cliques may shift; defining characteristics of the clique, however, do not

Who Do Adolescents Talk To About?

Youniss & Smollar (1985)Adolescents are more likely to talk to their friends about opposite sex relationships, and to their parents about career goals. How do you

interpret these data?

Preadolescent Cliques

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Friendship Choices Among Fourth Graders (from Moreno, 1934, p. 38). Triangles represent males, circles represent females.

Opposite sex transitions

• Adolescent interaction with the opposite sex:

• Same-sex cliques (fairly isolated non-clique interaction)

• Mixed-sex cliques• Cliques divide off into dating pairs

– Disintegration of cliques, replaced with sets of couples

Time Spent in Other-Sex Groups or Pairs

Mixed-sex Cliques

♂ ♀

Crowds

• Larger, more vaguely defined groups, based on reputation– Jocks, brains, nerds, druggies

• May or may not spend time together

• Peak in importance in middle adolescence

• Vary according to involvement in adult institutions vs. peer activities

Crowds as reference groups

• What are crowds?

• Lenses through which adolescents see the world• Lenses through which adolescents are seen by the

world• Crowds as Reference Groups

– Crowds contribute to the definition of norms and standards for such things as clothing, leisure, and tastes in music

The importance of cues

• External cues provide stereotypical information– Short vs. long hair– Clothing style– Mannerisms

• Q: why are these cues reliable sources of information?– Correlational or causal relationship

Dimensions of cliques

• Dimensions of segregation: common interests– Orientation towards adult culture– Orientation towards youth culture

• Selection vs. socialization

Adolescents and Their Crowds

The Social Map of Adolescence

• Involvement in institutions controlled by adults

• Involvement in informal peer culture

Conformity, conformity, conformity

• The primary message of peer groups: Conformity

• Why do you think this is?

– When is it (and in what way is it) a good thing?– When is it (and in what way is it) a bad thing?

Developmental Changes in Crowds

Age Group Crowd Characteristics

Middle School

(Grades 6-8)

-less differentiated (two main groups – the in-crowd and the out-crowd)

Early High School

(Grades 9-10)

-become more differentiated

-more influential

Later High School

(Grades 11-12)

-become yet more differentiated

-more niches for people to “fit into”

-less hierarchical and less influential

Keep in Mind…Adolescents do not always accept the crowd label

attributed to them by peers. They may see themselves as too distinctly individual to be categorized.

Developmental Changes in Crowds

Brown, Mory, & Kinney (1994)

Importance of crowd affiliation

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Popularity

• Popularity (Status): The degree to which children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group.

• Measuring popularity: Sociometric techniques– Nomination technique: “Tell me the names of 3 kids in class that you

like…”

– Rating scale technique: The child is asked to rate each child in the class on a 5 point scale

– Paired comparison technique: The child is presented with the names of 2 children at a time and asked which they like more

Status in the Peer Group

Sociometric systems classify children into five groups:– Popular– Rejected– Neglected– Average– Controversial.

Positive nominations

Few Many

Negative nominations

Few

Many

Peer Acceptance

• 2/3 can be placed in one of these categories


Few Many


Few Popular

Many

Peer Acceptance


Popular Children

• Popular children are liked by many peers and disliked by few peers.

• They are skilled at initiating social interaction with peers and maintaining positive relationships with others.

• They tend to be cooperative, friendly, sociable, and sensitive to others, and are perceived this way by teachers and parents as well as by other children.

• They tend to be more assertive than aggressive, getting what they want without fighting with or hurting others.


Few Many


Few Popular

Many Controversial

Peer Acceptance


Controversial Children

• “Controversial” children are those who are liked by some peers and disliked by others.

• They have characteristics of both popular and rejected children.

• They may be aggressive, disruptive, and prone to anger, but also cooperative, social, and good at sports.

• They may be viewed by peers as arrogant and snobbish.

• They may be socially active and good group leaders.


Few Many


Few Neglected Popular

Many Controversial

Peer Acceptance


Neglected Children

• Some withdrawn children are categorized as “neglected” because they are neither liked nor disliked.

• They tend to back away from peer interactions that involve aggression.

• They tend to be neglected primarily because they are not noticed by their peers.


Few Many


Few Neglected Popular

Many Rejected Controversial

Peer Acceptance


Rejected Children

There are two categories of rejected children:– Aggressive-rejected children are prone to hostile and

threatening behavior, physical aggression, disruptive behavior, and delinquency.They engage in “relational aggression,” spreading rumors about others, withholding friendship, and ignoring and excluding other children.

– Withdrawn-rejected children (10% to 20% of those in the rejected category) are socially withdrawn, wary, and timid. However, not all withdrawn children are rejected.

Popularity and Rejection in Adolescent Peer Groups

• Three types of unpopular adolescents– Aggressive

• fights with other students, bullies others– Withdrawn

• exceedingly shy, timid, and inhibited • victims of bullying

– Aggressive-Withdrawn• hostile, but nervous about initiating friendships

Social Rejection and Self-Evaluations

• Withdrawn-rejected children have less confidence in their social skills and are more anxious in peer contexts.

• Aggressive-rejected children lack social skills and overestimate their social competence.

SOCIAL STATUS

NegativeNominations

PositiveNominations

Controversial

Popular

Rejected

Neglected

Average

SOCIAL STATUS


• Both boys and girls can be aggressive and popular at the same time

• Aggression coupled with poor emotion regulation creates peer problems


• Boys are more physically aggressive than girls• Girls also act aggressively toward peers, but

often engage in relational aggression– Ruin a reputation– Disrupt a friendship

Relational Aggression

• Non-physical forms of aggression:– Gossiping– Spreading rumors– Snubbing– Excluding

• Covert, indirect form of aggression common among girls

Rejected Children: Social Cognition and Social Rejection

• Hostile attributional bias– Plays central role in aggressive behavior of rejected

adolescent

• Rejected children are more likely than their better-liked peers to be motivated by “getting even” with others or showing them up.

• They are more likely to attribute malicious intent to others.

• They have more difficulty finding constructive solutions, such as taking turns.

Victimization and Harassment

• Unpopular youngsters may lack the social skills and social understanding necessary to be popular with peers – Easy targets for bullying– Creates a cycle of teasing, feeling less socially adept, leading

to more bullying– Blame themselves for their victimization

• Victimization can lead to lower earnings as an adult because of the cyclical nature of bullying

Victimization and Harassment

• Peer harassment can be experienced – Directly (as a victim)– Indirectly (witnessing someone else be victimized)

• Different experiences of victimization have different effects

Peer Status as a Predictor of Risk: Academic Performance

• Rejected children (especially if they are aggressive) are more likely than others to have lower grade-point averages and be viewed as poor students.

• The tendency of rejected children to do more poorly in school worsens over time.

• Rejected children are more likely than popular children to be suspended, repeat a grade, or drop out of school.

• They are more likely to get in trouble with the law.

Relation of Sociometric Status to Academic and Behavioral Problems

Peer Status as a Predictor of Risk: Adjustment Problems

• Rejected-aggressive children are more at risk for:– Aggression, delinquency, hyperactivity, ADHD, conduct

disorder, and substance abuse (externalizing symptoms)– Loneliness, depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior

(internalizing symptoms)

• Non–aggressive-withdrawn children are also at risk for internalizing symptoms.

Externalizing Symptoms Reported by Parents: Rejected and Aggressive 3rd Grade Boys

Externalizing Symptoms Reported by Rejected and Aggressive 3rd Grade Boys

Internalizing Symptoms Reported by Rejected and Aggressive 3rd Grade Boys

Percentages of children rejected by peers as a function of gender and family income

As can be seen in these data from a longitudinal study, elementary school children from families with low incomes are considerably more likely to be rejected than are children from middleclass families. (Adapted from Patterson, Griesler, Vaden, & Kupersmidt, 1992)

• Cognitive factors • Emotion regulation• Birth order: Last-born children are more popular than

firstborn children• Intellectual ability: Academic performance correlates with

sociometric measures of popularity • Physical attractiveness: Relatively attractive children are

more popular– Unattractive children may be unpopular in part because of their

negative behaviors

• Motor skills

Predictors of Children’s Sociometric Status

• Chief determinant of popularity during adolescence: Social skills– Act appropriately in eyes of peers– Meet needs of others– Confident but not conceited


Cognitive Factors for Peer Relations

• Perspective taking refers to the ability to adopt the view of another person

• Social cognition refers to the level of thought used by a child in reference to others

• Social problem-solving skills refer to the skills needed to resolve social dilemmas

• Unpopular youngsters may lack the social skills and social understanding necessary to be popular with peers

• Hostile attributional bias– Plays central role in aggressive behavior

• Withdrawn kids– Peer group entry, poor self-esteem, lack of confidence– Cycle of victimization



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• Predictors of popularity do not seem to change substantially with age.

• Overt aggression has a less important role in peer rejection in adolescence than in childhood.

• Withdrawn behavior seems to become a more important predictor of peer rejection with increasing age in childhood.

• Social isolation may be forced on some children as they progress through school, either through their own disruptive or aggressive behavior or through self-isolation.

Stability of Sociometric Status

• Over short periods of time (weeks or a few months), children who are popular or rejected tend to remain so. Children who are neglected or controversial are more likely to change status.

• Over longer periods of time, sociometric status is more likely to change. Stability is higher for rejected children than for popular, neglected, or controversial children.

Interventions for Unpopularity

Adolescent Intervention Focus

Neglected -learning the social skills needed for making friends

Rejected -learning how to control and manage anger and aggressiveness

Constructing Ideas: Peer Pressure or Friends’ Influence?

Why might friends’ influence be a more accurate description?

Is friends’ influence largely toward negative behaviors? Explain your answer.

From your experience, recall positive and negative From your experience, recall positive and negative influences your friends have had on you. influences your friends have had on you.

Adolescent Conformity

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Mean Scores for Peer Conformity on Different Types of Behavior

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Activity Questionnaire Results

Activity Yourself Your Best The AverageFriend Student

Number of alcoholicDrinks per week 1.48 1.84 3.52

Number of times per month drunk 1.02 0.98 3.70

Activity Questionnaire Results

Activity Yourself Your Best The AverageFriend Student

Number of alcoholicDrinks per week 0.8 1.8 4.4

Number of times per month drunk 1.0 1.7 4.7

Peer Pressure

You Your Best Friend

Average Simmons Student

Drinks per Week 3.9 5.7 6.6

Times Drunk per Month 1.9 2.4 4.6

Peer Pressure

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY)

Eder (1978, 1995): Perceived Polularity

• Hard to understand what students defined as being popular, but clear that students were not all equal

• Visibility was most important• Strong influence of social class• Low end of hierarchy

– Unattractiveness, atypical gender behavior, lower intelligence, unusual behavior

Documents

Peers Peers & Youth Culture FriendsCliquesCrowds Peer Popularity and Social Competence Peer Acceptance Characteristics of Popular and Unpopular Adolescents