Peer Relationships Flashcards

Question

Controversial children

Answer 1

Children are liked and disliked by quite a few peers. They tend to have characteristics of both popular and rejected individuals e.g it could be that they are extremely aggressive and have a lot of aggressive friends but also have a lot of victims that dislike them.

Answer 2

Thoughtful and active parenting that fosters positive interaction with peers, stability in friendships, easier friendship formation. Facilitating contact with the local community, social activities, and extracurricular activities are associated with social competence and peer liking.

Answer 3

Parents spend considerable time orchestrating and monitoring their children’s interactions with peers. Parents decide who their children interact with and how much time they spend with them and doing what activities. As they grow older the parent has less control over their peer interactions so monitoring becomes more important. Parental knowledge which is reported by adolescents themselves can show the extent to which their parents are actually aware of their whereabouts, higher levels are correlated with less substance abuse etc.

Answer 4

Parents teach children strategies for gaining entry to a group that are effective and prosocial associated with accepted children. Mothers of children low in socio-metric status were found to encourage their child to direct the activity of the group or encourage their child to initiate activities inconsistent with the group’s current activity. There are various forms such as emotion coaching which provides children with explanations about the acceptability of emotions and how to manage them. Enhances social skills and negotiation of interpersonal conflict.

Answer 5

Affects future social competence and quality of the child’s relationships with others. It argues that secure attachment style promotes competence with peers in at least three ways; positive social expectations and so in better at more readily, develop understanding of reciprocity in relationships and are confident, friendly and enthusiastic. Insecure attachment is likely to impair social competence. If parents are hostile or neglectful, the child is more likely to develop a hostile attribution bias. Insecurely attached infants and toddlers tend to be more aggressive, whiny and socially withdrawn (Bohlin et al 2000).

Answer 6

Warm, accepting and positive parent child interactions is correlated with positive peer relationships. Parenting that is harsh, authoritarian discipline and low levels of child monitoring is often associated with children’s being unpopular and victimised. Parents can also serve as a buffer when their children’s peer relationships are not going well. They are less likely to experience depressive symptoms if they had positive close relationships with their parents. Intergenerational transmission of domestic violence. Adolescents are unlikely to report violence in a romantic relationship due to engaging in sexual activity early without parental consent due to guilt.

Answer 7

Development of the capacity to reproduce. Changes in sex hormones and physical appearance begin around age 11 for both boys and girls. Although puberty is a normative event the timing of it varies and can account for developmental difficulties. The timing of pubertal transition in particular is argues it be an important determinant of the relationship between pubertal maturation and psychopathology.

Answer 8

Caspi and Moffitt (1991) suggest that pre-existing differences are magnified and accentuated during life course discontinuities. It’s a period of vulnerability that passes as people catch up. Change is stressful and effects are immediate and transient.

Answer 9

Argues departure from the norm for the group is liked to adjustment problems because of social expectations about the timing of developmental events (e.g parents and peers). Early and late matures are at risk because development is incongruent with others, parents may not be ready for their child to mature so early and put a strain on the dynamic of the relationship. Late maturation is also associated with problematic parent child relationships because girls strive for individuation but the mothers are less accepting.

Answer 10

more prone to experiencing difficulties because they are less well prepared for pubertal change as their pubertal development may exceed cognitive development. Curtails the time available to individuals to acquire and assimilate the skills that allow them to successfully adapt to stressful experiences. Higher levels of depressive symptoms, psychopathology, psychosomatic complaints and eating problems are correlated with early maturation in girls as well as conduct problems, sexual activity and antisocial behaviour including substance use. Similarly parent child relationships in the families of early maturing boys and girls is characterised by more conflict and decreased closeness, with girls being more vulnerable to fathers hostility. This may be because they push for independence at younger ages that their parents do not allow. Early matures are also more likely to affiliate with older peer groups that are more likely to be experimenting.

Answer 11

Implies social processes and pubertal transition interact to heighten risk for adjustment problems. There is evidence that early maturing girls can be heavily stigmatised in a school environment and boys who experience harsh parenting are more likely to affiliate with deviant peers.