Are they your real

friends?
How do you know
that they are your
friends?
Who was your first
friend? Are you still
friends with
her/him?
Play, Peer, and
Friendship
Tan | Pontica
 Play, Peer, and Friendship
Development of Peer Sociability
Influences on Peer Sociability
Friendship
Peer Acceptance
Peer Groups
Peer Pressure and Conformity
 Development of Peer Sociability
Infant and Toddler Beginnings
3-4 months: looking and touching
6 months: peer-directed smiles and babbles
1-2 years: view one another as playmates
2 years: toddlers use words to share meanings
and establish play goals
 Development of Peer Sociability
Preschool Years
The Three-Step Sequence of Social Development
1. Nonsocial activity: unoccupied, onlooker behavior
and solitary play
2. Parallel play: a limited form of social participation in
which a child plays near other children with
similar materials but does not try to influence
their behavior
3.1 Associative play: children engage in separate
activities but exchange toys and comment on one
anothers behavior
3.2 Cooperative play: children orient toward a common
goal, such as acting out a make-believe theme
 Development of Peer Sociability
Preschool Years
Make-believe Play
Solitary Play
 Development of Peer Sociability
Middle Childhood and Adolescence
School-age children apply their emotional and social
knowledge to peer communication
Rough-and-tumble play: friendly chasing and play-
fighting
Dominance hierarchy: a stable ordering of group
members that predicts who will
win when conflict arises
 Influences on Peer Sociability
Direct Parental Influence
Playmate
Social Director
Indirect Parental Influence
Coach
Mediator
Age Mix of Children
Cultural Values
Cooperative Play
Sociodramatic Play
 Friendship
What does friendship mean to
you?
Friendship as a Handy
Playmate (About 4 to 7 Years)
Friendship as Mutual Trust
and Assistance (About 8 to 10
Years)
Friendship as Intimacy,
Mutual Understanding, and
Loyalty (11 to 15 Years and
Older)
 Friendship
Characteristics of Friendship
Friendship Selectivity and Stability
Interaction Between Friends
Resemblance Between Friends
 Friendship
Sex Differences in Friendship
Friendship and Adjustment
Close friendships provide opportunities to explore the
self and develop a deep understanding of another.
Close friendships provide a foundation for future
intimate relationships.
Close friendships help young people deal with the
stresses of everyday life.
Close friendships can improve attitudes toward and
involvement in school.
Peer Acceptance- refers to the
likabilitythe extent to which a
child is viewed by a group of
agemates, such as classmates, as a
worthy social partner.
--Friendship vs peer acceptance
Assessment:
-usage of self-reports that
measures
1)Social preferences
2)Social prominence
 Categories of Peer Acceptance
Popular children, who get many positive
votes (are well-liked)
Rejected children, who get many negative
votes (are disliked)
Controversial children, who received many
votes, both positive and negative (are both
liked and disliked)
Neglected children, who are seldom
mentioned, either positively or negatively
Average children, who are liked and disliked
by some but without the intensity found for
popular, rejected, or controversial children
 Determinants of Peer Acceptance
Popular Children
Skilled academically and socially
They fit in instead of barging in
Subtypes:
a. Popular-prosocial childrenwho combine
academic and social competence
b. Popular-antisocial childrenindividuals who
enhance their own status by ignoring, excluding,
and spreading rumors about other children
 Rejected Children
Display a wide range of negative social behaviors
Subtypes:
a. Rejected-aggressive childrenshow high rates
of conflict, physical and relational aggression,
and hyperactive, inattentive, and impulsive
behavior
b. Rejected-withdrawn childrenare passive and
socially awkward
 Consequences of Rejection
Anxious, unhappy, disruptive, poorly achieving
children with low self-esteem
Both teachers and parents view them as having a wide
range of emotional and social problems
Impairs childrens biased social processing,
heightening hostility
Rejection in middle childhood: poor school
performance, absenteeism, dropping out,
substance use, depression, anti-social behavior,
and delinquency in adolescence and with
criminality in early adulthood
 Causes
Parental influence
Children see how their parents respond to
different social situations and often imitate these
responses later
Parents disciplinary practices
Inconsistent discipline is associated with antisocial
and aggressive behavior, paving the way to
rejection
 Helping Rejected Children
A variety of interventions exists to improve
peer relation and psychological adjustment
Involves coaching, modeling, and reinforcing
positive social skills
Improvement in the quality of parent-child
interaction
 Controversial Children
Display a blend of positive and negative social
behaviors
Hostile and disruptive, but they also engage in
positive, prosocial acts
Usually assertive and dominant, have as many friends
as popular children, and are happy with their peer
relationships
Often bully agemates to get their way and engage in
calculated relational aggression to sustain their
dominance
 Neglected Children
Are well-adjusted
Socially skilled as average children
Do not report feeling unhappy about their social
life
When they want to, they can break away from
their usual, preferred pattern of playing alone,
cooperating well with peers and forming positive,
stable friendship
Peer Group - a collective of peers
who generate unique values and
standards for behavior and a social
structure of leaders and followers
 organized on the basis of proximity and
similarity in sex, ethnicity, popularity,
academic achievement, and aggression
The practices of these informal groups lead to
a peer culture that typically involves a
specialized vocabulary, dress code, and place
to hang out
These customs bind peers together, creating a
sense of identity
 Cliques- are groups of about five to eight
members who are friends and, therefore,
usually resemble one another in family
background, attitudes, values, and interests
Crowd- a large, loosely organized social group
consisting of several cliques, with membership
based on reputation and stereotype
 Peer pressure & Conformity
(Groups establish normsstandards of
behavior that apply to all group
membersand groups may pressure
members to conform to these norms)
 Such peer pressure is often characterized as
an irresistible, harmful force.
In reality, peer pressure is neither all-powerful
nor always evil
Peer conformity is a complex process that
varies with the adolescents age, current
situation, need for social approval, and culture
 Objectives
1. To examine the prevalence of mutual friendship in
general and among low-accepted children in
particular
2. To develop a new measure of friendship quality
3. To compare friendships of accepted and low-accepted
children in terms of specific qualitative features and
with respect to childrens satisfaction with their
friendships
4. To examine how acceptance, having a friend, and the
quality of ones best friendship are related to the
degree of loneliness and social dissatisfaction in
middle childhood
 Method
Subjects
881 children from 36 3rd through 5th grade classrooms
of 5 public elementary schools located in a mid-sized,
midwestern community in the US
Measures
Level of acceptance
Friendship assessments
Friendship quality
Friendship satisfaction
Loneliness and social dissatisfaction
 Six qualitative aspects of Friendship
quality
Validation and caring
Conflict and betrayal
Companionship and recreation
Help and guidance
Intimate exchange
Conflict resolution negatively correlated to all
(each subscales were highly and moderately
intercorrelated)
 Acceptance and friendship quality
Genderdid not differ in their
characterization of their very best friendship
with respect to either conflict and betrayals or
companionship and recreation
Boys-report less intimate exchange, more
difficulty solving conflict, less validation, and
less help and guidance in their friendship
 Children of differing acceptance did not differ
significantly with respect to how much
companionship and recreation
Low-acceptedreported less in validation,
help and guidance, intimate disclosure and
more conflict and betrayal
 Acceptance, Friendship quality and
Friendship satisfaction
Children with very best friends expressed
relatively high satisfaction
Low-acceptedslightly friendship satisfaction
 Friendship adjustment, Acceptance
and Loneliness
Genderno significant effect nor significantly
interact with level of acceptance, with
friendship status, or with acceptance level and
friendship status
Low-acceptedreported significantly higher
loneliness compared to average and high-
accepted
Friendshipchildren without are more lonely
End.