Homophily in stable and unstable adolescent friendships: Similarity breeds constancy

Peer perspectives on friendships among peers with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities: A pilot mixed methods study

BACKGROUND

The benefits of friendships among peers with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities are well supported by research. However, little is known about the nature of these inclusive friendships in inclusive college courses.

METHOD

We explored the perspectives of peers on the development of authentic friendships among peers with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities in inclusive college courses in the United States. We used a sequential, explanatory, transformative mixed methods-grounded theory research design. We integrated quantitative (N = 44) and qualitative (N = 8) findings using blended analysis to inform a preliminary grounded theory of inclusive and reciprocal friendships.

RESULTS

Quantitative findings suggest two relationships and one predictor of peers' perceived social engagement. Qualitative findings resulted in five themes that promote friendships.

CONCLUSIONS

We propose that the context for developing inclusive friendships could be fostered using the preparation and actions stages of the grounded theory model.

Best Friend's Popularity: Associations with Psychological Well-Being and School Adjustment in China During Early Adolescence

Popularity has been empirically linked to psychological and several indices of school adjustment outcomes during childhood and early adolescence. Yet, best friend popularity in relation to the adjustment outcomes remains unclear, especially in more interdependent-oriented cultures. To address this gap, this study applied the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) to simultaneously considering whether, and how, the popularity of youth (actor effects) and their best friends (partner effects) contribute uniquely to psychological well-being and school adjustment outcomes, after controlling for social preference. Age and gender differences were also examined. Participants were 162 same-gender best friend dyads (81 boys, M_age = 11.24 years, SD = 1.18) from Shanghai, P.R. China. Among the results, both youth's own and their best friends' popularity were positively related to self-esteem and school attitudes, and negatively related to depressive symptoms. In addition, results from multi-group analyses revealed both actor and partner effects did not vary across gender. Finally, exploratory analyses showed that only actor effects varied across age for the associations between popularity and self-esteem and school attitudes. These findings highlight the important role of the best friend's popularity in promoting Chinese youth's experiences of psychological and school adjustment.

Structural Cohesion, Role Equivalence, or Homophily: Which Process Best Explains Social Homogeneity?

Social homogeneity, understood as the similarity of perceptions and attitudes that individuals display toward the environment around them, is explained by the relational context in which they are immersed. However, there is no consensus about which relational mechanism best explains social homogeneity. The purpose of this research is to find out which of the three classical relational processes most studied in network analysis (structural cohesion, role equivalence, or homophily) is more determinant in explaining social homogeneity. To achieve the research objective, 110 professionals (psychologists, social workers, and community facilitators) implementing a psychosocial care program in three regions of Northwest Colombia were interviewed. Different types of relationships among professionals were analyzed using network analysis techniques. To examine the structural cohesion hypothesis, interveners were categorized according to the level of structural cohesion by performing core-periphery analysis in the networks evaluated; to test the role equivalence hypothesis, participants were categorized according to their level of degree centrality in the networks examined; to test the homophily hypothesis, participants were grouped according to the level of homophily in terms of professional profile. The non-parametric tests showed that role equivalence was the most powerful mechanism for explaining social homogeneity in the sample of psychosocial interveners evaluated.

What Does it Mean to be Susceptible to Influence? A Brief Primer on Peer Conformity and Developmental Changes that Affect it

Peer influence is a twofold process that entails a behavior by an agent of influence that elicits conformity from the target of influence. Susceptibility describes the likelihood that conformity will occur. This review focuses on factors that shape susceptibility to peer influence. We argue that conformity has two distinct sources. In some instances, conformity is a product of characteristics of the target of influence, operationalized as stable individual difference variables. Trait-like attributes associated with susceptibility to peer influence include conformity dispositions, social goals, resource acquisition strategies, vulnerabilities, and maturational status. In other instances, conformity is a product of the context in which the target is situated, operationalized as impermanent individual difference variables. State-like circumstances associated with susceptibility to peer influence include conditions of uncertainty, personal attributes that differ from the partner or group, perceived benefits of impression management, unmet social needs, and social referents and beliefs about their behavior. Empirical illustrations are provided. We close with a discussion of developmental changes hypothesized to impact variations in susceptibility to peer influence.

Social integration of adolescents with chronic pain: a social network analysis

RESULTS

showed that ACPs were not less popular than adolescents without chronic pain. Second, ACPs nominated each other more often as being part of the same peer group. Third, results regarding friendship quality showed that adolescents with more pain problems perceived the relationship with their friends as less positive (e.g., support) and more negative (e.g., conflict) than adolescents with less pain problems. Finally, positive and negative friendship quality moderated the relationship between pain and emotional distress.The current study contributes to the literature on the importance of ACPs' peer relationships. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Being nice and being mean: Friend characteristics foreshadow changes in perceptions of relationship negativity

This study examines the proposition that friend characteristics forecast changes in perceptions of relationship negativity. The participants (ages 9 to 11) were 240 pre- and young adolescents (114 boys, 126 girls) involved in 120 same-sex best friendships that were stable across a period of 4 to 12 weeks. Each friend described perceptions of negativity in their relationship. Prosocial behavior and relational aggression were assessed via peer nominations. Dyadic analyses indicated that one friend's prosocial behavior and relational aggression uniquely forecast changes in the other friend's perception of negativity in the relationship. Greater initial levels of prosocial behavior anticipated decreases in perceived negativity, whereas greater initial levels of relational aggression forecast increases in perceived negativity.

Using temporal network methods to reveal the idiographic nature of development

Averages dominate developmental science: There are representative groups, mean trajectories, and generalizations to typical children. Nearly all parents and teachers, however, eagerly proclaim that few youth are average; each child, adolescent, and young adult is unique. Indeed, individual youth are the focus of many eminent developmental theories, yet there is a shocking paucity of developmental methods-including study designs and analysis techniques-that truly afford individual-level inferences. Thus, the goal of this chapter is to explicate the advantages of an idiographic approach to developmental science, that is, an approach that provides insight into individual youth, often by studying within-person variation in intensive longitudinal data, such as densely coded observations, repeated daily or momentary assessments, and functional neuroimages. In three domains across development, the chapter illustrates the benefits of an idiographic approach by comparing empirical conclusions offered by traditional mean-based analysis techniques versus techniques that leverage the temporal and individualized nature of intensive longitudinal data. The chapter then concentrates on group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME), which is an analysis technique that uses intensive longitudinal data to create youth-specific temporal networks, detailing how brain regions or behaviors are directionally related across time. The promise of GIMME is exemplified by applications to three different domains across development. The chapter closes by encouraging future idiographic developmental science to consider how research questions, study designs, and data analyses can be formed, implemented, and conducted in ways that optimize inferences about individual-not average-youth.

Toward understanding the functions of peer influence: A summary and synthesis of recent empirical research

Compelling evidence demonstrates that peer influence is a pervasive force during adolescence, one that shapes adaptive and maladaptive attitudes and behaviors. This literature review focuses on factors that make adolescence a period of special vulnerability to peer influence. Herein, we advance the Influence-Compatibility Model, which integrates converging views about early adolescence as a period of increased conformity with evidence that peer influence functions to increase affiliate similarity. Together, these developmental forces smooth the establishment of friendships and integration into the peer group, promote interpersonal and intragroup compatibility, and eliminate differences that might result in social exclusion.

Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Associations between Peer Television Co-viewing and Media Internalization in Adolescent Girls and Boys

Despite the potential of peers to reinforce cultural appearance ideals, little work on peer media co-viewing has focused on body image. This study therefore examined relationships among peer television co-viewing, perceptions of media as important appearance-related information sources, and internalization of media appearance ideals. Adolescents aged 10-14 were included (Study 1: N = 363, M_age (SD) = 12.30 (0.86), 56.5% female; Study 2: N = 959, M_age (SD) = 11.17 (1.11), 48.9% female). Evidence emerged for a positive cross-sectional relationship between peer television co-viewing and media internalization, via media credibility. However, longitudinally, among adolescents reporting frequent media-related peer conversations, peer television co-viewing was negatively associated with media credibility. Peer co-viewing and mediation may be implicated in appearance-related beliefs among adolescents.

Friendship stability in adolescence is associated with ventral striatum responses to vicarious rewards

An important task for adolescents is to form and maintain friendships. In this three-wave biannual study, we used a longitudinal neuroscience perspective to examine the dynamics of friendship stability. Relative to childhood and adulthood, adolescence is marked by elevated ventral striatum activity when gaining self-serving rewards. Using a sample of participants between the ages of eight and twenty-eight, we tested age-related changes in ventral striatum response to gaining for stable (n = 48) versus unstable best friends (n = 75) (and self). In participants with stable friendships, we observed a quadratic developmental trajectory of ventral striatum responses to winning versus losing rewards for friends, whereas participants with unstable best friends showed no age-related changes. Ventral striatum activity in response to winning versus losing for friends further varied with friendship closeness for participants with unstable friendships. We suggest that these findings may reflect changing social motivations related to formation and maintenance of friendships across adolescence.

Influence of Teachers' Grouping Strategies on Children's Peer Social Experiences in Early Elementary Classrooms

Most children experience some form of grouping in the classroom every day. Understanding how teachers make grouping decisions and their impacts on children's social development can shed light on effective teacher practices for promoting positive social dynamics in the classroom. This study examined the influence of teachers' grouping strategies on changes in young children's social experiences with peers across an academic year. A total of 1,463 children (51% girls, M _age = 6.79, SD_age = 1.22) and 79 teachers from kindergarten to third-grade classrooms participated in this study. Teachers rated children's behavioral problems as the most important consideration when creating seating charts or assigning children to small groups. Promoting existing or new friendships was rated as the least important consideration. Heterogeneous ability grouping, rated as somewhat important by the teachers, was associated with a decrease in children's friendships and yet also a decrease in girls' experience with peer conflicts. Our findings begin to fill in the gaps in the literature on the social impacts of ability grouping for young children.

Exploring qualities present in current versus dissolved cross-group friendships

In general, cross-group friendships are less stable than same-group friendships. What conditions are present in currently existing versus dissolved cross-group friendships? In order to examine qualities that may influence cross-group friendship stability we compared current and dissolved friendships, including cross-group friendships. Cross-group friendships exist in various group domains, some more easily categorizable than others. That is, sometimes it is easy to tell that a relationship is cross-group (e.g., cross-race), and other times this is less clear (e.g., cross-socio-economic status). Thus, we compared current and dissolved friendships across both a more and a less easily categorizable group domain. In this study, participants reported on their current and dissolved friendships, and we found that, overall, friendship influencing qualities such as closeness, similarity, and social network integration (i.e., becoming friends with the friends of one’s own friends) were present to a greater extent in current versus dissolved friendships. This was the case for both cross-group and same-group friendships. These qualities may influence cross-group friendship stability.

Asymmetries in Mutual Understanding: People With Low Status, Power, and Self-Esteem Understand Better Than They Are Understood

All too often, people who develop exceptionally astute insights into others remain mysterious to these others. Evidence for such asymmetric understanding comes from several independent domains. Striking asymmetries occur among those who differ in status and power, such that individuals with low status and power understand more than they are understood. We show that this effect extends to people who merely perceive that they have low status: individuals with low self-esteem. Whereas people with low self-esteem display insight into people with high self-esteem, people with high self-esteem fail to reciprocate. Conceptual analysis suggests that asymmetries in mutual understanding may be reduced by addressing deficits in information and motivation among perceivers. Nevertheless, several interventions have been unsuccessful, indicating that the path to symmetric understanding is a steep and thorny one. Further research is needed to develop strategies for fostering understanding of those who are most misunderstood: people with low self-esteem, low status, and low power.

How Personal and Social Selves Influence the Development of Children and Adolescents at School

Abstract. How do different aspects of students' self-relate to their development at school? In educational psychology, this question has been examined essentially only in terms of the influence of the ability self-concept, a central part of the personal self. Starting with a literature review on why and how the ability self-concept impacts motivation and student outcomes, we argue that social selves – learners' knowledge about their group memberships and associated evaluations – have an impact, too. Students are more intrinsically motivated and more successful if they experience fit between learning environment and important self-aspects. Accordingly, we suggest a model according to which students try to increase fit by exerting primary control, i. e., by proactively changing the environment, with the self as agent. To that end (i) they mentally project the self as different from the actual self, with the mental self-projection serving as a self-evaluative standard and motiving behaviors aiming at its attainment, (ii) they choose behavioral options that allow for the enactment of important self-aspects, (iii) they choose interaction partners who share important self-aspects or are supportive of their behavioral enactment, and (iv) they switch between or prioritize different values, to best match affordances and constraints of the learning environment. If a student repeatedly fails to achieve fit through primary control, secondary control strategies are deployed, i. e., internal processes aimed at minimizing losses and saving resources for the pursuit of more attainable goals. To that end, students either disidentify with the learning environment or redefine their selves in a reactive manner, with, in many cases, detrimental effects on their academic outcomes. We hope to inspire educational psychologists to more systematically investigate the different self-aspects' impact on social and academic development of learners at school.

Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms and the "Tightknittedness" of Friendship Groups

Adolescents with depression have lower peer status overall, but tend to befriend each other. We examined the "tightknittedness" of their friendship groups by testing whether adolescent friendship groups' average levels of or variability in internalizing symptoms predict group cohesiveness. We used four waves (9th-12th grades) of survey and social network data on 3,013 friendship groups from the PROmoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience study. Friendship groups with higher average depressive symptoms were less cohesive; groups with higher average anxiety symptoms had greater reciprocity. Groups with greater variability in depressive symptoms had greater density; variability in anxiety symptoms was not consistently associated with cohesion. The friendship groups of depressed adolescents appear less cohesive than the "typical" adolescent friendship group.

Differences in Internalizing Symptoms Anticipate Adolescent Friendship Dissolution

This study examined the degree to which internalizing symptoms predict adolescent friendship instability. A total of 397 adolescents identified 499 same-sex reciprocated friendships that originated in the seventh grade (M = 13.18 years). Discrete-time survival analyses were conducted with Grade 7 peer, teacher, and self-reports of internalizing symptoms as predictors of friendship dissolution across Grades 8-12. Differences between friends in depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and (for boys only) submissiveness predicted subsequent friendship dissolution. Individual levels of these variables did not predict friendship dissolution, even at extreme or clinical levels. The findings suggest that friendship instability arising from internalizing problems stems from dissimilarity between friends rather than the presence of psychopathological symptoms on the part of one friend.

Tied Together: Adolescent Friendship Networks, Immigrant Status, and Health Outcomes

This study examines the social integration of adolescent immigrants by directly analyzing the composition of their friendship networks. Using statistical network analysis, I first consider whether adolescents are more likely to befriend peers who share their immigrant generation status in a large, diverse sample of 7th through 12th graders from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 67,586). Next, I test whether having a higher proportion of same-generation friends can protect immigrant youth from experiencing negative health outcomes and adopting risky behaviors. Results indicate that adolescents are more likely to form friendships with peers who share their immigrant generation status and that this tendency is particularly strong for first-generation immigrants. Furthermore, immigrant youth with greater proportions of same-generation friends are less likely to report several negative health behaviors and outcomes. My findings suggest that same-generation friendships can serve as a protective mechanism for immigrant youth, which may help explain the existence of an immigrant health paradox.

Homophily in delinquent behavior: The rise and fall of friend similarity across adolescence

This study examined age-related changes in friend similarity on delinquency to determine whether deviant behavior homophily peaks during mid-adolescence. A community sample of 1,663 male and 1,826 female Swedish youth from Grade 5 ( M = 11.21 years) to Grade 10 ( M = 16.25 years) provided self-reports of delinquency. Friendships were identified from nominations. Intraclass correlations revealed age group differences in friend delinquency similarity, independent of normative age-related changes in deviant behavior. Cross-sectional results indicated that similarity was greatest in the seventh grade ( M = 13.21 years). Longitudinal results from a subsample of participants revealed an increase in friend similarity from ages 11 to 13 (Grades 5 to 7) and a decline in friend similarity from ages 14 to 16 (Grades 8 to 10). The findings demonstrate that similarity between friends in delinquent behavior peaks in mid-adolescence, independent of normative age-related changes in participation in deviant acts.

Parent contributions to friendship stability during the primary school years

The present study examines whether characteristics of parents predict the stability of a child's best friendships across the primary school years. Participants included 1,523 Finnish children (766 boys) who reported involvement in a total of 1,326 reciprocated friendship dyads in the 1st grade (M = 7.16 years old). At the onset of the study, mothers and fathers completed questionnaires describing their own parenting (i.e., behavioral control, psychological control, and affection toward the child) and depressive symptoms. Child scores for peer status (i.e., acceptance and rejection) were derived from 1st grade peer nomination data. Discrete-time survival analyses predicted the occurrence and timing of friendship dissolution, across 1st to 6th grades, for friendships that began in 1st grade. Parent depression and parent psychological control uniquely predicted subsequent child friendship dissolution, above and beyond the contribution of peer status variables. (PsycINFO Database Record

Best Friend Influence Over Adolescent Problem Behaviors: Socialized by the Satisfied

The present study was designed to examine best friend influence over alcohol intoxication and truancy as a function of relative perceptions of friendship satisfaction. The participants were 700 adolescents (306 boys, 394 girls) who were involved in same-sex best friendships that were stable from one academic year to the next. Participants completed self-report measures of alcohol intoxication frequency and truancy at 1-year intervals. Each member of each friendship dyad also rated his or her satisfaction with the relationship. At the outset, participants were in secondary school (approximately 13-14 years old) or high school (approximately 16-17 years old). More satisfied friends had greater influence than less satisfied friends over changes in intoxication frequency and truancy. Problem behaviors of less satisfied friends increased over time if the more satisfied friend reported relatively higher, but not relatively lower, initial levels of drinking or truancy. The results support the hypothesis that adolescent friends are not similarly influential. The power to socialize, for better and for worse, rests with the partner who has a more positive perception of the relationship.

Befriending Risky Peers: Factors Driving Adolescents' Selection of Friends with Similar Marijuana Use

Adolescents often befriend peers who are similar to themselves on a range of demographic, behavioral, and social characteristics, including substance use. Similarities in lifetime history of marijuana use have even been found to predict adolescent friendships, and we examine whether this finding is explained by youth's selection of friends who are similar on a range of more proximate, observable characteristics that are risk factors for marijuana use. Using two waves of individual and social network data from two high schools that participated in Add Health (N = 1,612; 52.7% male), we apply longitudinal models for social networks to test whether or not several observable risky attributes (psychological, behavioral, and social) predict adolescent friendship choices, and if these preferences explain friend's similarities on lifetime marijuana use. Findings show that similarities on several risk factors predict friendship choices, however controlling for this, the preference to befriend peers with a similar history of marijuana use largely persists. The results highlight the range of social selection processes that lead to similarities in marijuana use among friends and larger peer groups, and that also give rise to friendship groups whose members share similar risk factors for substance use. Friends with high "collective risk" are likely to be important targets for preventing the onset and social diffusion of substance use in adolescents.