The hypothesis that the concurrent associations between friendship features and friendship satisfaction are moderated by security-related experiences within the family was examined with two sets of analyses conducted with a sample of fifth- and sixth-grade students (M = 10.87, SD = 0.73, range 10-13 years). The main hypothesis of the study was…

Social norms are vital for the functioning of adolescent peer groups; they can protect the well-being of groups and individual members, often by deterring harmful behaviors, such as aggression, through enforcement mechanisms like peer victimization; in adolescent peer groups, those who violate aggression norms are often subject to victimization.…

This study examined variations in the development of classroom aggression popularity norms, as well as the role of homeroom teachers' aggression beliefs and students' perceptions of teachers' support as predictors of such variations. To achieve this goal, a sample of 63 classrooms were assessed at four time points during a school year, in nine…

Data from 790 older school-age (M[subscript age] = 10.2 years, SD = 1.2 years) girls (N = 427) and boys from Barranquilla, Colombia (N = 449) and Montréal, Canada (N = 331) were used to replicate findings reported by Valdivia et al. (2005). This prior study revealed contextual variations in the association between two measures of social behavior,…

Cultural and socioeconomic differences in children's perceptions of their peers as being typical members of the cis gender group were examined in a cross-sectional sample of 351 girls (N = 164) and boys from 19 fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms (M age = 11.5) in three primary schools in Montréal (N = 156) and two schools in Barranquilla.…

Evidence of cultural comparisons of gender-identity-measurement scales is scarce. The present study aims to assess the scalar invariance of two dimensions of a widely used gender identity scale (Egan and Perry's Multidimensional Gender Identity Inventory) across two cultural contexts. Fourth, sixth, and fifth graders from Barranquilla (Colombia)…

To better address the many consequences of peer victimization, research must identify not only aspects of individuals that put them at risk for victimization, such as aggression, but also aspects of the context that influence the extent of that risk. To this end, this study examined the contextual influences of gender, same-sex peer group norms of…

This study investigated the prospective association between moral disengagement and bystander behaviors in bullying situations, including both defending and passive bystanding. A diverse sample of Canadian school children (N = 130; 68 boys and 62 girls; mean age = 11.36 years) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study over a 4-month period.…

The goal of the current study was to examine how the presence of a best friend might serve as protection against the effect of negative experiences on global self-worth and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPA axis). A total of 103 English-speaking male (n = 55) and female (n = 48) participants from Grade 5 (M = 10.27 years) and…

The current study examined social dominance and peer victimization as possible intervening and moderating variables of the association between peer liking and relational aggression because previous findings suggest that social dominance and peer victimization are important for predicting the acceptableness and success of aggression. A total of 367…

Contextual differences in the association between different forms of aggressive behavior and victimization were studied with a sample of 197 boys and 149 girls from mixed-sex schools and in 336 girls from all-girl schools (M = 10.21 years of age) in two cities in Colombia. Results showed that boys generally engage in more physical than relational…

In two studies, second and sixth graders heard descriptions of hypothetical boys and girls who were either aggressive, socially withdrawn, or prosociable. Subjects' memories of items in the descriptions were assessed. Results indicated that school-age and early adolescent children's recall of information about a peer is affected by the peer's…

The effect of friendship reciprocation and friend aggression on the stability of aggression across a 6-month period following the transition to secondary school was studied in a sample of 298 Grade 6 children from a predominately white, middle-class, Midwestern American community. The stability of aggression was generally high but it varied as a…