Examined disagreements between 9 and 10 year olds as a function of friendship status. While children played a board game, conflicts occurred more frequently among friends than among nonfriends. During conflicts with friends, girls tended to use assertions accompanied by rationales, whereas boys tended to use assertions without rationales. (MDM)

Examined the experience of collaboration from sixth graders' perspective as a function of dyad gender and degree of friendship. Found that enjoyment expectations and affiliation perceptions were greater in dyads with greater degrees of friendship and in same-gender dyads compared with mixed-gender dyads. More positive expectation and greater…

Examined the existence of friendship and friendship network characteristics among 227 fifth- and sixth-graders who differed in popularity status. Found that all children reported having at least one unilateral friend, while unpopular children were less likely than popular children to have at least one reciprocal friend. (MDM)

Evaluated whether children view relationally manipulative behaviors as "aggressive." In study one, relational aggression was the most frequently cited angry behavior for girls' interactions; physical aggression was most frequently cited for boys. In study two, relational aggression and verbal insults were the most frequently cited harmful…

Rated gender boundary violation and maintenance of 47 preadolescents participating in a summer day camp. Found that children who violated gender boundaries tended to be unpopular with peers; and children who maintained boundaries were judged by camp counselors to be more competent socially than children who violated boundaries. (MDM)

Evaluated emotional expressiveness, empathy, and prosocial behavior in 9-, and 13-year-olds. As expected, emotional expressiveness, emotional insight, and role taking were strong predictors of latent empathy. Boys' empathy was a strong predictor of prosocial behavior, whereas girls' empathy was related to prosocial behaviors with friends but not…

Examined impact of pubertal maturation on body image and on perceived quality of relations with opposite sex peers in adolescence. Findings from 157 French adolescents aged 11 to 16 years confirmed that boys evaluated themselves on attractiveness more positively than girls. Found no sex difference on perceived physical condition. (Author/NB)

Three studies examined the hypothesis that aggressive-rejected children are unaware of their social status because they are self-protective when processing negative peer feedback. Found that aggressive rejected boys could accurately assess others' social status, but aggressive rejected boys and girls were more unrealistic in assessing their own…

Examines peer group perceptions of 312 students in grades 5-12. Early and middle adolescents placed more value on being in a popular group; perceived more conformity, antagonism, and leadership in their groups; and reported more antagonistic interactions with those outside their groups than did preadolescents and late adolescents. (RJC)

Examined age differences in 9- to 15-year-olds' experiences with families and friends, and by themselves. Amount of time spent with family decreased with age. Affect with family became less positive through seventh grade; affect with friends became more favorable with age; affect when alone did not vary. (BC)

Among a group of mostly African-American and Hispanic 10- to 14-year-olds, boys believed that parents would disapprove more of retaliation against siblings than friends, whereas girls believed that parents would equally disapprove of retaliation against either target. Children expected that retaliation was more likely to deter additional…

Assessed fourth-graders' peer clique characteristics as a function of socioeconomic status, gender, and aggressiveness. Found that rejected youth were less central group members than average-status peers; aggressive preadolescents were no less involved than nonaggressive peers; rejected preadolescents belonged to smaller cliques and cliques…

In this study, questions regarding the prevalence of mutual antipathies and their relation to the behavior of individual children were examined among preadolescents and adolescents. Mutual antipathies were defined as relationships in which children mutually nominated one another as least liked on a sociometric task. A distinction was drawn between…

Examined the possibility that lonely preadolescents have problems with disclosure that are similar to those of lonely adults. Sixth and seventh graders were given a loneliness and social dissatisfaction scale and were observed in dyadic conversations with male and female peers. Some of the lonely subjects' problems with disclosure were similar to…

Examined age differences in the use and effectiveness of social support processes emitted during conversations about real life negative events between preadolescent, adolescent, and adult friends. Participants were 86 same-sex friendship dyads. Results indicated that talking to friends alleviated negative affect in all ages, but factors predicting…