This four-wave longitudinal study among 698 Chinese early adolescents explored (1) how personal identity coherence and confusion develop; and (2) whether parenting style and peer relationships (i.e., close friend relationships and peer preference) were related to personal identity development. Participants (M[subscript age] = 11.39 yrs.,…

There is an extensive body of work documenting the negative socioemotional and academic consequences of perceiving racial/ethnic discrimination during adolescence, but little is known about how the larger peer context conditions such effects. Using peer network data from 252 eighth graders (85% Latino, 11% African American, 5% other…

The long-term import of a fundamental challenge of adolescent social development--establishing oneself as a desirable peer companion while avoiding problematic behaviors often supported within peer groups--was examined in a community sample of 184 adolescents, followed from ages 13 to 23, along with parents, peers, and romantic partners. The…

"Interpersonal" rejection and "intergroup" exclusion in childhood reflect different, but complementary, aspects of child development. Interpersonal rejection focuses on individual differences in personality traits, such as wariness and being fearful, to explain bully-victim relationships. In contrast, intergroup exclusion focuses on how in-group…

Argues that developmental significance of friendships cannot be examined without distinguishing between the concepts of having friends, the identity of the child's friends, and friendship quality. Concludes that the identity of the child's friends and friendship quality may be more closely tied to developmental outcomes than merely whether the…

Fifth through eighth graders completed self-reports in response to pager signals received over one week and again four years later. Responses indicated that thinking about the opposite sex occurs earlier than spending time with the opposite sex alone and that both increase over time. Girls spent more time with opposite sex and more time thinking…

This study assessed how schools, neighborhoods, nuclear families, and friendship groups jointly contribute to positive change during early adolescence. Analyses showed that the four context indices modestly intercorrelated at the individual student level, but clustered more tightly at the school and neighborhood levels. Joint influence of all four…

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)

This study treated a key relationship in the developmental ecology of adolescence, friendships, as multidimensional and context specific. First, it examined 4 characteristics of friends (academic achievement, alcohol use, emotional distress, and extracurricular participation) as independent factors and as components in holistic friendship group…

Tested the individual characteristics and deviant peer association theoretical models of friends' influence on the development of delinquency in disruptive boys. Found that moderately disruptive boys with aggressive-disturbing friends were more delinquent at age 13 than other subgroups of moderately disruptive boys. Highly disruptive and…

Examined individual differences in friendship characteristics and their cross-sectional and longitudinal interrelations with adolescent problems. Assessed four salient friendship characteristics: reciprocity of relations, overt hostility, covert hostility, and self-disclosure. Suggests that adolescent problem behaviors have a more potent…