Five hundred five children (267 female) enrolled in school years 5 and 6 in the UK (M = 9 years and 9 months) completed measures of trust beliefs in peers, best friendships, ascriptions of trustworthiness, and trustworthiness toward peers. Children's social disengagement, peer preference, and peer victimization were assessed by sociometric…

This study presents a novel task examining young children's affective responses to evaluative feedback--specifically, social acceptance and rejection--from peers. We aimed to determine (1) whether young children report their affective responses to hypothetical peer evaluation predictably and consistently, and (2) whether young children's responses…

We tested whether gender-specific vs. common classroom norms were more powerful moderators of the association between a risk factor (rejection) and peer victimization among girls and boys. The participants were 1220 elementary schoolchildren from grades 4-6 (with 10-13 years of age). We compared different multilevel models including combined vs.…

This study evaluated a comprehensive model of factors associated with internalizing problems (IP) in early childhood, hypothesizing direct, mediated, and moderated pathways linking child temperamental inhibition, maternal overcontrol and rejection, and contextual stressors to IP. In a novel approach, three samples were integrated to form a large…

This investigation examined social acceptance and popularity as correlates of perceived social reputations and perceived dyadic relationships in a cross-sectional sample of 418 6th and 7th grade students (approximate average age of 12 years). We assessed early adolescents' social status using peer nominations and measured their perceptions of…

This study examined subtypes of nonsocial play and their relation to psychosocial adjustment in Malaysian preschool children (N = 141, 72 boys, M age = 4.65 years). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a three-factor model that distinguished social reticence, solitary-active play, and solitary-passive play fit the data reasonably well, and…

The present study examined whether adolescent loneliness would be lower within the context of positive relationships with peers. The core conceptual model predicted that hypothesized links between peer-rated social behaviors or victimization and loneliness would be mediated by social acceptance. Relationship experiences (i.e., social acceptance,…

This study attempted to validate distinctions between popularity and social acceptance in the cultural context of Hong Kong. We recruited 280 Chinese children (132 girls, 148 boys, mean age = 9.5) from Hong Kong primary schools. These children completed a peer nomination inventory assessing popularity, social acceptance, social rejection,…

Little is known about the behavior of preschool children belonging to peer sociometric status groups (popular, average, rejected, neglected, and controversial) in cultural contexts outside North America. This study examined the social interactions of Italian preschoolers. The sample consisted of 266 Italian preschoolers (mean age of 64 months).…

This study examined the opposing hypotheses that either low or exaggerated but disputed self-esteem is related to aggression in 652 12-year-old schoolchildren. Children provided peer nominations of social acceptance and of physical aggression, self-ratings of global self-worth and of social satisfaction. Teachers rated aggressive behavior and…

This study examines convergent and divergent validity for middle childhood anxious solitude, unsociability, and peer exclusion as assessed by five informants (peers, teachers, observers, the self, and parents). Participants were 163 (67 male, 96 female) third grade children (M age = 8.70 years). Parent reports were available for a subset of the…

A minimal group study examined the effect of peer group norms on children's direct and indirect bullying intentions. Prior to an inter-group drawing competition, children (N = 85) aged seven and nine years were assigned to a group that had a norm of out-group dislike or out-group liking. Results indicated that, regardless of group norms, the…

This prospective, longitudinal study examines individual differences in two conceptually related but empirically distinct domains of social-cognitive competence (cognitive interpretive understanding and interpersonal perspective co-ordination) as moderators of the relation between peer rejection and neglect and behavioral and emotional problems in…

Two studies compared popular and rejected children's reasoning regarding social interactions involving negative emotions. The first study, with 23 rejected and 23 popular 10- to 11-year-olds, involved hypothetical social scenarios where a classmate "victim" was likely to experience a negative emotion. Although popular and rejected children both…

Non-shared environmental influence (NSE) has been found to account for around 50 percent of anxiety variance, but specific NSE factors have not been identified. Discordant monozygotic (MZ) twins can be used to generate relevant hypotheses because MZ discordance can be caused by NSE, but not by genes or shared environment. Of 1590 MZ pairs teacher…