Coping with Childhood Peer Rejection

Abstract

Childhood peer rejection has received a great deal of attention in developmental psychopathology and intervention research over the past 10 years. Interest in this phenomenon stems from evidence that childhood peer rejection is related to a variety of negative outcomes in adolescence and adulthood (Kupersmidt, Coie, & Dodge, 1990; Parker & Asher, 1987). Although we have a good understanding of both the outcomes of childhood peer rejection as well as the behaviors that lead children to be rejected by their peers (Coie, Dodge, & Kupersmidt, 1990), much less attention has been focused on the experience of childhood peer rejection and how children cope with being rejected by their peers. We know that rejected children in general are subjected to more aversive interpersonal interactions in school than nonrejected children (Boivin, Cote, & Dion, 1991; Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1989), and we know that at least some rejected children report experiencing significant amounts of distress with regard to their low peer status (Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984; Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams, 1990; Asher & Wheeler, 1985; Parkhurst & Asher, 1992). Thus, the experience of peer rejection appears to be a stressful one; however, there are currently no studies in the literature that conceptualize peer rejection in a stress and coping framework. There are probably several reasons for this.