Relationships In Early Adolescence Research Articles

Evolution of social relationships between first-year students at middle school: from cliques to circles

People organize their social relationships under a restriction on the number that a single individual can maintain simultaneously (the so-called Dunbar’s number, ~150). Additionally, personal networks show a characteristic layered structure where each layer corresponds to relationships of different emotional closeness. This structure, referred to as Dunbar’s circles, has mostly been considered from a static viewpoint, and their structure and evolution is largely unexplored. Here we study the issue of the evolution of the structure of positive and negative relationships in early adolescence by using data from students in their first year at middle school obtained from surveys conducted in class in two different waves separated by several months. Our results show that, initially, students have a lower number of total relationships but the majority are more intense and over time they report a higher number of total relationships, but the more intense relationships appear in a lower proportion. We have also found differences in the structure of communities at both temporal moments. While in the first instance the communities that appeared are mixed, made up of both boys and girls, in the second they changed so that they were separated primarily by gender. In addition, the size of each community was stabilized around 15 people, which coincides with the size of the second Dunbar’s circle, known as the sympathy group in social psychology. As a consequence, in groups with around 20 students of the same gender, they tend to split in two separate communities of about 10 each, below the second Dunbar’s circle threshold. On the other hand, groups with more stable community structure appear to go through the inverse process of friendship evolution, becoming more focused on their best relationships. All these results suggest how the layered structure of the personal network, as well as the community structure of the social network, emerge directly from the union of both positive and negative relationships. Thus, we provide a new perspective about its temporal evolution that may have relevant applications to improve school life and student performance.

Naturalistic development of trait mindfulness: A longitudinal examination of victimization and supportive relationships in early adolescence.

Scholars have only just begun to examine elements of young adolescents' social ecologies that explain naturalistic variation in trait mindfulness and its development over time. We argue that trait mindfulness develops as a function of chronically encountered ecologies that are likely to foster or thwart the repeated enactment of mindful states over time. Using data from 4,593 fourth and seventh grade students (50% female; MageG4 = 9.02; 71% English first language) from 32 public school districts in British Columbia (BC), Canada, we examined links from peer belonging, connectedness with adults at home, and peer victimization to mindfulness over time. Variable-centered analyses indicated that young adolescents with lower victimization in fourth grade reported higher mindfulness in seventh grade, and that cross-sectionally within seventh grade victimization, peer belonging, and connectedness with adults at home were each associated with mindfulness. Contrary to our hypothesis, connectedness with adults at home moderated the longitudinal association between victimization and mindfulness such that the negative association was stronger among young adolescents with high (vs. low) levels of connectedness with adults at home. Person-centered analysis of the fourth graders' data confirmed our variable-centered findings, yielding four latent classes of social ecology whose mindfulness levels in seventh grade largely tracked with their victimization levels (from highest to lowest mindfulness): (1) flourishing relationships, (2) unvictimized but weak relationships with adults, (3) moderately victimized but strong relationships, and (4) victimized but strong relationships. Overall, our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence indicating that trait mindfulness may develop as a function of ecologically normative experiences in young adolescents' everyday lives.

Early Adolescent Predictors of Violent Behavior: Child and Contextual Risk, and Moderation by Rejecting Parenting

The current study explored early adolescent child-level predictors (physical aggression, impulsivity, empathy) and contextual-level predictors (peer deviance, neighborhood dangerousness) of violent and nonviolent antisocial behavior (AB) in late adolescence. Additionally, we tested the moderating role of rejecting parenting on these associations based on the importance of parent-child relationships in early adolescence and documented bidirectional associations between parenting and our predictor variables. Participants ( N = 272) came from the Pitt Mother and Child Project, a longitudinal study of high-risk boys. Higher levels of early adolescent physical aggression significantly predicted late adolescent engagement in both nonviolent and violent crimes. Peer deviance, impulsivity, and neighborhood dangerousness were also associated with later juvenile AB. Rejecting parenting moderated several of these associations. Results support the predictive validity of several early adolescent child- and contextual-level variables—particularly early adolescent aggression—for subsequent engagement in both violent and nonviolent AB.

Aggressiveness in Adopted and Non-Adopted Teens: The Role of Parenting, Attachment Security, and Gender.

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship among aggressiveness, parenting practices, and attachment security in adolescents, assessing maternal and paternal effects separately. Two different subsamples of adolescents between 12 and 16 years old participated in the study (n = 157): 67 adopted adolescents (61.2% girls) and 90 non-adopted adolescents (56.7% girls). Partial and full mediation models were analyzed in multi-group structural equation models (using maximum likelihood estimates), allocating non-adoptive and adoptive adolescents into two different groups. Results showed that whereas acceptance/involvement of each parent predicted attachment security towards the corresponding parental figure, only the father’s coercion/imposition predicted aggressiveness, and only attachment security to the mother was a (negative) predictor of adolescent’s aggressiveness. The partial mediation model provided the most parsimonious explanation for the data, showing no differences between adopted and non-adopted subsamples and supporting a good model fit for both boys and girls in a multi-group invariance analysis. The implications of these results are discussed in light of the protective effects of care relationships in early adolescence (vs. late adolescence) as well as the differential role of parent figures.

Self-esteem as a mediator in the longitudinal relationship between dysfunctional parenting and peer attachment in early adolescence

This study investigated the causal relationship between dysfunctional parenting and peer attachment, as well as the longitudinal mediating role of self-esteem, in early adolescence. Moreover, this study examined whether there were sex differences in these longitudinal relationships. This study used three-wave longitudinal data—measured at the fifth grade of elementary school, the sixth grade of elementary school, and the first grade of middle school—of 1,831 adolescents (935 boys and 896 girls; mean age = 10.98 ± 0.17 years at the first wave) who participated in the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey. Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling analysis revealed the following: regardless of adolescents’ sex, the negative effects of dysfunctional parenting on self-esteem and the positive effects of self-esteem on peer attachment were all significant over time, while the levels of dysfunctional parenting, self-esteem, and peer attachment all remained stable over the three-year period. Furthermore, self-esteem partially mediated the longitudinal relationship between dysfunctional parenting and peer attachment for girls, whereas self-esteem completely mediated the relationship for boys. The results suggest the needs for lifelong parental education—provided from elementary school to parenthood—and for parents’ and teachers’ continued attention to peer relationships in early adolescence. Further, tailored interventions should consider the degree of vulnerability of dysfunctional parenting by adolescents’ sex and promote their self-esteem.

Grit and peer relationships in early adolescence: A person-centered approach

Although a burgeoning body of research has illustrated the association of grit with academic and psychosocial functioning in adolescence, little is known about how adolescents with differing grit profiles may diverge in regard to peer relationships (i.e., perceived popularity and friendships). Guided by the dynamic interactionism framework, the current study, using a person-centered approach, explores grit profiles of Chinese early adolescents and examines whether these profiles exhibit mean differences in perceived popularity and friendships. A total of 1,150 early adolescents aged from 10 years to 13 years (53.4% male) were involved in this study; participants were asked to complete self-report questionnaires concerning grit and self-perception of friendships and complete peer nominations within each classroom in terms of perceived popularity. A latent profile analysis revealed five grit profiles based on two facets of grit (i.e., perseverance and consistency). Moreover, multivariate analysis of covariance—controlling for age, gender, and socioeconomic status—showed that early adolescents who scored higher on both perseverance and consistency were nominated as more popular individuals than those with low-to-moderate perseverance and low consistency. In contrast, perseverance was more essential than consistency in determining greater self-perception of friendships. To summarize, the current study suggests that both perseverance and consistency are pivotal in terms of perceived popularity, whereas perseverance is critical in regard to the self-perception of friendships.

Brief report: Patterns of prosocial behaviors in middle childhood predicting peer relations during early adolescence

IntroductionEarly adolescence is a developmental period in which peer victimization, bullying, relational aggression, and social exclusion are particularly prominent. As these behaviors have long-term implications for children, in this study, we investigated early variations of prosocial behaviors as one of the critical precedents that shape youth's subsequent peer relational outcomes. Specifically, we identified different profiles of prosocial behaviors in middle childhood (Grade 4) and related these profiles to peer relationships in early adolescence (Grade 6). MethodUsing longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 914; 52% girls), a three-step latent profile analysis was conducted on Grade 4 prosocial behaviors, which were then related to Grade 6 teacher- and student-rated peer relationships (e.g., relational aggression). ResultsFour patterns of prosocial behaviors emerged: low prosocial (18%), high prosocial (67%), primarily friendly (8%), and primarily kind (7%). These four patterns of prosocial behaviors were differentially related to later problematic peer relationships: Low prosocial youth demonstrated the most problematic peer relationships (Mdiff = 0.36-0.93, all p < .001). Primarily friendly (but not kind) youth displayed more general and relational aggression (Mdiff = 0.22, SE = 0.07, p = .002; and Mdiff = 0.18, SE = 0.06, p = .006, respectively). ConclusionBoth low prosocial and primarily friendly youth are at risk for displaying peer-related problems; interventions that build prosocial behaviors in youth with a low prosocial or primarily friendly profile may help prevent problematic peer relationships at early adolescence.

Measuring gender norms about relationships in early adolescence: Results from the global early adolescent study

IntroductionGender norms are increasingly recognized as drivers of health and wellbeing. While early adolescence constitutes a critical window of development, there is limited understanding about how adolescents perceive gender relations across different cultural settings. This study used a mixed-method approach, grounded in the voices of young people around the world, to construct and test a cross-cultural scale assessing the perceptions of gender norms regulating romantic relationships between boys and girls in early adolescence. MethodsThe study draws on the Global Early Adolescent study (GEAS), a study focusing on gender norms and health related outcomes over the course of adolescence in urban poor settings worldwide. In-depth interviews were first conducted among approximately 200 adolescents between 10–14 years in seven sites across 4 continents to identify common scripts guiding romantic relations in early adolescence. These scripts were then transformed into a multidimensional scale. The scale was tested among 120 adolescents in each of 14 GEAS sites, followed by a second pilot among 75 adolescents in six sites. We evaluated the psychometric criteria of each sub-scale using principal component analysis, and parallel analysis, followed by exploratory factor analysis to guide the selection of a more parsimonious set of items. ResultsResults suggested a two-factor structure, consisting of an “adolescent romantic expectations” subscale and a “Sexual Double Standard” subscale. Both subscales yielded high internal validity in each site, with polychoric Cronbach alpha values above 0.70 with the exception of Kinshasa for the adolescent romantic expectations scale (0.64) and Hanoi for the sexual double standard scale (0.61). ConclusionThis study reveals common perceptions of gendered norms about romantic engagement in early adolescence, normative for both sexes, but socially valued for boys while devaluated for girls. The findings illustrate that social hierarchies of power in romantic relationships form early in adolescence, regardless of cultural setting.

방임경험이 청소년의 휴대전화 의존에 미치는 영향 : 또래애착과 용도별 휴대전화 사용빈도를 중심으로

This study aims to examine the effects of child neglect from parents on the mobile phone dependency of adolescents focusing on peer attachment and mobile phone usage by purposes as mediating variables. The participants were 2,002 early adolescents drawn from the 7th waves (2016) of KCYPS (Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey). Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were employed. Results were as follows. First, as teenagers experienced neglect from their parents, peer communication and trust decreased while peer alienation and mobile phone dependency increased significantly. Child neglect significantly reduced the frequency of contact with parents and increased the frequency of playing mobile games. Second, among the three factors of peer attachment, only alienation had a significant direct effect on the mobile phone dependency of adolescents. The higher the peer trust was, the more the teenagers contacted both their family and friends using mobile phones. The higher the alienation, the less contact with friends through mobile phones. Third, in terms of mobile usage by purposes, mobile phone dependency significantly increased contents use, contact with friends, and mobile games, while it significantly lowered as the frequency of contact with family using mobile phone increased. Fourth, positive indirect effects were found in the paths of ‘child neglect from parents→peer alienation→mobile phone dependency’, ‘child neglect from parents→ contact with family using mobile phone→mobile phone dependency’, while negative indirect effects appeared in ‘child neglect from parents→peer trust→contact with friends using mobile phone→mobile phone dependency’. This study confirmed the importance of parent-child relationships in early adolescence in the context of peer attachment of adolescents, and suggested practical interventions by identifying various attributes and pathways on mobile phone dependency.

Positive mental health and supportive school environments: A population-level longitudinal study of dispositional optimism and school relationships in early adolescence

ObjectivesThe present study examined the degree to which early adolescents' relationship experiences in school (i.e., peer group belonging, peer victimization, and supportive relationships with adults)—at the individual level and at the school-level—were associated with their dispositional optimism, concurrently and over time. MethodSelf-report data from over 4000 4th and 7th graders were obtained via a population-level measure designed to assess students' supportive relationships, well-being, and resilience (i.e., the Middle Years Development Instrument). An indicator for family income (SES) was obtained through tax filer information. ResultsMultilevel modeling revealed that in Grade 4, greater peer belonging, fewer experiences of peer victimization, and higher levels of adult support in school were linked to higher optimism, above and beyond the effects of sex, age, English as a Second Language (ESL), and SES. Additionally, school-wide levels of peer belonging and adult support (i.e., indicators of a supportive social school climate) were significant positive school-level predictors of optimism. Longitudinally, school-wide peer belonging in Grade 4 was associated to increases in students' optimism from 4th to 7th grade. ConclusionsThe findings suggest that positive relationship experiences in school are key contributors to positive mental health, over and above the absence of negative relationship experiences (i.e., victimization). These findings also suggest that being embedded in a school with a positive social relational climate contributes to students' current and future positive mental health, over and above individual relationships with peers and adults. The present research extends previous research by identifying contextual assets that are linked to dispositional optimism and can be applied in the context of school-based intervention programs to promote positive mental health in schools.

Learning to cope with anxiety: Long-term links from adolescence to adult career satisfaction

This study examined the long-term effect of anxiety on career satisfaction for young adults in the United States. The abilities to positively cope with stress and function competently as an adult were examined as potential moderators of this link, and adolescent developmental precursors of these abilities were also investigated. Analyses revealed a negative association between anxiety at age 21 and career satisfaction at age 27. However, this association was ameliorated for youth with better coping skills and functional competence at age 24. Autonomy and relatedness behaviors with best friends and mothers were examined as potential predictors of these moderators, with positive autonomy and relatedness from friends at age 13 emerging as the sole predictor of these skills. Results suggest that although anxiety may inhibit career satisfaction for many youth, positive coping and adult functional competence skills may allow anxious individuals to achieve career satisfaction. Moreover, these skills may be promoted through peer relationships in early adolescence.

Cross-Lagged Associations Between Problem Behaviors and Teacher-Student Relationships in Early Adolescence

This study investigated the cross-lagged associations between teacher-student relationships and problem behaviors in a sample of 440 Finnish students (half of them identified as being at risk of reading difficulties). The degree to which these associations were moderated by a child’s gender, academic performance, risk for reading difficulties, parental education, and having the same teacher over 2 years was examined. The teachers evaluated the students’ problem behaviors and reported closeness and conflict with a particular student. The results showed that the higher the students scored on externalizing problems in Grade 4, the more conflict teachers reported 2 years later. Moderator analyses revealed that internalizing problems predicted higher levels of closeness for boys only. Conflict predicted internalizing problems among students who had the same teacher across the 2 years. The results emphasize the importance of investigating the transactional links in different subgroups.

Tweens’ perspectives on their parents’ media-related attitudes and rules: an exploratory study in the US

Parent–child relationships are redefined during early adolescence, as tweens become increasingly independent and begin to assert their autonomy. Because today’s youth are growing up in a digitally saturated world, investigating the technology use of tweens is key to understanding the changing dynamics in parent–child relationships in early adolescence. Through surveys (N = 79) and follow-up focus groups (N = 30) with middle school students, we investigated how tweens described and made sense of their technology use, how they responded to their parents’ rules about technology, and how they navigated technology-related conflicts at home. Tweens perceived a misalignment between their parents’ technology-related rules and their own purposes for using digital media, which they said created a tension between them and their parents. This exploratory study contributes new insight into how tweens relate their technology use to their interpretations of their parents’ rules and messages around technology.

Parasocial Interactions and Relationships in Early Adolescence.

Parasocial interactions and relationships, one-sided connections imagined with celebrities and media figures, are common in adolescence and might play a role in adolescent identity formation and autonomy development. We asked 151 early adolescents (Mage = 14.8 years) to identify a famous individual of whom they are fond; we examined the type of celebrities chosen and why they admired them, and the relationships imagined with these figures across the entire sample and by gender. Adolescents emphasized highly salient media figures, such as actors, for parasocial attention. While different categories of celebrities were appreciated equally for their talent and personality, actors/singers were endorsed for their attractiveness more so than other celebrity types. Most adolescents (61.1%) thought of their favorite media figures as relationship partners, and those who did reported more parasocial involvement and emotional intensity than those who did not. Gender differences emerged in that boys chose more athletes than girls and were more likely to imagine celebrities as authority figures or mentors than friends. Celebrities afforded friendship for girls, who overwhelmingly focused on actresses. Hierarchical parasocial relationships may be linked to processes of identity formation as adolescents, particularly boys, imagine media figures as role models. In contrast, egalitarian parasocial relationships might be associated with autonomy development via an imagined affiliation with an attractive and admirable media figure.

The Influence of Social Relationships on Conduct Problems in School Context - Does School Engagement Matter?

There has been an increase in the prevalence of problem behavior during adolescence over the last decades. Thereby, studies have found that social bonds and relationships as well as school engagement as a form of connectedness play an important protective role. However, less is know whether school engagement is as a potential mediator in the association of social relationships with peers and teachers and conduct problems. The current study examined this interplay in a large non-clinical sample of students (N= 1.088; MAge= 13.7 SD=0.53 at T1; N= 845; Mage = 15.32, SD = .49 at T2) in secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the mediating effect from school engagement in the association between students’ social relationships in early adolescence and conduct problems in middle adolescence. The results show that school engagement function as full mediator in the association of both student-student relationships and teacher-student relationships at T1 and conduct problems at T2. This highlights that fostering school engagement in early adolescence might be an essential starting point for prevention and intervention strategies of conduct problems in middle adolescence.

Romantic Relationship Patterns from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: Associations with Family and Peer Experiences in Early Adolescence.

The present study identifies and describes romantic relationship patterns from adolescence to adulthood and examines their associations with family and peer experiences in early adolescence. In a 13-year longitudinal study, 281 youth (58% girls) identified all their romantic partners each year from the ages of 16-24. Dimensions of family relationships (family cohesion, parent-child conflict) and peer relationships (peer likeability, social withdrawal, close friendships, other-sex friendships) were assessed at age 12. Latent class analyses brought out five distinct romantic relationship patterns and significant associations were found with family and peer relationships in early adolescence. These five romantic relationship patterns appeared to follow a continuum of romantic involvement, with romantic relationship patterns situated a both ends of this continuum (later involvement pattern and intense involvement pattern) being associated with more interpersonal experiences in early adolescence.

Indicadores de violencia de género en las relaciones amorosas. Estudio de caso en adolescentes chilenos.

The presence of gender violence is increasing alarmingly in our society and has become one of our most serious social problems. The data indicate that the origin of much of this type of behaviour has its roots in early adolescent relationships, in which the presence and repetition of chauvinist patterns and models has been verified. In this paper we assume that this kind of conduct is related to socially accepted behaviours that form part of the normative patterns typical of socialization processes. To analyse this thesis, an interdisciplinary group of researchers from Spanish and Chilean universities carried out a qualitative study on behaviours associated with gender violence in groups of adolescents and young people from different economic, geographic, social and ethnic contexts in order to gather evidence about the ways adolescents establish romantic or intimate relationships and to determine whether there are any indications of male chauvinist violence against adolescent women. The research design proposed takes as a reference the principles of Grounded Theory and employs the constant comparative method, that is, the information is collected, coded and analysed simultaneously, with theoretical sampling that involves selecting new cases as a function of their potential to help refine or expand the concepts and theories already developed. Thus, the coding of the discourse was carried out using open coding, axial coding and selective coding, and finally grouping the relevant categories or ideas into meta-categories to build the theoretical schema. Participating in the study were 156 adolescents (77 girls and 79 boys) residing in the urban area of the Arica region in Chile, having been selected according to the variables “academic year” and “age”. Seventeen discussion groups were formed until data saturation was attained. The findings show that in these first adolescent dating relationships there is an important number of negative references and references to violent chauvinist behaviour, in particular psychological violence, in which there is a clear, rigid, culturally assimilated structuring of gender roles in which the values of strength, power and dominance appear as belonging to a masculine identity. These “values” are at the basis of structures of inequality, and one means of attaining them and defending them is through aggression. In contrast, female identity is constructed with the attributes of weakness, control and need for protection. These values are transmitted as norms of desirable behaviour and are inserted into the very identity of adolescent women. Finally we discuss the need for greater institutional resolve in the improvement of equality programs and the development of educational proposals to enable intervention programs to be designed and prioritized. This should be done with a view to promoting more egalitarian dating relationships in adolescence and young adulthood, as a means to educate for prevention of abusive behaviour in adolescent dating and the construction of non-aggressive love relationships.

Comparing Parent–Child and Teacher–Child Relationships in Early Adolescence

Through an examination of measurement invariance, this study investigated whether attachment-related dimensions (i.e., secure base, safe haven, and negative interactions as measured with the Network of Relationships Inventory—Behavioral Systems Version) have the same psychological meaning for early adolescents in their relationships with parents and teachers. Data were gathered for a sample of 297 families with an adolescent in Grade 7 ( Mage= 11.40; 62% boys). The results indicated that perceived attachment-related dimensions have a similar meaning in parent–child and teacher–child relationships (weak metric invariance), but that no direct comparison of observed means should be made (lack of strong metric invariance). In addition, it seemed that teachers fulfill the function of secure base rather than safe haven in early adolescence.

Locus of Control and Peer Relationships Among Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, and African American Adolescents

Past research has shown that locus of control plays an important role in a wide range of behaviors, such as academic achievement and positive social behaviors. However, little is known about whether locus of control plays the same role in minority adolescents' peer relationships. The current study examined ethnic differences in the associations between locus of control and peer relationships in early adolescence using samples from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K: 5,612 Caucasian, 1,562 Hispanic, 507 Asian, and 908 African-American adolescents) and the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS: 8,484 Caucasian, 1,604 Hispanic, and 860 Asian, and 1,228 African American adolescents). Gender was approximately evenly split in both samples. The results from the two datasets were highly consistent. Significant interactions between ethnicity and locus of control indicated that having a more internal locus of control was particularly important for Caucasian students' peer relationships (ECLS-K) and social status (NELS), but less so for Asian, Hispanic, and African American students. Our findings suggest that the role of locus of control in peer relationship is contingent upon culture.

Social Status, Perceived Social Reputations, and Perceived Dyadic Relationships in Early Adolescence

AbstractThis 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 their social status, behavioral reputations, and friendships from a combination of self‐ratings and peer nominations. Social acceptance was positively related to perceptions of social acceptance and friendships and negatively related to perceptions of rejection and a victimized reputation. Popularity was positively associated with perceptions of popularity, rejection, and an aggressive reputation and negatively associated with perceptions of unpopularity and a socially withdrawn reputation. Our results were, in general, consistent with the suggestion that social acceptance is related to perceiving facets of reputations and relationships relevant to forming and maintaining friendships whereas popularity is related to perceiving facets pertinent to gaining social power.