Peer Competence Research Articles

Temperamental Shyness, Peer Competence, and Loneliness in Middle Childhood: The Role of Positive Emotion.

Guided by the conceptual frameworks of social withdrawal (Rubin, K. H., & Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2021). Perspectives on social withdrawal in childhood: Past, present, and prospects. Child Development Perspectives, 15(3), 160-167.) and emotion socialization (Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 241-273.; Morris, (A) S., Criss, M. M., Silk, J. S., & Houltberg, (B) J. (2017). The impact of parenting on emotion regulation during childhood and adolescence. Child Development Perspectives, 11(4), 233-238.), the current study examined multifaceted relations among temperamental shyness, peer competence, and loneliness and focused on the role of socializing and expressing positive emotion in middle childhood. Participants included 1,364 families, among whom mothers reported children's temperament when children were 4.5 years old. Mothers and alternative caregivers (usually fathers) independently rated family expressiveness when children were 8-9 years old. Mothers rated their children's peer competence, and children's positive affect with peers were observed when children were ages 8-9 and 10-11. Children self-rated their loneliness levels at ages 10-11. A path model revealed a moderated mediation effect, such that family positive expressiveness moderated the sequential mediation pathway from child temperamental shyness through child peer competence at ages 8-9 and positive affect with peers at ages 10-11 to loneliness at ages 10-11. This sequential mediation was significant only under low but not high levels of family positive expressiveness. Findings support the importance of socializing positive emotion in the context of temperamental shyness and have implications for family-based intervention strategies aimed at children exhibiting high temperamental shyness.

Exploring Social Networks: An Analysis of Intra-organizational Networks

This research investigates intra-organizational social networks by employing network science methods, aiming to provide actionable insights for both managers and employees. Using datasets from the Colorado Index of Complex Networks (ICON), this study examines four intra-organizational networks from a consulting firm and a research team, focusing on advice requests and skill awareness. The analysis includes network topology, degree distribution, community detection, correlation between communities and node attributes, maximal clique detection, and multilayer network analysis. The findings reveal that intra-organizational networks are intricate and significantly impact organizational efficiency and individual career development. Key insights include the importance of mid-level employees in network connectivity, the existence of "bad edges" where advice is sought from less competent peers, and the influence of regional and locational factors on communication patterns. The study emphasizes the need to enhance knowledge sharing and inter-region communications. For employees, understanding the structure of these networks can guide them to more effectively leverage their social connections for career advancement. This interdisciplinary effort bridges gaps in the existing literature and showcases the potential of integrating network science methods into social science research.

Measuring trust in healthcare with instruments developed in different disciplines - A scoping review.

Trust is a key character at organizational level. Understanding the level of trust with timely relevant instrument is a significant process to capture the level of trust beyond organizational changes in healthcare. To gather, assess, and synthesize the items of instruments evaluating trust in healthcare organizations. Scoping review methodology. The literature search with deductive-inductive content analysis. The data were charted from articles that involved the use of trust instruments in healthcare organizations. Search from eight databases was updated in January 2024 and included peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2023. A total of 13 instruments were found measuring trust in the organization, trust in the leader, and trust among peers in healthcare. The items of instruments about trust in the organization included strategic and operational cultures. The trust in the leader consisted of competence, consistency, openness, appreciative acceptance, and loyalty and risk, while instruments about trust among peers included dimensions of moral partnership, common interest, and competent peers. Comprehensively measuring trust in the leader, trust in the organization, and trust among peers is significant due to the multifaceted dimension of trust. Measuring trust offers a possibility to recognize the working relationships and cultures in healthcare organizations.

Influence of Principals’ Counselling Strategies on the Psychological Well-Being of Orphaned Students in Public Secondary Schools in Makueni County, Kenya

Adopting counselling strategies such as peer, group, life skills and mentorship programmes has enabled secondary schools to reduce effects of low self-esteem, low self-confidence and low self-efficacy among orphaned and vulnerable. However, most orphaned children typically do not have access to counselling services and mentoring programs which might help them cope with their circumstances and keep their focus on their studies. This lack of support systems may make it more difficult for them to overcome the obstacles they face. This study sought to establish the influence of principals’ counselling strategies on the psychological well-being of orphaned students in public secondary schools in Makueni County. Founded on the theory of psychological well-being, the study employed a descriptive correlational research design. The study targeted 1,979 respondents, including principals, teacher-counselors, and orphaned students from 393 public secondary schools. The sample size was 333 respondents selected through stratified and purposive sampling techniques. Data collection involved questionnaires for teacher-counselors and structured interviews for principals and students. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, particularly Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation, facilitated by SPSS. Qualitative data underwent thematic analysis, providing narrative insights. Ethical considerations, including informed consent and data confidentiality, were rigorously followed. The findings show that there is a significant relationship between counselling strategies and the psychological well-being of orphaned students. The study found that the presence of counselling sessions in schools, dedicated counselling centres, and competent peer counsellors plays a pivotal role in positively influencing the psychological well-being of orphaned students. The study recommends that principals should prioritize the availability of counselling services within schools and ensure that teacher-counsellors are well-equipped through capacity building to provide guidance and support to students, especially orphaned ones. Furthermore, the government, through the Ministry of Education, should develop and implement policies that specifically address the psychological well-being of orphaned students within the education system by ensuring the availability of counselling services and mentorship programs.

Obstetrical and neonatal complications, prematurity, and childhood effortful control development: A longitudinal twin study.

Premature infants may be at risk for lower effortful control, and subsequent lower academic achievement, peer competence, and emotional and physical wellness throughout the lifespan. However, because prematurity is related to obstetrical and neonatal complications, it is unclear what may drive the effect. Effortful control also has a strong heritable component; therefore, environmental factors during pregnancy and the neonatal period may interact with genetic factors to predict effortful control development. In this study, we aimed to dissect the influences of genetics, prematurity, and neonatal and obstetrical complications on the development of effortful control from 12 months to 10 years using a twin cohort. This study used data from the Arizona Twin Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of approximately 350 pairs of twins. Twins were primarily Hispanic/Latinx (23.8%-27.1%) and non-Hispanic/Latinx White (53.2%-57.8%), and families ranged in socioeconomic status with around one third falling below or near the poverty line. Of the twins, 62.6% were born prematurely. Effortful control was assessed via parent report at six waves. There was not a significant relationship between gestational age and effortful control regardless of whether obstetrical and neonatal complications were controlled for. Biometric twin modeling revealed that the attentional focusing subdomain of effortful control was highly heritable. Gestational age did not moderate genetic and environmental estimates. Our findings help inform the risk assessment of prematurity and provide evidence for the differing etiology of each subdomain of effortful control and the strong role of genetics in effortful control development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

EXPLORING PEER COUNSELORS’ MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: ASSESSING THE URGENCY OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING IN ISLAMIC UNIVERSITIES

Effective peer counseling needs to have good cultural competence to ensure effective communication with the counselee. Cultural competence is increasingly important in higher education institutions as campuses are places where students from diverse backgrounds gather. Unfortunately, research exploring the perspectives of peer counselors in Islamic universities still needs further exploration. This study aims to bridge this gap by exploring the perspectives of prospective peer counselors regarding their multicultural understanding. Using a cross-sectional survey design, this research explores the perspectives of thirty-four prospective peer counselors in an Islamic university in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. The instrument used is a cultural awareness questionnaire developed based on multicultural awareness theory and cognitive stage development theory. The results indicate that the level of multicultural awareness among Islamic university students still needs improvement, as participants expressed agreement with 82% of items related to duality, indicating that they have a limited view of other cultures and their perspectives on other cultures are still influenced by the perspectives of others. This study then offers several implications to enhance their multicultural awareness to prepare them to become competent peer counselors.

Intergenerational Upward and Downward Social Mobility: The Role of Intelligence, Effortful Control, Assertiveness, and Peer Competence in Early Adolescence

Relatively little is known about which competencies adolescents need to experience intergenerational social mobility. We investigated if intelligence, effortful control, assertiveness, and peer competence at age 11 was associated with upward or downward mobility at age 26, utilizing data from the TRAILS study ( N = 2229; ageT1 = 11.1 ( SD = 0.55); 50.8% girls). Results from our multinomial logistic regressions indicate that intelligence and effortful control, but not social competencies, are associated with upward mobility. Only intelligence was associated with downward mobility. Having dissimilar levels of competence than peers with the same parental SES was more important for social mobility than having similar competencies as peers with the same young adulthood SES. Social mobility thus happens primarily based on competence. However, given the importance of genetic predispositions and socioeconomic environment for intelligence and effortful control, and the limited appreciation of alternative competencies, social mobility remains to some extent unmeritocratic.

Break down the decentralization-security-privacy trilemma in management of distributed energy systems.

Distributed energy systems encompass a diverse range of generation and storage solutions on the user side, where decentralized management schemes to maximize the overall social welfare are preferred considering their dispersed ownership. However, either security or privacy problems occur in recently proposed schemes. Here we report a decentralized framework leveraging the strengths of blockchain and parallelizable mathematical algorithms to overcome these potential drawbacks. The system owners bid cost functions and operating constraints through masked but coupled management subproblems, which are redistributed by the blockchain to be verifiably solved by competent peers. Such processes are iteratively executed as decisions and shadow prices are exchanged among participants, until an equilibrium is reached. The interactive framework ensures decentralized, privacy-preserving, and secure management of multiple energy sources, and reduces the total cost by 3.0 ~ 7.5% in the test system. Our results benefit the energy prosumers and promote a more active and competitive power grid.

유아의 정서조절과 또래유능성 간의 관계에서 문제행동의 병렬다중매개효과

The purpose of this study is to analyze the parallel multiple mediating effect of problem behavior in the relationship between Young children‘s emotional regulation and peer competence in children. The subjects of this study were infants aged 3 to 5 staying at a kindergarten and daycare center located in G city, and 217 copies of the questionnaire were analyzed. For the collected data, SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS macro 4.3 programs were used, and the following research results were derived. First, Young childre’s emotional regulation had a positive effect on peer competence. Second, Young Children’s emotional regulation had a negative effect on problem behavior. Third, among the sub-contents of Young children's problem behavior, only hostility-aggression and hyperactivity- attention had a negative effect on peer competence. However, among Young children's problem behavior, anxiety-fear did not affect peer competence. Fourth, in the relationship between Young children's emotional regulation and peer competence, only the sub-contents of Young children's problem behavior, hostility-aggression and hyperactivity-attention, were found to have a partial mediating effect. However, in the relationship between Young children's emotional regulation and peer competence, anxiety-fear did not show a mediating effect among the sub-contents of Young children's problem behavior. These results suggest that in order to increase a child's peer competence, it is necessary to carefully observe situations in which hostile-aggression, hyperactivity-attention, and anxiety-fear, which are sub-contents of the Young childrens’ Problem behavior, recognize that it is a Problem behavior, and then provide desirable guidance.

Peer interactions during storybook reading on children’s knowledge construction: an experimental study on K2 and K3 children

This study explored the effects of peer interactions on kindergarten children’s construction of conservation and conflict resolution knowledge during storybook reading. Previous studies have identified that peer interactions can support the meaning-making processes of children in social relationships and problem-solving, but little is known about whether the interaction with mixed-age or more competent peers is more important in supporting knowledge construction. Sixty-four younger children in K2 and older children in K3 with similar socioeconomic backgrounds were recruited from a Montessori kindergarten in Kunming, China. An experimental design was applied to explore age group and conserver dominance effects on conservation and conflict resolution. Children were assigned randomly to eight groups in three 30-to-40-min intervention sessions. Each session had a different theme for the children to learn about conservation and conflict resolution concepts and a hands-on activity to practice and discuss. ANOVAs were performed to test group effects, while multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore individual variations in age and pre-test scores in predicting post-test scores. Conservation knowledge was significantly better among children who differed in age groups in the post-test, but differences were not found in conflict resolution knowledge. Groups balanced with equal conservers and non-conservers improved the best, suggesting that peer social interactions can facilitate conservation and conflict resolution construction. These results provide new insights for early childhood educators to support peer interactions and children’s development. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.

보육놀이치료가 유아의 또래유능성과 정서지능에 미치는 효과

보육놀이치료가 유아의 또래유능성과 정서지능에 미치는 효과

Introducing Mechanically Assisted Cough for Patients With Progressive Neurological Disease: Patient-Physical Therapist Interaction and Physical Therapist Perspective.

The goal of this study was to explore the patient-physical therapist interaction and the physical therapist's experience of the introductory session for mechanical insufflation-exsufflation (MI-E) device treatment for patients with progressive neurological disease. Qualitative content analysis of participant's observation of interaction between patients and physical therapists during 9 MI-E introduction sessions in different clinical care settings and 10 follow-up interviews with 6 physical therapists. The introduction of MI-E emerged as a process of instilling a sense of security in the patient. The process can be described in 4 steps: (1) gain understanding by being responsive to the person's whole life situation; (2) share knowledge and expectations in a respectful and permissive way; (3) introduce the device in a gentle and reciprocal interactivity; and (4) adapt to home use in an inclusive dialog with the patient and their significant others. Physical therapists described a need for assurance to instill a sense of security in the patient, implying a need for confidence, competent peers, guiding yet flexible routines, and emotional support. Physical therapists have a need to foster assurance in employing a person-centered approach to make a patient feel secure in the process of introducing MI-E treatment. Multiple modes of professional knowledge were used together with action-based and relational-based ethics to facilitate a person-centered care approach. This seems to be a promising approach for providing good care when introducing MI-E to patients. Further research is needed to explore this from the patient's perspective. This study added to the body of knowledge regarding MI-E treatment in relation to patients. This has direct implication, particularly for inexperienced physical therapists, for informed care for the patient during introduction. Our study also supports that person-centered care should be implemented at all levels of health care to make it possible for physical therapists to practice person-centered care.

유아의 놀이성이 또래유능성에 미치는 영향

Objectives This study The purpose of this study is to confirm the mediating effect of self-regulation ability in the effect of young children’s playfulness on peer competence.
 Methods A survey was conducted from June to July 2021 with 225 children aged 3 to 5. The SPSS 23.0 program was used for data analysis, and frequency analysis and correlation analysis were conducted. Regression analysis was performed to verify the mediating effect, and the mediating effect was verified using bootstrapping.
 Results First, children’s playfulness, self-regulation ability, and peer competence all showed positive correlations. Second, children’s playfulness had a positive effect on peer competence and also had an indirect effect through self-regulation ability. Through this, it was confirmed that children’s playfulness is a very important variable that affects both self-regulation ability and peer competence.
 Conclusions This results show that integrated intervention on playfulness and self-regulation ability is necessary to improve children’s peer competence. this study can be used as basic data for the development of early child-hood curriculum and teacher and parent education programs to improve peer competence.

어머니의 양육효능감과 정서표현성이 유아의 정서지능과 또래유능성에 미치는 영향

Objectives This study is to investigate the impact of maternal parental efficacy and emotional expressiveness on the emotional intelligence and peer competence of young children.
 Methods The subjects were 291 young children aged 3 to 5 years old and 291 mothers enrolled in a daycare center located in G city, and the collected data were analyzed by Pearson's method to analyze the correlation between each variable using the SPSS 21.0 program. Correlation analysis was conducted, and multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyze the influence relationship of variables.
 Results Firstly, as a result of examining the correlation of each variable, a significant positive correlation was found between mother's parenting efficacy and young children's emotional intelligence and peer competency. Positive emotional expression among mothers' emotional expressiveness was found to have positive correlations with young children's emotional intelligence and peer competence. Secondly, as a result of examining the effect of mother's parenting efficacy and emotional expression on iyoung children's emotional intelligence, it was found to have a significant effect. Thirdly, as a result of examining the effect of mother's parenting efficacy and emotional expression on young children's peer competency, it was found to have a significant effect.
 Conclusions Through this study, it was confirmed that mothers' parenting efficacy and emotional expressiveness had an effect on young children's emotional intelligence and peer competence. Therefore, in order to improve young children's emotional intelligence and peer competence, it is necessary to enhance mothers' parenting efficacy and emotional expression, suggesting the need for education and programs for this purpose.

A dual‐path model of observers' responses to peer voice endorsement: The role of instrumental attribution

SummaryPeer voice endorsement is widespread in the workplace. Drawing on social information processing theory and sociofunctional view, this paper proposes that observers' (both negative and positive) psychological and behavioral responses to peer voice endorsement depend on their instrumental attribution for peer voice. Specifically, when observers have a higher level of instrumental attribution, peer voice endorsement is more positively associated with status threat, in turn affecting observers' negative gossip. When observers have a lower level of instrumental attribution, peer voice endorsement is more positively associated with perceived peer competence, which in turn affects observers' role modeling proactive behavior. These results are largely supported by data from a multi‐wave field study and two experimental designs. The theoretical and practical implications of this study and future research directions are presented.

Children perpetuate competence-based inequality when they help peers

Exchanges of help between children are common and often have positive consequences. But not all help is equally beneficial, for example because some help does not provide an opportunity to practice and develop skills. Here I examine whether young children might perpetuate competence-based inequality by providing incompetent peers with less opportunity to practice and improve their skills compared to competent peers. Study 1 (N = 253, 6–9 years) shows that young children understand not all help is equally beneficial: Children think that peers who receive empowerment (hints) vs. non-empowerment (correct answers) help can learn more. Study 2 (N = 80) and 3 (N = 41) then assessed children’s (7–9 years) actual helping behavior in a lab-based experiment. Through a cover story, participants were introduced to two unknown, same-age children whom they later overheard were either good or not good at solving puzzles (Study 2) or math (Study 3). Subsequently, participants got to help both of them with a puzzle-quiz (Study 2) or a math-quiz (Study 3) by providing either empowerment or non-empowerment when they asked for help. Across both studies, children were more likely to provide empowerment help to competent peers, and non-empowerment help to incompetent peers. This work suggests that when young children perceive differences in competence (e.g., based on stereotypes), they contribute to maintaining the status quo by providing the most vulnerable students, that would profit the most from improving their skills, less opportunity to do so.

Pathways to peer interaction in ASD and TD through individual and dyadic joint-action motor abilities.

Any social engagement, especially with peers, requires children's effective activation of social and motor mechanisms. Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display dysfunctions both in individual motor functioning (e.g., fine/gross) and in dyadic joint action (JA), where two partners coordinate movement toward a shared goal. Yet, these mechanisms' contribution to peer interaction has been underexplored. This study examined the contribution of individual motor functioning and JA performance to peer interaction (cooperation, attentiveness, social engagement, and dyadic quality), while comparing children and adolescents' (youngsters) with ASD versus those with typical development (TD). Results indicated more competent peer interaction in TD than in ASD. Interestingly, only the ASD group showed significant maturation with age for social engagement and dyadic interaction quality, calls for further examination of developmental trajectories. However, even the oldest participants with ASD continued to lag behind the youngest TD group. Also, findings indicated that better individual motor functioning and JA performance explained better peer interactive competence; yet, the contribution of individual motor functioning to social cooperation and dyadic quality was moderated by JA performance. Thus, youngsters' individual motor system was found to be an important contributor to peer interaction in those with low to moderate JA coordination capabilities, but not for those with high JA. Results emphasize possible distinct contributions of each motor mechanism and their interaction for facilitating social interaction, hence, encouraging incorporation of individual and dyadic motor skills explicitly into social interaction interventions for youngsters ASD.

The Effects of Physical Contact-based Group Play Therapy on Ego-resilience and Peer competence in non-disabled siblings with disabled siblings

The Effects of Physical Contact-based Group Play Therapy on Ego-resilience and Peer competence in non-disabled siblings with disabled siblings

Father–child relationship and children’s peer competence: Mediated by children’s emotional regulation and environmental adaptation

This study aimed to explore father–child relationships and young children’s peer competence, as mediated by child emotional regulation and environmental adaptation. The children’s fathers and teachers completed peer competence, child emotional regulation and environmental adaptation measures on 216 Chinese children and their fathers. The results, following correlation analysis by SPSS 25.0 and validation analysis by AMOS modelling, demonstrated that: (a) a higher score on the parent–child relationship scale was associated with a higher children’s peer competence score; and (b) emotional regulation and environmental adaptation in the children’s ego resilience mediated between the father–child relationship and was associated with young children’s higher peer competence. These findings indicate that father–child relationship quality is important to children’s peer competence with superior emotional regulation and environmental adaptation. Therefore, educators should help enhance the parent–child relationship to improve children’s emotional regulation and school adaptation.

The Effect of Teacher-Children Close Relationship on Children’s Personality: Children’s Peer Competence as a Mediating Variable

The Effect of Teacher-Children Close Relationship on Children’s Personality: Children’s Peer Competence as a Mediating Variable