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Article Excerpt
This study examined variation in friendship formation and friendship stability as a function of children's and their friends' victimization, overt aggression, and relational aggression. Participants were 605 pre- and early adolescents in fifth through eighth grades (M age = 12.05) assessed twice over a three-month period. Scores for stability and acquisition of same-sex reciprocated friendships were derived from unlimited friendship nominations. Peer nominations provided scores for child and friend victimization and aggression. Only victimized children experienced difficulty forming new friendships, evidence of their persistent social problems. Dissimilarity between friends on relational aggression (all children) and victimization (girls only) predicted friendship termination, however; overtly aggressive children had difficulty maintaining friendships regardless of their friends' aggression. These findings point to the importance of considering the relational context (characteristics of children and their friends) and gender when assessing friendship stability.
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Children's friendships are voluntary relationships that can be initiated and dissolved at will. Estimates indicate that only about half of all close friendships are stable over a school year (Bowker, 2004; Degirmencioglu, Urberg, Tolson, & Richard, 1998), suggesting that children experience considerable volatility in their friendship networks, acquiring new friends and losing old ones. To date, relatively little is known about factors that explain such network volatility (Asher, Parker, & Walker, 1996). Given that having stable friendships and making new friends are independently linked to positive outcomes, such as school satisfaction and the absence of loneliness (Ladd, 1990; Parker & Seal, 1996; Sullivan, 1953), we aimed to identify child and friend characteristics that predict friendship formation and friendship stability in a short-term longitudinal study.
Friendship Formation and Friendship Stability
Extant research on variation in friendship formation has focused almost exclusively on gender and age differences. Findings indicate that over the course of a school year, fewer new friendships are formed among adolescents than elementary school children, and boys' friendship networks often expand whereas girls' friendship networks tend to retain their total size, despite gains or losses (Berndt & Hoyle, 1985; Eder & Hallinan, 1978). Somewhat more research has been devoted to identifying predictors of friendship stability (Bowker, 2004; Schneider, Fonzi, Tani, & Tomada, 1997), but to date findings remain sparse and inconclusive. For example, Schneider et al. (1997) found that positive friendship quality (e.g., support, intimacy) was predictive of friendship stability for children in third and fourth grades, but others found no such relation in middle childhood (Blachman & Hinshaw, 2002; Bowker, 2004). Similarly, in children's descriptions of friendship terminations, Bigelow and LaGuipa (1975) discovered that disputes commonly preceded the dissolution of a friendship; however, Schneider et al. (1997) found no relation between friendship conflict and friendship stability.
To date, the only child-related characteristic that has been assessed in relation to both friendship formation and friendship stability is peer acceptance. Ladd (1990) has argued that children who are generally well liked by their peers should have the behavioral skills necessary to both form and maintain friendships. Yet findings relating peer acceptance to friendship formation and maintenance also are inconsistent. Ladd (1990) found that peer acceptance predicted both friendship formation and stability in kindergarten children, but Parker and Seal (1996) showed that peer acceptance predicted number of friends but not friendship stability in middle childhood, suggesting that well-liked children may not always develop the most successful friendships.
Considerable work remains to explain patterns of friendship network volatility. Making and keeping friends may depend on a combination of unique and overlapping factors involving desirable behavioral characteristics and social position. Although these factors have not been mapped out extensively, some promising candidates can be extrapolated from available research. For example, new friends may be drawn by behavioral similarity, compatible interests, sense of humor, athletic skills, and other stimulating traits (Asher et al., 1996; Savin-Williams & Berndt, 1990). Children's social visibility, power, or acceptance in the peer context also might increase a child's appeal as a potential friend. Once children make friends, however, other skills may be necessary to maintain these relationships. They may need to suppress inappropriate or annoying behavior (Bigelow & LaGaipa, 1975), exhibit effective conflict resolution skills, regulate affect appropriately, and provide stimulation, help, loyalty, and support when necessary (Asher et al., 1996; Selman, 1980). Within the larger social environment it may be important that friends be valuable social resources rather than liabilities (i.e., be accepted rather than rejected by the larger peer group). In short, friendship stability may be contingent upon children's ability to maintain a positive psychological and social context.
Given the characteristics necessary for successful friendship initiation and maintenance, two groups of children may have distinctive patterns of friendship volatility: (1) children who are victimized by peers and (2) aggressive children. Although these children have been reported as often having friends (Champion, Vernberg, & Shipman, 2003; Cairns, Cairns, Neckerman, Gest, & Gariepy, 1988; Pellegrini, Bartini, & Brooks, 1999), little is known about how their relationships may change over time or how their social/behavioral characteristics may contribute to this change. Thus, the primary goal of this study was to assess the implications of child victimization and aggression for stability of pre- and early adolescents' friendship networks as well as the formation of new friendships over a three-month period.
The second goal of the present study was to simultaneously assess children's and friends' contributions to relationship stability. We expected friend characteristics to make important contributions to the prediction of friendship stability because friendships are mutual relationships in which partners have unique and interdependent influence (Bowker, 2004; Poulin & Boivin, 1999; Werner & Crick, 2004). Researchers have established that children are generally attracted to peers who are similar to themselves because similarity promotes relationship equality, positive reinforcement, and cooperative interactions (e.g., Aboud & Mendelson, 1996; Rubin, Lynch, Coplan, Rose-Krasnor, & Booth, 1994). These factors likely contribute to the creation of a compatible and stable friendship environment that typically results in the fostering of greater behavioral similarity over time (Poulin & Boivin, 2000; Snyder, Horsch, & Childs, 1997). Thus, we generally expected that stability would be enhanced when children and friends shared similar characteristics, even if those characteristics were maladaptive (i.e., victimization, aggression). Because girls' and boys' friendships differ to some extent in relational priorities (e.g., achievement of intimacy and power; Zarbatany, Conley, & Pepper, 2004), we were mindful of gender when making predictions regarding behavioral implications for friendship stability and friendship formation.
Victimized Children's Friendships
Peer victimization refers to recurring abusive behavior that involves verbal, physical, or social aggression by one or more peers toward a child (Crick & Nelson, 2002; Olweus, 1991). We expected that victimized children would have difficulty making friends because they are largely rejected by others (Hodges, Malone, & Perry, 1997) and display unappealing behavior such as shyness, anxiety, unhappiness, mistrustfulness (Hodges et al., 1997; Olweus, 1991), and in some cases, aggression and affective dysregulation (e.g., Schwartz, Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2000). We also anticipated that the friendships that victimized children were able to form with nonvictimized children would be a challenge to maintain because their friendships are rife with conflict (Champion et al., 2003) and maltreatment (Crick & Nelson, 2002), negative experiences that victimized children may not be able to redress given their submissive or ineffective behavioral tendencies (Perry, Willard, & Perry, 1990). Moreover, nonvictimized children who do associate with victimized peers are likely to experience their own social problems within the larger peer group (Parker, Saxon, Asher, & Kovacs, 1999) and may quickly learn to avoid child victims. Thus, victimized children offer few social or psychological benefits to potential new friends or to existing friends.
If friends are also victimized, however, the friendship may remain stable due to the restricted alternative partners available to victimized children and the support of a similarly treated friend (misery loves company). Victims who band together may find that bullies are less willing to persecute them (i.e., strength in numbers) and may offer one another escape from hurtful experiences in the larger network, as they create their own mutually supportive and intimate enclave. Accordingly, we expected that children's victimization would negatively predict friendship stability primarily when friends had dissimilar experiences of victimization.
Aggressive Children's Friendships
In recent years, two types of aggression have been commonly discussed: overt and relational (or social) aggression (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Underwood, 2003). The behavior associated with each form of...
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