Michelle E. Schmidt

The Protective Role of Friendships in Overtly and Relationally Victimized Boys and Girls

This study was conducted to assess whether friendship quality and gender moderate the association between peer victimization and internalizing distress. Third-,fourth-, and fifth-grade children (N = 670; 315 girls, 355 boys) completed self-report measures of friendship quality, relational and overt physical victimization, anxiety, and depression. Results indicated that several aspects of positive friendship quality, including help and security, serve as effective buffers against both relational and overt victimization. These results were found for girls only and for both anxiety and depression. Results highlight the importance of positive friendship features as protective factors in the link between victimization and internalizing distress.

Preschoolers at play: Co-socialisers of emotional and social competence

Emotional competence is a contributor to young children’s social success. This study focused on these contributions from a relational perspective. The emotional expressions, and reactions to others’ emotional expressions, of 145 predominately Caucasian/middle income 3- and 4-year-olds were observed in their classrooms during unstructured play. Participants’ and playmates’ emotions and emotional responsiveness were classified into positive and negative playgroup types. Participants’ social competence was measured using peers, teachers, and parents as informants. Results indicate that preschoolers in playgroups characterised by anger and negative emotional responsiveness are evaluated as lacking in social competence up to a year later. Additionally, security of attachment and externalising temperament predicted membership in such playgroups. These effects held true more often for boys.

Compromised Emotional Competence: Seeds of Violence Sown Early?

The authors expected less secure preschoolers to be less emotionally competent when interacting with peers at age 3 and that these emotionally incompetent children, especially those who showed much unregulated anger, would be less socially competent in kindergarten. These directional hypotheses were examined in a sample of 91 preschoolers, and all were corroborated.

Kindergarten Social-Emotional Competence: Developmental Predictors and Psychosocial Implications

Forty-nine children ( M age =46.36 v mths) participated in a study of the predictors of social-emotional competence in kindergarten. This study longitudinally examined relations among child-mother attachment at age 3, family stress at ages 3, 4, and 5, and social-emotional outcomes in kindergarten. Attachment was measured using the Attachment Q-Set and family stress was determined using the Life Experiences Survey. At kindergarten age, mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18, teachers completed the Preschool Socioaffective Profile, and focal childrens peers completed a sociometric task to determine peer popularity. Results suggest that less secure children are more aggressive and less socially competent in kindergarten, and children who experience more family stress in their preschool years are more aggressive and anxious and less socially competent in kindergarten than their peers who experience less family stress in those same years. Teachers report that boys are more aggressive and anxious in the kindergarten classroom than are girls.

The Friendship Quality of Overtly and Relationally Victimized Children

This study examines links between overt and relational victimization and the quality of childrens best friendships. Third-grade through fifth-grade children completed measures in the fall (n = 675) and spring (n = 620). There were strong concurrent associations between both types of victimization and friendship quality. Controlling for aggression, higher levels of overt victimization were associated with more conflict and less security and closeness with friends in the fall and less companionship in the spring. Higher levels of relational victimization were associated with more conflictual friendships. Children with very close friendships and conflict-ridden friendships reported more relational victimization. Overt victimization was predicted by a low level of security and a high level of help. In longitudinal analyses, children who reported low levels of help in the fall experienced increases in relational victimization over the year. None of these effects was moderated by gender. Finally, the timing (rather than the duration) of victimization was most related to friendship quality. These findings point to the importance of considering the different interpersonal antecedents and consequences of relational victimization when compared with overt victimization.

Is Mentoring throughout the Fourth and Fifth Grades Associated with Improved Psychosocial Functioning in Children

This study examined whether mentoring influenced childrens self‐concept, anxiety, depression, and relationships with parents and peers over an 18‐month period. We examined 31 mentored children (50% female) and a comparison group of 22 nonmentored children (50% female) at the beginning of a mentoring program in the fall of the fourth‐grade year (mean age = 9.67) and again in the spring of the fifth‐grade year (mean age = 11.25). In fourth grade, 53 children completed the Piers‐Harris Childrens Self‐Concept Scale, the Revised Childrens Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Childrens Depression Inventory—Short Form, and the People in My Life questionnaire, and 41 children completed the surveys again in fifth grade. Six fourth‐grade and six fifth‐grade teachers completed the Student Behavior Survey. Paired‐sample t‐test analyses indicated meaningful improvement in only mentored childrens self‐concept and anxiety. However, neither mentored nor nonmentored children revealed improvements in depression or relationships. Teacher ratings of mentored children did not suggest behavioral changes in the predicted direction. We discuss these counterintuitive findings, along with suggestions for future research.

Friendship and Happiness in Adolescence

Despite both significant attention to the contributions of adolescents’ friendships to their adjustment and considerable research on the role of close relationships in adults’ happiness, happiness has rarely been considered as an antecedent or consequence of adolescents’ experiences with their friends. This chapter reviews the literature on associations between friendship and three components of happiness in adolescence—life satisfaction, the presence of positive affect, and the absence of negative affect. Having friends, friendship quality, and the characteristics of friends are most clearly linked with the negative affect dimension of happiness, specifically loneliness and depression. Nevertheless, there are positive associations between various aspects of friendship experiences and positive affect and life satisfaction. We suggest several directions for future research to further elucidate the connections between these developmentally significant relationships and adolescents’ subjective well-being.

Positive Youth Development: Still Working to Build the Village

Reviews the book, Mobilizing Adults for Positive Youth Development: Strategies for Closing the Gap Between Beliefs and Behaviors edited by E. Gil Clary and Jean E. Rhodes (see record 2006-06770-000). How can adults be motivated to join efforts to promote positive youth development? This question is the focus of E. Gil Clary and Jean E. Rhodess edited volume, Mobilizing Adults for Positive Youth Development: Strategies for Closing the Gap Between Beliefs and Behaviors. The volume, the fourth book published in the Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Community and Society, promotes the institutes mission of healthy children, youths, and communities. In fact, several chapters in the book use the institutes 40 Developmental Assets (Search Institute, 2005) as a framework for discussing positive youth development. Many of the contributing authors in the volume present the assets and use them to make the case for positive youth development, to discuss how many assets youths typically achieve, and to discuss that youths could conceivably achieve more of the assets if more adults participated in the effort. The book contains four sections. The first part of the book is devoted to the context of adults helping youths develop. The second, third, and fourth parts of the book focus on how to motivate individual adults, local groups of adults, and societies of adults, respectively, to get involved with youths. The final section of the book is a commentary that reflects on the challenges posed and opportunities provided for positive youth development. Overall, the books contributors provide an abundance of information about how different segments of American culture currently participate in youth efforts and, in some chapters more than in other chapters, suggestions for specifically how adults can be motivated to get more involved in these efforts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)