Laursen, Brett

Theorists and researchers have emphasized the importance of interactive peer play for children’s social-emotional and cognitive development. Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are at increased risk for social-emotional and cognitive difficulties. Therefore, it is important to determine the causes of interactive peer play, particularly in a high-risk sample of Head Start preschoolers. Overactive behavior at the beginning of the preschool year has been shown to negatively predict changes in interactive play between the beginning and end of the preschool year. However, possible mechanisms of this association have been underexplored. The main purpose of this study will be to determine whether peer rejection mediates the association between overactive behavior and changes in interactive play and whether mediation is conditional on children’s school readiness. If it is found that moderated mediation exists for overactive children with low school readiness, children who present both of these characteristics at the beginning of the preschool year should be provided with preventative support.

Given the diverse and substantial developmental outcomes associated with low peer acceptance, it is important to research its potential predictors. However, the developmental antecedents are not likely restricted to simple, one-lagged links within the same domain. Rather, peer status may stem from a developmental sequence of effects across several domains, particularly across those that develop at the same time and in the same environment as peer status. A developmental cascade model is best used to capture sequential changes over time, across multiple domains, and during sensitive periods of development Academic motivation and achievement likely exemplify predictors that would affect peer status sequentially over time during the early primary school years. This study examined the developmental cascade of task avoidance, academic achievement, and peer acceptance using a sample of 545 (311 boys, 234 girls) Finnish students in the 1st through 4th grade (M = 7.67, SD = 0.31 years old at the outset).

This study examines whether aggression and prosocial behavior shape changes in
perceptions of friendship quality within stable reciprocal best friend dyads. A
longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Model was used to investigate whether
individual characteristics predict changes 6 to 12 weeks later in perceptions of
relationship support and negativity. The sample included 76 same-sex dyads drawn from
classrooms in grades 4 (M = 9.48 years) through 6 (M= 11.43 years) in two public
schools in the United States.

Adolescent alcohol abuse increases across the adolescent years. If left unchecked,
alcohol abuse can give rise to delinquency, poor grades, and risky sexual behavior
(Stueve & O’Donnell, 2005; Ellickson, Tucker, & Klein, 2003). Past research suggests
that minimal parental oversight increases the risk for adolescent alcohol abuse. There is
also evidence, however, that parents withdraw from oversight in the face of adolescent
problem behaviors (Barber & Olsen, 1997; Hafen & Laursen, 2009). Each may vary
according to the child’s physical development. Parents may respond to pubertal
maturation with reduced supervision and early maturing girls may be sensitive to parent
supervision because of the additional pressures and attention they receive from older,
possibly deviant, peers (Stattin, Kerr, & Skoog, 2011).

Previous studies of desired friendship have assessed desired friends with
unilateral nominations (when one child chooses another child as a friend, but that friend
nomination is not reciprocated). This calls into question the validity of findings
suggesting that children want to be friends with others who differ from themselves, but
befriend similar others by default (Sijtsema, Lindenberg, & Veenstra, 2010). The current
study concerns desired friendships among 195 girls and 147 boys in Grades 4 through 6.
Two hypotheses were tested. The first hypothesis was that children will not choose the
same unilateral and desired friends. The second hypothesis was that children will be more
similar to their reciprocal friends than to their unilateral and desired friends.
Questionnaires measured desired friendship, friendship, and child characteristics. Both
hypotheses were supported. However, there were group-level differences. The
importance of using desired friend nominations to measure desired friends is discussed.

The current study assessed whether the accuracy of children’s self-reports of
events experienced differs as a function of age and how the question is asked. Additional
factors like metamemory and distractibility were assessed. Primary-school students (M=
7.7 years) and middle-school students (M = 9.7 years) completed two different versions
of an event frequency measure, two times, at one week intervals. In one of the measures
of event frequency, no memory prompts were provided (uncued questionnaire condition),
while in the other measure, recall categories for aiding recollections were provided (cued
questionnaire condition). Participants’ self-reported event frequencies for the cued and
uncued questionnaires were compared with trained observers’ event frequencies for the
cued and uncued conditions. Older children reported event frequency more accurately
than younger participants. Participants also reported events with greater accuracy with
the aid of memory prompts than without, an effect that was especially strong among the
younger children. Neither metamemory nor distractibility was accountable for the differences within age groups. The findings suggest that age-related improvements in
accuracy of event frequency across the transition into adolescence may, in part, be due to
improvements in the ability to recall and recount those events in the absence of memory
cues.

Adolescent friendships are critical for adjustment but are extremely unstable.
Dyadic characteristics may put friendships at risk for dissolution, whereas individual
characteristics may put individuals at risk for participating in unstable friendships. The
present study examines whether dyadic or individual school-related characteristics
predict rates of adolescent friendship dissolution. A sample of 410 adolescents (n=201 males, 209 females; M age=13.20 years) participated in 573 reciprocated friendships originating in the 7th grade which were followed from 8th-12th grade. Discrete-time survival analyses evaluated grade 7 dyadic and individual characteristics (sex, age, ethnicity, number of friends, peer acceptance, peer rejection, leadership, and school competence) as predictors of the occurrence and timing of friendship dissolution.
Dissimilarity in sex, peer acceptance, and school competence and similarity in
leadership predicted higher rates of friendship dissolution; individual characteristics were not significant predictors. Adolescents seeking friendships with more skilled individuals
risk suffering the downside of dissimilarity, namely dissolution.

Close friends have been shown to influence adolescent problem behaviors,
especially alcohol abuse (Urberg, Degirmencioglu, and Pilgrim, 1997). The degree of
influence, however varies as a function of individual characteristics such as peer
acceptance (Laursen, Hafen, Kerr, and Stattin, 2012) and age (Popp et al., 2008). The
present study examines whether differences in influence extend to perceptions of
friendship quality. Using a sample of 764 Swedish adolescents involved in stable samesex reciprocal best friend relationships that lasted at least one year, analyses used
distinguishable dyad actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) analyses (Kenny,
Kashy, & Cook, 2006) to track influence over two years of the friendship. More
satisfied friends were more influential than less satisfied friends on intoxication
frequency and truancy. The findings of this study indicate that influence accompanies perceptions of quality. Those with higher perceptions of quality exhibit more influence
on friends who perceive relatively lower quality.

This study was designed to investigate friend influence on academic
achievement and task avoidance during middle childhood in a sample of 794
participants in 397 stable same-sex friendship dyads (205 girl dyads and 192 boy dyads)
from four municipalities in Finland: two in Central Finland, one in Western Finland,
and one in Eastern Finland. Longitudinal data were collected during the spring of 3rd
grade and 4th grade and reports were available from both members of each friendship
dyad. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kenny, Kashy & Cook, 2006)
was used with a single sample of participants to estimate friend influence on academic
achievement and task avoidance between two types of friendship dyads: (1) dyads that
were distinguishable as a function of relative math achievement and relative peer
acceptance and (2) dyads that were indistinguishable as a function of relative math
achievement and relative peer acceptance. The results demonstrate that when friends are distinguished by math achievement the high achiever influences the low achiever’s math achievement, but not the reverse. When friends are distinguishable by peer acceptance the high accepted partner influences the low accepted partner’s math achievement, but not the reverse. When friends are indistinguishable on the basis of math achievement and peer
acceptance there is mutual influence on math achievement. There was no evidence of
friend influence on task avoidance. There was no evidence of friend influence from an
individual’s own task avoidance predicting changes in friend math achievement, except
among dyads that could not be distinguished on the basis of math achievement. Math
achievement predicted within-individual changes in task avoidance for all friendship
dyads, except those that could not be distinguished by relative math achievement.
The findings suggest that friends influence math achievement during middle
childhood. Furthermore, when friends are distinguished, relative math achievement and
peer acceptance determines who is influencing whom within a friendship dyad. The use
of the APIM for distinguishable and indistinguishable dyads on a single sample of
participants illustrates that it is not sufficient to ignore differentiating features between
friends, or to discard friendships that are more similar. Implications for teaching
strategies and classroom interventions are discussed.

Adolescent orientation toward achievement is hypothesized to be composed of motivation, school achievement, and family values. Previous studies suggest that ability and effort, internal and external orientations, and the intellectual and cultural environment of the family were found to affect adolescent orientation toward achievement. A study was conducted to further explore these proposed components of achievement and reveal the origins, influences, and outcomes of achievement orientation. African-American, Anglo-American, and Hispanic-American sixth grade students were administered multiple questionnaires that addressed different aspects of achievement orientation. After focus groups identified any biased and confusing items, factor analyses were conducted on the instruments. Both the original and revised subscales were correlated with academic achievement outcome variables (i.e., cumulative grade point average, SAT math scores, SAT reading scores, socioeconomic status). Using GPA as the primary outcome variable, Hotelling T-tests between the original and revised subscales revealed that overall the revised subscales were more strongly related to GPA across subsamples than the originals. Furthermore, linear regression analysis demonstrated that intrinsically-oriented subscales and subscales related to boredom significantly contributed to the prediction of GPA for Anglo-Americans and African-Americans, but only a subscale related to unknown control over achievement contributed to the prediction of GPA for Hispanic-Americans. However, post-hoc analyses revealed intrinsically-oriented items as having the strongest relationship with GPA across subsamples. The results both supported and expanded upon the literature relating to achievement orientation.