The Development Of Peer Optimism In The Friendship Networks:a Longitudinal Study In Middle And Late Childhood

As one positive personality characteristic, optimism links to a series of good developmental outcome, such as good mood, perseverance, achievement, and physical health. The stability of optimism has been an important issue in the research of positive social science. Previous research has found that optimism is relatively high stable over time among undergraduates, middle and old aged groups, however, there is little known about the developmental characteristics of optimism in children. Additionally, in recent years, researchers pay more attention to optimism in specific domain, such as academic optimism, optimism in environmental assessments, and peer optimism. Peer optimism refers to the general expectation for better peer relations in future. During middle to late childhood, children’s cognitive competences and social skills are developing rapidly, and peer interaction constitutes an important developmental context for children. Therefore, it is important to explore the developmental features of peer optimism across middle and late childhood.The primary goals of the present research were to test the developmental trajectories of peer optimism across middle to late childhood and the effects of friendship with classmates. Participants were1014children from primary school, who were followed up for three years from grade three to grade six, and they were asked to complete a battery of sociometric and self-report questionnaires at four time points. After examining the reliability and validity of the measuring instrument for peer optimism, latent growth modeling was used to examine:(1) the general developmental pattern of peer optimism;(2) the typical developmental trajectories of peer optimism that different children would follow; and (3) the prediction of peer optimism at third grade to the developmental pattern of friend quantity. Finally,(4) stochastic actor-based model of longitudinal social network analysis was used to test the mechanism in the co-evolution process of friend network and peer optimism. The main results of the present research were as following:1. The applicability of the measuring instrument for peer optimism among Chinese children."Peer Life Orientation Test"(P-LOT) was developed by Deptula et al.(2006) used to measure children’s optimism about their peer relations, and it had ten items. The exploratory factors analysis, confirmatory factors analysis, the reliability and validity test revealed that P-LOT was single dimension structure, and had good reliability and validity in the sample of Chinese children, and achieved the standards of psychometrics. There were five items (two items coded positively, three items coded inversely) in this instrument. 2. The basic features and the developmental trajectories of peer optimism from middle to late childhood.The average levels of peer optimism were relatively high among third to sixth grade children, and increased with grade. Girls were more optimism about peer relations than boys at each grade. The correlation analysis indicated that: peer optimism was moderate stable during middle to late childhood and the one-year-interval stability increased gradually with grade.On the whole, children’peer optimism during middle to late childhood increased in a linear trajectory, and there were individual differences in the initial levels and growth in peer optimism. Specifically, four trajectories were identified using latent growth mixture modeling, respectively: persistently high optimism trajectory (71.4%), persistently moderate optimism trajectory (14.4%), low-increasing optimism trajectory (8.9%) and low-decreasing optimism trajectory (5.3%). The results of the analysis of variance showed that the low-decreasing optimism trajectory gradually exhibited interpersonal maladjustment, and the persistently high optimism trajectory performed better social adjustment all the time. In addition, girls were more likely to belong to persistently high optimism trajectory (78.6%,65.4%), and less likely in the other three trajectories than boys (persistently moderate optimism trajectory:10.5%,17.6%; low-increasing optimism trajectory:6.8%,10.6%; low-decreasing optimism trajectory:4.2%,6.3%).3. The mechanism for the homophily of peer optimism in friendship network.Longitudinal data on friendship networks and peer optimism of139children were analyzed, using stochastic actor-based models. This method is capable of modeling possible changes occurring between observations, allowing alternative influence and selection mechanisms to be investigated, and avoiding the violation of assumptions of statistical independence of observed data. Results indicated that children preferred selecting friends based on similar peer optimism (social selection). However, friends did not influence each other’s peer optimism over time (social influence).4. The prediction of peer optimism on the developmental pattern of friendship quantity.Overall, the three kinds of friend quantity (other-nominated friends, self-nominated friends and mutual-nominated friends) all increased across third grade to sixth grade, but the developmental patterns were different among the three kinds of friend quantity. The other-nominated friend quantity increased in a linear trajectory, the self-nominated friend quantity and mutual friend quantity both increased in a non-linear trajectory from grade3to grade6, and there were individual differences in the initial levels and growth in friend quantity. Then, results from latent growth modeling also indicated that peer optimism at grade3positively predicted the increase in self-nominated friend quantity and mutual friend quantity over time, however, it had no effect on the increase of other-nominated friend quantity.