The Development Of Peer Interactions And Psychological Adjustment From Middle To Late Childhood: A Three-year Longitudinal Study

Children's peer interactions as well as psychological adjustments are predominant contents in their social development. Along with the growing of children's ages, while children's social behaviors developing on its own, the influence that such social behaviors puts on the peer relationship and psychological adjustment may also change-from the positive affect at the early stage to the negative affect in the later. In the meantime, it should be pointed out that there is also a gender difference on the implied adaptive meaning of social behaviors. Therefore, it's necessary to examine the development of children's peer interactions and its prospective affect on their psychological adjustment and to explore the problems caused by gender difference through follow-up designing method.The present study collected data on children's peer interaction and psychological in June of 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively. Participants were elementary school children from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Measures included (1) Friendship Nomination, from which we got mutual friendship number; (2)Peer Rating, from which we got peer rating scores reflecting how much children liked by their peers; (3) Class Play Questionnaire, from which we got the scores of three kind of social behaviors---passive withdrawal, overt aggression and relational aggression; (4) Harter's Social Concept, from which we got the social self-concept score of children, the index of adjustment; (5) Children's Loneliness Scale, from which we got the loneliness score of children, the index of maladjustment. The present study analyzed the longitudinal data taken from the prospective investigation with two statistical methods named Hierarchical Linear Model and Latent Growth Model. Results indicated that,1. The developmental trend of passive withdrawal, overt aggression and relational aggressionDuring the three years, boys' passive withdrawal was significantly lower than girls', and there was not a significant difference on passive withdral between Grade 3 and Grade 4. The descending trend of passive withdrawal was not significant on the whole. But there was significant difference on the developmental variance of passive withdrawal among individuals. Gender difference was not significant on the developmental trend of passive withdrawal, and the level of initial passive withdrawal couldn't significantly predict the developmental trend of passive withdrawal.During the three years, boys showed more overt aggression than girls, but the gender difference on the level of relational aggression was not significant. The ascending trend of overt aggression was not significant; while the ascending trend of relational aggression reached a significant level marginally. There was a significant positive correlation between overt aggression and relational aggression. And the more rapidly children's overt aggression ascended, the faster their relational aggression ascended. There was not a gender difference on the ascending speed of children's relational aggression. While the group of higher relational aggression at T1, ascended at a faster speed during the three years than the group of lower relational aggression at T1. And the pssive withdral of Grade 4 ascended at a faster speed during the three years than Grade 3. Different grades and the initial level of relational aggression took the main responsibility for causing the individual difference on the time slope of relational aggression.2. The developmental trend of mutual friends' number and the prospective effect of social behaviorsChildren's mutual friends' number with peers of the same sex obviously exceeded the number with peers of the opposite sex during the three years. The more a child's mutual friends number with boys, the less his/her mutual friends number with girls was. There was a significant ascending trend in children's mutual friends' number with boys and girls. Boys' mutual friends' number with girls ascended at a faster speed during the three years than girls'. Grade 3 students's mutual friends' number with girls ascended at a faster speed during the three years than Grade 4. And the group of more mutual friends' number with girls at T1, ascended at a faster speed during the three years than the group of less mutual friends' number with girls at T1.Passive withdrawal had a significant negative effect on children's mutual friends number with boys at each time point, while the negative effect on the mutual friends' number with girls was not significant.Overt aggression and relational aggression affected on children's mutual friends' number with boys insignificantly. However, overt aggression had a significantly negative effect on children's mutual friends' number with girls, while relational aggression had a significantly positive effect on children's mutual friends' number with girls.3. The developmental trend of children's peer rating and the prospective effect of social behaviorsChildren's rating scores received from peers of the same sex were significantly higher than therating scores from the peers of the opposite sex during the three years. Children who were popular with boys were popular with girls. There was a significant ascending trend in peer rating scores both from girls and boys during the three years. Boys' peer rating scores from girls ascended at a faster speed during the three years than girls'.Children's passive withdrawal had significant negative influence on childrens' peer rating scores both from boys and girls. That was to say, boys and girls didn't like passive withdrawn peers. Overt aggression and relational aggression affected on individual's peer rating scores from boys insignificantly. However, overt aggression had a significantly negative effect on children's peer rating scores from girls, while relational aggression had an insignificant influence on individual's peer rating scores from girls.4. The latent growth of psychological development and the effects of peer interactionsChildren's social self-concept had a significant ascending trend and the diversity of this ascending trend was not obvious among different children. This indicated that the ascending speed of different children's social self-concept was nearly coincident. And children's loneliness had a significant descending trend and the descending speed was not coincident and had an obvious diversity among different children.Initial overt aggression and passive withdrawal could negatively prospect the grand mean score of social self-concept and positively predict the grand mean score of loneliness, while initial relational aggression could positively prospect the grand mean score of social self-concept and negatively predict the grand mean score of the sense of loneliness.The initial social behaviors didn't have significant influence on the linear growth trend of social self-concept. Initial overt aggression had a significant negative influence on the quadratic growth trend of social self-concept, while initial relational aggression had a significantly positive influence on it. Initial passive withdrawal showed insignificant effect on the quadratic growth trend of social self-concept.The initial social behaviors showed insignificant effect on both the liner growth trend and the quadratic growth trend of loneliness.After considering the influence of initial social behaviors, the linear ascending trend of social self-concept turns to be unobvious and the liner descending trend of loneliness also came to be unobvious.The initial total mutual friends' number and mean peer rating scores from all classmates could significantly positively prospect the grand mean score of social self-concept and negatively prospect the grand mean score of loneliness.The initial total mutual friends' number and mean peer rating scores showed unobvious influence on either the linear growth or quadratic growth of social self-concept.After considering the effects of initial peer relationship, the linear ascending trend of social self-concept was not obvious, while the linear descending trend of loneliness was also unobvious.In conclusion, the results emphasized the negative effect of passive withdrawal on children's peer relationship especially with boys', and indicated the negative effect of overt aggression on children's peer relationship especially with girls', and indicated the significantly positive effect of relational aggression on children's mutual friends' number with girls. Furthermore, passive withdrawal and overt aggression had an obviously negative effect on children's psychological adjustment while relational aggression and mutual friends' number as well as peer rating scores had significantly positive effects on children's psychological adjustment. This dissertation also provided some suggestions to prevent and intervene three kinds of social behaviors. The limitation and deficiency of the study together with the direction of further research were discussed in the end.