Adolescents' use of social sanctions in response to peers' interactions with adolescents of varying sociometric status

The present study was designed to investigate whether children sanction their peers for interacting with rejected children in an attempt to explain the failures of social skills training programs to consistently produce lasting gains in sociometric status for rejected children. Seventy-seven seventh and eighth grade students were recruited for participation. Students' sociometric status was determined using peer nominations and peer ratings. Students' names were then used for insertion in vignettes depicting two same-sex peers interacting in a manner that implied friendship formation. The social acceptance of the two children presented was manipulated such that each participant was presented seven vignettes with the following status combinations: popular-popular, popular-average, popular-rejected, average-average, average-rejected, rejected-rejected, and an additional popular-rejected combination where the ethnicity of the peers was manipulated. Participants' own reactions (rater sanctions) and their expectations of reactions by friends of the higher status peer in vignettes (friend sanctions) were assessed for positive (withdrawal of positive behaviors) and negative (use of negative behaviors) sanctions.; Results demonstrated that average adolescents initiating interactions with rejected peers elicited more friend sanctions than initiators in all other status combinations. Rejected adolescents initiating interactions with other rejected children elicited more rater sanctions than popular adolescents initiating interactions with popular peers, popular adolescents initiating interactions with average peers, and average adolescents initiating interactions with average peers. Popular adolescents initiating interactions with rejected peers elicited more friend and rater sanctions than popular adolescents initiating interactions with other popular peers.; Analyses of the ethnicity of peers in vignettes revealed that participants believed friends would withdraw more positive behaviors from minority popular peers who initiate interactions with Caucasian rejected peers than from Caucasian popular peers who initiate interactions with Caucasian rejected peers. Participants also indicated that minority popular peers would want to interact with Caucasian rejected peers less than Caucasian popular peers would. Findings suggest that high status adolescents risk sanctions from their peers for interacting with rejected peers, and peer groups strongly resist increases in the social acceptance of rejected adolescents. Therefore, current interventions designed to raise the social acceptance of rejected adolescents require modification to address such peer group resistance.