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Ecology of the Peer Group - Coggle Diagram
Ecology of the Peer Group
Chapter 8
Peer Groups
Peers: equals, individuals who are of the same gender, age, and social status who share interests.
Satisfy belonging need, preferred to other socialization agents, and influence social, cognitive, and psychological development
Peers develop a sense of self: Who am I? How do I feel about myself?
Certain skills are required to properly connect with peers.
Parenting style plays into peer relations
Social Competence and Conformity
Social competence: behavior informed by an understanding of others' feelings and intentions, ability to respond appropriately, and knowledge of the consequences of one's actions
Social Cognition
Conceptions and reasoning about people, the self, relations between people, social groups' roles and rules, and the relation of such conceptions to social behavior
Assumptive Reality: Theory about reality assumed to be true w/o data or evaluating contradictory data
cognitive conceit: Elkind's term for children in Piaget's stage of concrete operations who put too much faith in their reasoning ability and cleverness
Also contains some reality testing, imaginary audience. Children eventually learn to look to themselves for identity, not to others.
Socialization Mechanisms
Reinforcement: Approving another's behavior increases likelihood of that behavior recurring.
Modeling: Related to conformity, watch others behaviors and do the same. Modeling depends on the situation, model, and observer.
punishment: includes teasing, aggression, or rejection. Victims and bullies are involved. Social dynamics play a huge role in peer groups .
Apprenticeship: expert knows more than novice, but can share what they learn. Expert has control and is a supportive audience to the group
Emotions
Peer group is like a barometer: We can predict children's current and future adjustment problems.
Depends on communication skills, competition, reciprocity, etc.
Developmental Tasks
Getting along with others: Recognizing others rights, involves seeing things from another's perspective and verbal communications. Ability to empathize.
Morals and Values: right and wrong; what is worthwhile. Common rules based on common experience.
Types of Morality
Morality of constraint: Behaviors based on respect for authority
Morality of cooperation: mutual understanding between equals
Learning appropriate roles: Peer group allows for trying out new roles. Sex & Gender roles play into this idea.
Achieving Independence and Identity: Boys have more social supports, girls more intimate ones. Boys prefer affirmation, boys want help solving problems.
Peer Group Interaction
Development of friendship has many different stages.
Play/Activities
Development of Play: Play is behavior enjoyed for its own sake, includes solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, imatative, exploratory, testing, model-building, and cooperative play
Infant/toddler: Babies to interact with each other, but not the way children and teens do.
Early childhood: Exhibit more aggression, direct more speech to their peers.
Middle childhood/preadolescent will interact with peers 30% of the time. This gives cognitive, psychological, and sociocultural influence increasing
Adolescent Peer activities: hang out, opposite sex included, start spending time on appearance.
Acceptance/Neglect/Rejection
Acceptance
Sociometry: Techniques used to measure patterns of acceptance, neglect, and rejection among members of a group
Children who are not physically attractive are more popular than those who are not. Intelligence also plays a role in popularity. Family can even contribute.
Neglected or Rejected
All children feel rejected at one point or another. it can be appearance, religion, etc.
Peer Sociotherapy: social, emotional, language, physical observations can help us understand where peers have placed children.
Peer Group Dynamics and Social Hierarchies
Queen bees, bystanders, targets
Bullying: Aggressive behavior intended to cause harm or distress
Bullies need to be dominate, are impulsive and angry, physically stronger, do not like rules, show little empathy, and engage in antisocial behavior
Victims tend to be weak, exhibit fear of getting hurt, cautious, anxious, insecure, unhappy, have a hard time asserting themselves, and relate better to adults than peers
Antisocial Behavior: Gangs
Gang: Group of people who form an allegiance for a common purpose and engage in unlawful or criminal activity.
Offer companionship, guidance, excitement, and identity
Prosocial Behavior: Collab, tutoring,and counseling
Collaboration: learn to solve problems through consensus
Tutor: Analyze and synthesize info for others
Counsel: Learn how to care, help, and give support
Adult-Child interactions
adults set the stage for peer interactions
Scouts, church groups, etc.
Competitive or cooperative influences in children's behavior
Working together and sharing responsibility
Videos
Cipher in the Snow
There are signs in others are struggling. As adults, we need to be observant of these signs.
Cliques, Crowds, and Conformity
A Class Divided
My teacher did this. She separated us based off of our eye color and we had to be mean to each other.
Students separated by eye color, were told they needed to treat certain colors a certain way one day, then same thing happened the next
Other reading
Adding up the Assets
External assets- a healthy environment, supportive family, neighborhood, school, surroundings, etc.
Internal assets: Skills, beliefs that make up a child's strength of character. Loving to read, learning new things, etc.
More assets, less likely to get involved in unhealthy behaviors