3-100 - Peer Network Dynamics and Child Development: Appraising the Evidence and Charting New Directions

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Peer relationships are critical for child and adolescent development. The nature of peer relationships in a group is multi-dimensional, including friendship, bullying, and rejection. These forms of relationships jointly shape the development of internalizing (depressive symptoms) and externalizing (aggression, delinquency) behavior. Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, this symposium will showcase novel applications of social network analysis (SNA) methods to advance our understanding of how the various forms of peer relationships co-evolve and how peer influence operates within these relationships.
Paper 1 systematically reviews results from 185 developmental studies using SNA methods to examine the development of externalizing and internalizing behavior in children and adolescents and discusses key approaches, methodological challenges, and promising new directions. Papers 2-4 showcase these new applications of SNA methods to study peer dynamics. Paper 2 identifies how adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors interactively contribute to friendship selection and provides evidence for direct and indirect forms of peer influence on externalizing and internalizing behavior. Paper 3 takes a relational perspective on bullying in childhood by showing that bullying the same victim contributes to friendship selection and that peer contagion of bullying exists among friends. Paper 4 examines peer network processes in classrooms where the prosocial climate was promoted through an intervention and documents that in these classrooms aggressive and victimized children were less rejected by their peers.
This symposium brings together innovative networks research conducted with international samples to provide theoretical and empirical insights into the interplay between children’s and adolescents’ behavior and their interpersonal relationships.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Olga Kornienko, George Mason University

Individual Presentations

• Using Network Analysis to Understand Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior in Developmental Psychology: A Systematic Review - Presenting Author: Jennifer Watling Neal, Michigan State University

• Dynamic Pathways Between Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior in Adolescent Friendship Networks - Presenting Author: Olga Kornienko, George Mason University; Non-Presenting Author: Davila Marissa, George Mason University; Non-Presenting Author: Carlos E. Santos, University of California Los Angeles

• Unpacking Selection and Peer Influence Pathways in Bullying and Friendship Networks - Presenting Author: Ashwin Rambaran, University of Groningen; Non-Presenting Author: Jan Kornelis Dijkstra, University of Groningen; Non-Presenting Author: Rene Veenstra, University of Groningen

• Investigating the Interplay Between Friendship, Rejection, Aggression, and Victimization Networks - Presenting Author: Diego Palacios, University of Groningen; Non-Presenting Author: Paula Luengo Kanacri, Pontificia Universidad Católica; Non-Presenting Author: Christian Berger, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Non-Presenting Author: Jan Kornelis Dijkstra, University of Groningen; Non-Presenting Author: Rene Veenstra, University of Groningen