Peers influence the tobacco and alcohol use of Chinese adolescents.

This two-wave longitudinal study examined peer selection and influence pertaining to tobacco and alcohol use by adolescents and their friends in a sample of 854 Chinese adolescents (384 girls: mean age = 13.33 years). Participants nominated friends and self-reported their tobacco and alcohol use at seventh and again at eighth grade. Longitudinal social network analyses revealed evidence of friend influence but not selection over smoking and drinking. Boys increased their levels of smoking at rates greater than that of girls, but no sex moderation of either selection or influence was found. In interpreting these results, it is important to understand the gender norms for Chinese boys and girls and the cultural context of tobacco and alcohol use.

Characteristics of likability, perceived popularity, and admiration in the early adolescent peer system in the United States and China.

High social status youth are often influential in the peer system. Thus, they may serve as agents of cultural socialization if they exhibit characteristics that reflect cultural values (e.g., interdependence). This research examined the behavior that contributes to high social status in the United States and China. At each of 3 waves, 934 early adolescents (M age = 12.7 years at Wave 1) made behavioral (i.e., prosocial behavior and academic engagement) and social status (i.e., likability, perceived popularity, and admiration) nominations of their peers. Positive behavior was predictive of higher social status in both the United States and China, but this was stronger in China. In the United States, there was a tendency for positive behavior to be less predictive of perceived popularity than other forms of social status (e.g., likability); however, this tendency was not evident in China. (PsycINFO Database Record

Rejection and victimization among elementary school children: the buffering role of classroom-level predictors.

This study examined features of classroom peer ecologies and teaching practices that may attenuate the prevalence of victimization and its connection to peer rejection. Participants were 1020 elementary school students from 54 classrooms and their teachers followed for one academic year. In the majority of classrooms students who were rejected in fall tended to be victimized in spring, but the strength of this association varied across classrooms. The positive relationship between rejection in the fall and victimization in the spring was stronger in classrooms where victimization was strongly centralized around specific victims in the fall. In addition, victimization in the spring was higher in classrooms that had higher levels of peer rejection in the fall, where victimization was strongly centralized in the fall, and where teachers reported making fewer efforts to reduce social status inequality. This study contributes to a growing body of research into contextual factors that may attenuate negative outcomes associated with peer rejection and reduce levels of peer harassment in elementary school.

Why the bully/victim relationship is so pernicious: a gendered perspective on power and animosity among bullies and their victims.

The bully/victim relationship was studied in a sample of elementary school children (N = 1,289 in first, third, and fifth grades). Three questions were tested. Does bullying involve a power differential between bully and victim? Are bully/victim dyads participants in a relationship, whether mutual liking or disliking? Does the gender composition of the bully/victim dyad moderate power differential and relational context patterns? Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze predictors of the reputational strength of bully/victim ties. The findings revealed that the bully/victim dyads most frequently nominated by peers were characterized by asymmetries in social status, where bullies were increasingly more popular than their victims, and by asymmetries in aggression, where bullies were increasingly less aggressive than their victims. Bullies and victims were likely to select one another as among the children that they least like. Most effects with respect to aggression, popularity, and relationships were moderated by the gender composition of the bully/victim dyad. Implications for a developmental psychopathology perspective on peer bullying and victimization are highlighted.