The relations of majority-minority group status and having an other-religion friend to Indonesian youths' socioemotional functioning.

In this study, the authors examined the relations of Indonesian adolescents' socioemotional functioning to their majority-minority status and the presence of cross-religion friendships and whether sex moderated these relations. At Time 1, 1,254 7th graders and their peers in Bandung, Indonesia, reported on their friendships, prosocial behavior, and peer likability; months later, a selected sample of 250 youths and their teachers and parents rated the youths' social functioning and (mal)adjustment. When controlling for socioeconomic status and initial sociometric status, girls were generally higher in measures of adjustment, whereas majority children were lower in externalizing problems and, for boys, loneliness. For minority children's social competence and prosocial behavior at school, there was evidence of a buffering effect of having a cross-religion friend.

The longitudinal relations of regulation and emotionality to quality of Indonesian children's socioemotional functioning.

Data regarding individual differences in children's regulation, emotionality, quality of socioemotional functioning, and shyness were obtained from teachers and peers for 112 Indonesian 6th graders. Similar data (plus parents' reports) also were collected when these children were in 3rd grade. For boys, regulation and low negative emotionality generally predicted positive socioemotional functioning (e.g., social skills, adjustment, prosocial tendencies and peer liking, sympathy) within and across time and across reporters, even at the follow-up when initial levels of regulation or negative emotionality were controlled. For girls, relations were obtained primarily for concurrent teacher reports, probably because girls tended to be fairly well regulated and socially competent and variability in their scores was relatively low. Shyness for both sexes tended to be associated with concurrent measures of low regulation, high negative emotionality, and low quality of social competence.

United States and Indonesian children's and adolescents' reports of relational aggression by disliked peers.

Descriptions of disliked peers provided by U.S. (N = 104) and Indonesian (N = 120) 11- and 14-year-old children were coded for references to physical, verbaL and three types of relational aggression (i.e., relationship manipulation, social ostracism, and malicious rumors). Physical aggression was mentioned more frequently by boys, adolescents, and Indonesians, whereas no significant differences emerged for verbal aggression. Girls in both countries described peers as engaging in the three types of relational aggression more frequently than did boys. Findings that relational aggression was spontaneously mentioned suggests that this is a salient feature of children's lives and its emergence is not attributable to the use of questionnaires and imposed category systems. The widespread existence of this gender difference is suggested by its prominence in two cultures that differ in individualism and collectivism, gender roles, and attitudes toward aggression.