The purpose of this study was to examine the social cognitions of peer-identified socially withdrawn children. Participants included 457 children from grades four, five and six (54% females, 46% males). Children completed a selection of self-and peerreport measures including: (1) peer-rated behavioral nominations; (2) hostile intent biases and social responses to ambiguous situations; (3) social goals and selfefficacy; and (4) a newly developed measure of causal attributions. An extreme groups procedure was used to identify three groups of children: (1) socially withdrawn (n = 50); (2) aggressive (n = 53); and (3) a comparison group (n = 206). As compared with their peers, withdrawn children displayed a pattern of self-defeating attributions for social situations, reported lower efficacy for assertive goals, and indicated a preference for non-assertive, withdrawn strategies to deal with hypothetical conflict situations. Findings are discussed with respect to implications for interventions, and directions for further research are presented.

This study examined children's reasons for choosing peers for the withdrawal items on the Revised Class Play (RCP). Eighty-eight elementary-school children nominated peers they felt were best described by each RCP item. Reasons for their nominations were classified into 2 categories: passive withdrawal from and active isolation by the peer group. For 3 of the items ("Someone who would rather play alone than with others," "Someone who is very shy," and "Someone whose feelings get hurt easily"), the children's reasons were predominantly based on passive withdrawal, whereas for 3 others ("Someone who is often left out," "Someone who has trouble making friends," and "A person who cant get others to listen"), they were predominantly based on active isolation. Reasons for the remaining item ("Someone who is usually sad") were split equally between both alternatives.

This study was an investigation of the nature of victimization within the context of dyadic peer friendships. In particular, relational and physical victimization were examined to determine whether level of victimization by a friend varied as a function of sex or having a reciprocated friendship. Qualities of the friendship and satisfaction with the friendship were explored as predictors of both forms of victimization. The sample consisted of 384 children in Grades 4 to 6 ( M = 10.5 years of age). Girls in relationally victimizing friendships described these relationships as high in both positive and negative friendship qualities, whereas both boys and girls in physically and physically plus relationally victimizing friendships described their relationships as more negative across all friendship quality variables. All children in victimizing relationships reported less satisfaction than those in nonvictimizing relationships. Using regression analyses, we were able to predict almost half of the variance in relational victimization and almost a third of the variance in physical victimization from friendship quality ratings. Some implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.

No abstract