Characterizing and Comparing the Friendships of Anxious‐Solitary and Unsociable Preadolescents

Abstract

Friendships matter for withdrawn youth because the consequences of peer isolation are severe. From a normative sample of 2,437 fifth-graders (1,245 females; M age = 10.25), a subset (n = 1364; 638 female) was classified into three groups (anxious-solitary, unsociable, comparison) and followed across a school year. Findings indicated that it was more common for unsociable than anxious-solitary children to have friends, be stably friended, and participate in multiple friendships. For withdrawn as well as non-withdrawn children, peer rejection predicted friendlessness, but this relation was strongest for anxious-solitary children. The friends of unsociable youth were more accepted by peers than those of anxious-solitary youth. The premise that friendship inhibits peer victimization was substantiated for withdrawn as well as non-withdrawn youth.

Social Surrogacy and Adjustment: Exploring the Correlates of Having a “Social Helper” for Shy and Non-Shy Young Adolescents

“…It is also possible that some young adolescents deliberately recruit peers with certain qualities to some social events over others. This may be especially true for non-shy youth who may be more skilled in their use of social surrogates and may have larger peer networks from which to elect their social surrogates (Ladd, Kochenderfer-Ladd, Eggum, Kochel, & McConnell, 2011). For example, some young adolescents may invite sociable peers to parties because they can effectively interact with others on their behalf and help them integrate into social groups, but may reserve their anxious or depressed friends for events such as a family gathering where demands for social interaction are minimized.…”

Associations Between Fifth Graders’ Gender Atypical Problem Behavior and Peer Relationships: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

“…Consistent with this perspective, evidence indicates that youth who manifest withdrawal and aggression are generally prone to fewer, lower quality friendships (Ladd et al 2011;Rose and Asher 1999; but see Cairns et al 1988;Rubin et al 2006); further, because children's preference for same-sex peer interactions develops early on and persists through grade school (Maccoby 1998;Martin and Fabes 2001), establishing and maintaining friendships might be particularly challenging for youth whose problem behavior is gender atypical. To illustrate, youth who manifest gender atypical behavior might not have play styles that are compatible with those of same-sex peers and, therefore, might have difficulty forming mutual samesex friendships.…”

“…Specifically, evidence indicates that social withdrawal is positively associated with peer victimization (e.g., Ladd et al 2011), peer rejection (e.g., Harrist et al 1997;Hart et al 2000), and peer exclusion (e.g., Gazelle and Ladd 2003) among youth in preschool through elementary school. In addition, results from several studies show that various forms of aggression (e.g., physical, verbal, indirect) are correlated with a range of peer difficulties (e.g., Ostrov 2010;Perry et al 1988).…”

“…On the one hand, mutual friendships appear to mitigate risk for victimization among socially anxious adolescents (Erath et al 2010) and anxious-solitary and unsociable subtypes of withdrawn 5th graders (Ladd et al 2011). On the other hand, Rubin et al (2006) reported that friended versus friendless shy/withdrawn 5th graders did not differ significantly on levels of victimization.…”

“…First, although prior researchers typically have investigated the role of friendship in mitigating the effects of peer victimization (e.g., Boulton et al 1999;Hodges et al 1997Kawabata et al 2010), our findings revealed that participation in at least one mutual classroom friendship was associated with decreased risk for multiple social maladies, including peer victimization and peer rejection for withdrawn boys and peer victimization and peer exclusion for aggressive girls. Second, the bulk of previous research concerning the protective function of friendship involves nonwithdrawn and nonaggressive youth, and the relatively limited research on withdrawn samples (Erath et al 2010;Ladd et al 2011;Rubin et al 2006) is somewhat mixed. We obtained evidence that sheds light on the function of friendship for youth with minimal problem behavior, withdrawn girls and aggressive boys (i.e., youth high on gender typical problem behavior) as well as withdrawn boys and aggressive girls (i.e., youth high on gender atypical problem behavior) within the context of a single study.…”