Emotion understanding, pictorial representations of friendship and reciprocity in school-aged children

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between emotional understanding, friendship representation and reciprocity in school-aged children. Two hundred and fifty-one Caucasian 6-year-old children (111 males and 140 females) took part in the study. The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and the Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships (PAIR) were used. Children having a reciprocal friendship and children having a unilateral friendship with a child named as their "best friend" were compared on the emotional understanding task and on their pictorial representations of friendship. Multilevel analyses indicated that friendship status effects were not influenced by classroom-level differences. Results showed that children with reciprocal friendships drew themselves as more similar to and more cohesive with their best friends, and they showed better understanding of emotions, than children having a unilateral friendship. Finally, the implications of these findings for theoretical and empirical research development on friendship are discussed.

Friendship and Romantic Relationships During Early and Middle Childhood

“…Rather, we used drawings only for their explicit communicative potential, adopting PAIR (Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships), an empirically based instrument devised by Bombi, Pinto, and Cannoni (2007) and subsequently used by many scholars (e.g., Laghi et al, 2013;Laghi et al, 2014;Lecce, Pagnin, & Pinto, 2009;Misailidi, Bonoti, & Savva, 2012;Rabaglietti, Vacirca, Zucchetti, & Ciarano, 2012;Sándor, Fülöp, & Sebestyén, 2012). PAIR requires each participant to draw one or more pictures of two persons, to illustrate the relationship between them.…”

Mediacion entre iguales, competencia social y percepcion interpersonal de los ninos con TEA en el entorno escolar

“…As Laghi et al (2014) pointed out unilateral friendships are a relatively unexplored phenomenon, although some differences between reciprocal and unilateral friendships have been identified. Children with reciprocal friendships show greater positive involvement in the relationship, greater stability, and more empathy than children with non-reciprocal friendships.…”

“…Si bien la reciprocidad ha sido considerada una propiedad esencial de la amistad , no es posible aplicar este ideal de amistad a todas las relaciones que son denominadas así, puesto que en numerosas ocasiones el desequilibrio en la reciprocidad puede caracterizar los intercambios entre los miembros de las diadas de amigos (Berndt y McCandless, 2009;Carley y Krackhardt, 1996;Laghi et al, 2014;Li, Fok, y Fung, 2011).…”

“…Este tipo de amistades unilaterales ha sido considerado más bien una expresión de un deseo de amistad que una relación consolidada, por lo que con frecuencia han quedado excluidas de los análisis posteriores reduciendo el tamaño y la representatividad de la muestra y por ende la potencia estadística para comprobar hipótesis, puesto que además es poco probable que estos niños sean excluidos aleatoriamente (Berndt y McCandless, 2009;Laghi et al, 2014).…”

“…Como señalan Carley y Krackhardt (1996) Las amistades, como fuente de intimidad y apoyo, parecen ser especialmente relevantes para el desarrollo, comprensión y ajuste socioemocional (Dunn, 2004;Laghi et al, 2014). Del mismo modo las relaciones afectivas cercanas son los cimientos de las habilidades interpersonales y la competencia emocional (Hughes y Dunn, 1998).…”