Peer Groups
Agents of Socialization
Peer groups
• A social group whose members
have interests, social position, and
age in common
• By the time they enter school, kids
have discovered the peer group
• Will often change as individuals
change
• Adolescents spend a lot of time
with their peers
• Hierarchically unique relationship
• Members have equal status within
group
Changes with Peer Groups Over Time
• Increased time spent with peers
• Functioning with less adult
supervision
• Offers the opportunity to discuss
interests and topics not done with
adults
• Increasing contact with
members of opposite-sex
• Emergence of crowds
Peer Groups vs. Family Groups
• Peers may affect short-term interests,
but parents retain greater sway over
long-term goals
• Ex. Friends help change your taste in
music, but parents will influence your
decisions on college
• Peer groups are more easily
changeable than blood ties of family
• Family connections are much stronger
• Most childhood friendships dissolve after
High School. Strongest relationship will
remain but, most will fall off
• Families can be estranged from each
other due to conflict
The School
• Schooling enlarges children’s social worlds to
include people with backgrounds very different
from their own.
• Teach a wide range of knowledge & skills
• Are most children’s first experience with
bureaucracy
• Runs on impersonal rules
• A strict time schedule
• “Just a number”
• ex. Julia = #17
• These being the hallmarks of many organizations
that will employ them later in life.
Peer groups
• Any neighborhood or school is a
combination of many peer groups.
• People are influenced by peer groups
that they would like to join
• Process called anticipatory socialization
• Learning that helps a person achieve a
desired position
• Ex. Dressing the same as the school group
you would like to join
• Ex. Trying to fit in as part of a new job an
individual begins wearing similar suits and
hanging out at same bars/restaurants
Causes of Peer Groups
• Factor # 1: Educational system
• Age Grouping
• Isolating children from adult population
• Putting large numbers of children together
• Exposure to diversity
• Different ethnicities, different backgrounds
• Factor #2: Work/Family life
• Tougher child labor laws
• Children required to go to school
• Both parents working
• Longer hours means more free time for
children
• Factor #3: Population shifts
• 1 to 7 ratio of adolescents to adults
• More kids starting in 1950s
Cliques and Crowds
• Cliques are small groups defined by common activities/friendship and
form a regular social group
• Crowds are larger, more vaguely defined groups, based on reputation
• Jocks, brains, nerds, druggies, toughs, punks, populars, socies, and so on
• not necessarily friends and do not necessarily spend time together
Clique Composition
• Cliques typically are composed of people of:
• same age
• same race
• same socioeconomic background
• same sex – at least during early and middle
adolescence
• Shared interests and activities
• Orientation toward school
• Orientation toward the teen culture
• Involvement in antisocial activity
• Deviant peer groups
• Aggressive adolescents gravitate toward each other
Analyzing Family Roles with Peers
• Role of family in friendship choice
• Parents socialize certain traits
• Predispose teens toward certain
crowds
• Crowds reward them for the traits
that led them there in the first place
• Traits are strengthened
• Antisocial peers reinforce antisocial
traits
Understanding Crowds
• Larger, more vaguely defined
groups, based on reputation
• Jocks, brains, nerds, druggies
• May or may not spend time
together
• Peak in importance in middle
adolescence
• Vary according to involvement
in adult institutions vs. peer
activities
Understanding Popularity
• Popularity (Status): The degree to Sociometric systems classify children
which children are liked or disliked into five groups:
by their peers as a group. • Popular
• Measuring popularity: Sociometric • Rejected
techniques • Neglected
• Nomination technique: “Tell me the • Average
names of 3 kids in class that you • Controversial.
like…”
• Rating scale technique: The child is
asked to rate each child in the class
on a 5 point scale
• Paired comparison technique: The
child is presented with the names of
2 children at a time and asked which
they like more
Peer Conflicts
• Both boys and girls can be
aggressive and popular at the
same time
• Aggression coupled with poor
emotion regulation creates peer
problems
• Boys are more physically
aggressive than girls
• Girls also act aggressively toward
peers, but often engage in
relational aggression
• Ruin a reputation
• Disrupt a friendship
Victimization and Harassment
• Unpopular youngsters may lack the social skills and social
understanding necessary to be popular with peers
• Easy targets for bullying
• Creates a cycle of teasing, feeling less socially adept, leading to more bullying
• Blame themselves for their victimization
• Victimization can lead to lower earnings as an adult because of the
cyclical nature of bullying
Impacts of Rejection
• Rejected children (especially if they are aggressive) are more likely
than others to have lower grade-point averages and be viewed as
poor students.
• The tendency of rejected children to do more poorly in school worsens over
time.
• Rejected children are more likely than popular children to be
suspended, repeat a grade, or drop out of school.
• They are more likely to get in trouble with the law.
