Friendships in middle childhood: Links to peer and school identification,and general self-worth

Children's friendships are important for well-being and school adjustment, but few studies have examined multiple indices of friendships together in middle childhood. The current study surveyed 7- to 11-year-olds (n = 314) about their friendships, best friendships, friendship quality and indices of self-worth, identification with peers, and identification with school. Peer relationships were positively related to self-worth, but not identification with peers or school. Best friendship quality moderated the relationship between number of reciprocated friendship nominations and self-worth. Children with a reciprocated best friend had higher friendship quality and peer identification than others. Where best friendship was reciprocated, the relationship with identification with peers was mediated via positive friendship quality. The results suggest that friendship reciprocity is particularly relevant for children's self-worth and identification with peers. The findings are discussed in relation to the importance of fostering the development of reciprocated friendships.

Statement of contribution

What is already known on this subject?

• Friendships are related to well-being, school relations, and how young people feel about their peers at school.
• Friendship quality may be important in moderating the relationship between peer relations and adjustment.

What does this study add?

• Various aspects of friendships are studied simultaneously with younger children than much previous research.
• Reciprocated best friendships were better quality than partial or non-reciprocated best friendships.
• Friendship reciprocity was most relevant for children's self-worth and peer identification.

     

Psychological Consequences of Rape and Variables Influencing Recovery

No abstract available for this article.     

Jesus and Dogs: Or How to Command a Friend?

Religious ethics, like its sibling, religious studies, emerged out of the divinity schools and theological seminaries in the mid-20th century. Many years have now passed since these academic disciplines have secured independent standing in universities and colleges, independent from their theological beginnings. The time seems right, then, to ask what theological inquiry might gain from religious ethics and what religious ethics might look like when done in a theological mode. Reflection on the manumission scene in the 15th chapter of John's gospel, on the exegetical puzzles it poses, offers one possible example of these gains and this mode.     

Friendlessness and theory of mind: A prospective longitudinal study

Chronic friendlessness in childhood predicts adverse mental health outcomes throughout life, yet its earliest roots are poorly understood. In theory, developing a theory of mind (ToM) should help children gain mutual friends and one preschool study (Peterson & Siegal, 2002. Br J Dev Psychol, 20, 205) suggested a cross‐sectional connection. We therefore used a 2‐year prospective longitudinal design to explore ToM as a predictor of mutual friendship in 114 children from age 5 to 7 years after controlling potential confounds including language ability and group popularity. Confirming friendship's distinctiveness from group sociometric status, numerous group‐rejected children (53%) had a mutual friend whereas 23% of those highest in group status did not. Five‐year‐olds with a mutual friend significantly outperformed their friendless peers on a comprehensive ToM battery (basic and advanced false belief). Longitudinally, chronically friendless 7‐year‐olds (no friends at either testing time) stood out for their exceptionally poor Time 1 ToM understanding even after controlling for group popularity, age, and language skill. Extending previous evidence of ToM's predictive links with later social and cognitive outcomes, these results for mutual friendship suggest possible interventions to help reduce the lifelong mental health costs of chronic friendlessness.     

PALEY'S iPOD: THE COGNITIVE BASIS OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT WITHIN NATURAL THEOLOGY

The argument from design stands as one of the most intuitively compelling arguments for the existence of a divine Creator. Yet, for many scientists and philosophers, Hume's critique and Darwin's theory of natural selection have definitely undermined the idea that we can draw any analogy from design in artifacts to design in nature. Here, we examine empirical studies from developmental and experimental psychology to investigate the cognitive basis of the design argument. From this it becomes clear that humans spontaneously discern purpose in nature. When constructed theologically and philosophically correctly, the design argument is not presented as conclusive evidence for God's existence but rather as an abductive, probabilistic argument. We examine the cognitive basis of probabilistic judgments in relationship to natural theology. Placing emphasis on how people assess improbable events, we clarify the intuitive appeal of Paley's watch analogy. We conclude that the reason why some scientists find the design argument compelling and others do not lies not in any intrinsic differences in assessing design in nature but rather in the prior probability they place on complexity being produced by chance events or by a Creator. This difference provides atheists and theists with a rational basis for disagreement.     

青少年身体不满意与自杀意念的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

为考察青少年对身体的满意度和自杀意念的关系，探讨自尊是否在青少年身体不满意和自杀意念的关系中起中介作用，以及这个过程是否受到友谊质量的调节作用。采用身体不满意量表、自杀意念量表、自尊量表和友谊质量量表对来自湖北、安徽、河南、吉林四省六所高中的802名高一学生进行调查，结果显示：（1）身体不满意对自杀意念具有显著的正向预测作用；（2）自尊在身体不满意和自杀意念的关系中起部分中介作用；（3）友谊质量在身体不满意通过自尊影响自杀意念的中介模型后半段起调节作用，即在友谊质量较低的青少年中，自尊对自杀意念的影响更大。因此，青少年身体不满意和自杀意念之间存在有调节的中介效应。     

Centrality in children's best friend networks: The role of social behaviour

Centrality is an indicator of an individual's relative importance within a social group. Predictors of centrality in best friendship networks were examined in 146 children (70 boys and 76 girls, M_age = 9.95). Children completed measures of social confidence, social desirability, friendship quality, school liking, and loneliness and nominated their best friends from within their class at two time points, 3 months apart. Multigroup path analysis revealed gender differences in the antecedents of centrality. Social confidence, social desirability, and friendship quality predicted changes in the indicators of centrality in best friend networks over time. Boys' social behaviour positively predicted changes in centrality, whereas girls' social behaviour negatively predicted changes in centrality. Together, these findings suggest that some aspects of social behaviour are influential for centrality in best friend groups.     

Healthy Conflict in an Era of Intractability

The essay responds to four critical essays by Rosemary Kellison, Ebrahim Moosa, Joseph Winters, and Martin Kavka on the author’s recent book, Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society: From Enemy to Adversary (2018). Parts 1 and 2 work in tandem to further develop my accounts of strategic empathy and agonistic political friendship. I defend these accounts against criticisms that my argument for moral imagination obligates oppressed people to empathize with their oppressors. I argue, further, that healthy conflict can be motivated by a kind of “secular” love. This enables my position to immanently critique and mediate the claims that one must either love (agapically) one’s opponent in order to engage them in “healthy conflict,” on one hand, or that one must vanquish, exclude, or “cancel” one’s opponent, on the other. In Part 3, I demonstrate how my account mediates the challenge of an alleged standing opposition between moral imagination and socio-theoretical critique. I defend a methodologically pragmatist account of immanent prophetic criticism, resistance, and conflict transformation. Finally, I respond to one critic’s vindication of a strong enemy/adversary opposition that takes up the case of white supremacist violence in the U.S. I argue that the time horizon for healthy conflict must be simultaneously immediate and also long-term, provided that such engagements remain socio-critically self-reflexive and seek to cultivate transformational responses.