Attachment Style

Attachment Style, Centrality of Groups Membership.

Reported Emotional Intelligence

And Friendships in Children and Adolescents

A Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty

Of

The Gordon F. Demer

Institute o f Advanced Psychological Studies

Adelphi University

In Partial Fulfillment

O f the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor o f Philosophy

By

Keri Cassesa Ryan

May 10, 2006

R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.

UMI Number: 3212765

INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy

submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and

photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper

alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript

and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized

copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

®

UMIUMI Microform 3212765

Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.

All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road

P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346


COMMITTEE PAGE

Committee Chairman

Rebecca Curtis, Ph.D

Committee Member:

Rosemary Flanagan. Ph.D

Laura DeRose, Ph.D

Dr. Martha Dore


Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Allison Newman, Jodi Streich, and Janet Pinsker for their assistance with data collection. I am also greatly appreciative to Pat Ross, PhD for all of

his help with the statistical analyses.


iii

Table of Contents

Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 1Friendship Groups......................................................................................................... 1Friendship Quality......................................................................................................... 5

Victimized Children and Social Relationships.................................................. 7Aggressive Children and Social Relationships.................................................. 9

Attachment............................................................................................................................ 11Family Relationships of Victimized Children.......................................................... 15Family Relationships of Aggressive Children.......................................................... 16

Social Problem Solving...................................................................................................... 18Social Problem Solving: Victimized and Aggressive Children............................. 21

Emotional Intelligence........................................................................................................ 22Coping Skills........................................................................................................................ 25Affect Regulation................................................................................................................ 29Purpo se of Study.................................................................................................................. 32Hypotheses............................................................................................................................ 35

Individual Attachment Style....................................................................................... 35Friendship Groups......................................................................................................... 38Impact of Central or Peripheral Group Status........................................................... 43Bullies and Victims of Peer Abuse............................................................................. 44Loners.............................................................................................................................. 45General Hypothesis....................................................................................................... 46

Method.................................................................................................................................. 47Participants..................................................................................................................... 47Procedure....................................................................................................................... 47Measures........................................................................................................................ 48

Results................................................................................................................................... 56Individual Attachment Results.................................................................................... 56Friendship Group Results............................................................................................. 59Impact of Central or Peripheral Group Status........................................................... 64Bullies and Victims of Peer Abuse............................................................................. 67Loners............................................................................................................................. 77Sex Differences and the Impact of Ethnicity............................................................ 77Grade Differences......................................................................................................... 80

Discussion............................................................................................................................. 81Individual Attachment Results.................................................................................... 81Friendship Group Results............................................................................................. 84Impact of Central or Peripheral Group Status........................................................... 90Bullies and Victims of Peer Abuse............................................................................ 94Loners.............................................................................................................................. 102Limitations of Current Study...................................................................................... 103Directions for Future Research................................................................................... 105Conclusions.................................................................................................................... 109

References............................................................................................................................. 114Appendixes............................................................................................................................ 123


IV

Tables and Figures

Tables

Table 1: Attachment Style.................................................................................................. 56Table 2: Means for Friendship Quality Subscales Based

on Friendship Group Membership...................................................................... 60Table 3: Mean Results for Insecure Central Members

and Insecure Peripheral Members...................................................................... 68Table 4: Number of Students Classified as Bully or

Victim Based on Attachment Style.................................................................... 69Table 5: Mean Results for Victimized Central Members

and Victimized Peripheral Members.................................................................. 75Table 6: Mean Results for Bully/Victim Status x

Central/Peripheral Status..................................................................................... 76Table 7: Ethnicty/Race x Sex Friendship Groups........................................................... 79

Figures

Figure 1: Number of Secure and Insecure StudentsClassified as Central or Peripheral Group Members..................................... 65

Figure 2: Number Bullies and Victims Classified as Centralor Peripheral Group Members........................................................................... 72


Abstract

This study provided evidence linking attachment style, friendship group membership, and group status to friendship quality and reported emotional intelligence. Students in the fifth through eighth grades who participated in this study (N=195) completed the following measures: The BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version, the Adolescent Relationship Scale, a Reactions to Teasing Measure, the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist, and an affect regulation scale.

Results indicate that perceived friendship quality of children/adolescents who are friends with only securely attached children/adolescents was higher than the quality of friendships of those who are friends with only the insecurely attached. Since securely attached children/adolescents were predicted to be better adjusted, it was also believed that those who were members of friendship groups that contained both the securely and insecurely attached would have higher quality friendships than those in groups that contained only the insecurely attached. This hypothesis was confirmed and suggests that being members of higher functioning groups (groups with secures) might allow children/adolescents to have better quality friendships.

Another aspect o f friendship group formation studied was central and peripheral group membership. When insecurely attached children/adolescents are classified as central members o f groups they score higher in companionship and "help and guidance" than the insecurely attached who are classified as peripheral members o f groups. These insecurely attached central members have higher overall emotional intelligence, indicating that even though insecure children/adolescents may have a more difficult time navigating interpersonal relationships, those who are central members of groups are more adept at communicating their needs and having satisfying relationships than those who are classified as peripheral members.

The friendship formation of victims of peer abuse was also investigated. Victims are more likely to be insecurely attached, making it difficult for them to form friendships. Victims who were classified as central members o f groups had better emotional intelligence scores than victims who were classified as peripheral members o f groups. Although the causal direction cannot be determined, it may be that being a central member of a friendship group may allow children/adolescents who are historically less likely to have fulfilling friendships to function better in social contexts.


Introduction

Friendship Groups

The friendship groups and dyadic friendships that children form in elementary school play

an important role in childhood development. Friendship groups, or cliques, of children and

adolescents are “cohesive groups of youth who spend time together’ (Bagwell, Coie, Terry, &

Lochman 2000). Dyadic friendships, however, are the bonds formed between two children.

Children rely on friendship groups to act as references for their behavior and they influence their

conduct and attitudes (Bagwell et al., 2000). It has been suggested that friendship groups function

as conveyers of cultural knowledge (Harris, 1995), and as children become involved in a group

and begin to identify with their membership in that group, the beliefs held by certain members of

the group become the beliefs of everyone.

Membership in friendship groups is not a random collection of children, but a grouping of

particular peers. The similarity-attraction hypothesis, which states that those who are similar to

one another in attitudes and attributes are attracted to each other and become friends, has been

widely researched and validated (Byrne & Nelson, 1965; Kupersmidt, DeRosier, & Patterson,

1995). It has been found that preadolescent and young children who form friendships with one

another are similar in the following ways: sex, race, sociometric status, academic achievement,

behaviors, and socioeconomic status. Psychological characteristics, however, do not emerge as

important influences oh friendship group formation until preadolescence (Cairns, Leung,

Buchanan, & Cairns, 1995; Kupersmidt et al., 1995). As children mature, similarity in one’s

social self-concept becomes a key factor in forming friendships (Clark & Drewry, 1985).

Similarity in social self-concept is important as children get older because school is the

environment in which they validate their self-concept. Children desire positive feedback for their


2behaviors and attitudes, and therefore tend to surround themselves with peers who hold similar

beliefs. However, it is also important for children to associate with those whose beliefs and

attitudes complement their own (Clark & Drewry, 1985). Therefore, while similarity is

important, friendship groups are also formed between children whose attitudes are different but

blend together nicely. The presence o f friendships in elementary school also enhances children’s

self-esteem and offers ego support, as friends support one another’s ideas and provide a secure

environment for children to express their wants, needs, beliefs, and fears (Shulman, Elicker, &

Sroufe, 1994). While many of these studies focused on dyadic friendships, studies have shown

that clique formation follows similar patterns (Bagwell et al., 2000).

Sullivan (1953) proposed the presence of developmental epochs where humans feel an

emergent need and engage in the behaviors necessary to satisfy that need. Sullivan believed that

at each epoch the presence of particular interpersonal relationships is necessary to fulfill the needs

and assist in the development o f certain interpersonal competencies. Sullivan’s epochs follow a

hierarchical pattern such that hindered development at one stage causes the development of

competencies during later epochs to be compromised. Two of Sullivan’s epochs are particularly

important in the formation of friendship groups. The first epoch is the juvenile era (ages 6

through 9) where the emerging need is acceptance. The entire peer group (such as a classroom)

fulfills this need, and the competencies learned are cooperation, compromise, and competition.

However, if children are rejected by their peer group, then developmental arrest at that epoch

occurs, damaging their ability to adequately interact with their peers using the skills they should

have learned. In the preadolescent epoch (ages 9 through 12), the emerging need of intimacy

should be fulfilled by same-sex friends. The competencies that are developed at this stage are

perspective taking, empathy, and altruism. At this epoch isolation and loneliness result in


developmental arrest, disabling children from developing the skills they need to form lasting

friendships (Sullivan, 1953). Social and emotional skills are important factors in friendship

maintenance, especially for the resolution of conflict (Shulman et al., 1994). Hence, if children

suffer from ostracism and loneliness, they will be unable to develop these crucial skills, hindering

their ability to form friendships. Another theory of friendship development similar to Sullivan’s

that is important to the study of friendship groups proposes that there are various social goals and

processes that are developed during early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence

(Phillipsen, 1999). At the middle childhood stage (ages 8 through 12) the prominent social goal is

to be accepted by same-sex peer groups. The processes involved in these peer groups tend to

assist children in avoiding rejection by the peer group and consists of negative-evaluation gossip

and social support. During the adolescent stage (ages 13 through 18) the prominent social goal is

self-exploration. The processes that characterize these groups include self-disclosure, positive

and negative- evaluation gossip, problem solving, and an exploration of similarities and

differences (Phillipsen, 1999).

Popularity, which is complementary to Sullivan’s concept of acceptance, is also important

to discuss in relation to friendship groups. Popularity is a group-oriented construct that represents

how an entire group (such as a classroom) feels about particular students (Ray, Cohen, Secrist, &

Duncan, 1997). Whether students are popular or rejected by their classmates is an important

aspect o f friendship group formation. For instance, Ray et al. (1997) found that rejected children

report fewer mutual friendships than average or popular children, and that rejected children have

less contact with the positive peer interactions that help them develop necessary social skills.

Even though rejected students may form friendships and be members o f cliques, they will mainly

involve low status children whose interactions do not foster adequate social skills (Bagwell et al.,


42000). Similarly, Ladd (1983) found that low status youth play with younger peers and peers of

low status, all of whom are less socially competent than average peers. Cairns et al. (1995)

discussed an important factor related to popularity and friendship group formation. They found

that while the actual children who are members o f particular groups may differ, the status o f those

members is stable over time. Therefore, regardless of who is in the group, those permitted into

the group will be of the same social status, and those who leave the group will retain their social

status despite the move. This finding emphasizes the long range effect of social status because

even if rejected children or popular children leave a group, they still retain their status.

Although some studies have found that sociometric status is an important feature in

friendship formation, there are others who have not found this correlation (Kupersmidt et al.,

1995; Ray, 1997). In fact, prior research indicates that most low status children tend to associate

with average or higher status children (Feltham, 1985). However, while this has been found in

dyadic friendships, the importance of sociometric status in the formation of friendship groups has

not been as extensively studied. For instance, although it has been observed by some that low

status children do not play together (Ray et al., 1997), there is evidence of group formation among

both aggressive children and victimized children, all of whom are usually low status (Cairns,

Cairns, Neckerman, & Gest, 1988; Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). Additionally, Bagwell et al. (2000)

found that rejected youth were usually members o f cliques formed by other low status peers. This

is important because studies have shown that having a best friend who offers protection and

comfort reduces the amount of victimization and rejection by peers (Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, &

Bukowski 1999).

In their investigations of peer group formation Cairns et al. (1988) and Bagwell et al.

(2000) argued that everyone involved in a peer group is not always viewed equally by all


5members. They believe that some children are “central” members and some are “peripheral”

members. This is an interesting notion in that it challenges the assumption that participation in

peer groups alone or the perceived presence o f friends will buffer low status children from the

rejection they are confronted with. Whether children are central or peripheral members of groups

is an important aspect of peer group formation. Bagwell et al. (2000) believe that children who

are disliked by peers can still belong to peer groups but are more likely to be peripheral members

of those groups. In their study they found that aggressive and nonaggressive children were

equally likely to be central members of groups while rejected children were less likely to be

central members than nonrejected children (Bagwell, 2000). Children in these studies were

classified based on their sociometic status (popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and

average) and not attachment style which is the main interest of this study. It has been shown that

attachment style often plays a role in the popularity of children (Kerns, Klepac, & Cole, 1996)

and others have found that centrality is related to the presence of aggressive and prosocial

behaviors in children (Barry & Wentzel, 2006). Therefore, the relationship between attachment

style and whether children or adolescents are central or peripheral members of groups is

something that will be investigated in this study.

Friendship Quality

Friendship quality is an important element of friendship groups. Research on dyadic

friendships shows that while children may not be popular or accepted by the larger peer group, the

presences of a close friendship with another student may lessen the negative impact of peer

rejection (Parker & Asher, 1993). Friendship quality is believed to impact children’s feelings of

loneliness and social dissatisfaction and those children without best friends were lonelier than

those with a best friend, regardless o f whether they were accepted or rejected by peers (Parker &


6Asher, 1993). However, it is important to note that accepted children were more likely to have a

best friend than were rejected children. Parker and Asher’s (1993) “Friendship Quality

Questionnaire” evaluates children’s best friendships on six different categories: validation and

caring, conflict and betrayal, companionship and recreation, help and guidance, intimate

disclosure, and conflict resolution. Comparisons o f low-accepted, average-accepted, and high-

accepted children’s friendships indicate that low-accepted children’s friendships were more

problematic in all areas but companionship and recreation (Parker & Asher, 1993). This is an

interesting finding and explains the ability of rejected children, including those who are

aggressive or victimized, to form friendships that serve the purpose of companionship but not

necessarily the purposes of support and intimacy.

Attachment style is also an important topic relating to friendship quality. Kerns et al.

(1996) found that the friends of secure-secure dyads were more responsive than and not as critical

as those of secure-insecure dyads. However, while it was found that those in secure-secure dyads

felt that their friendships were higher in companionship levels than secure-insecure dyads, there

were no differences on levels o f affection and intimacy. While attachment style does seem to be

related to children’s ability to form relationships and develop meaningful relationships with them,

the ability of insecurely attached children to form friendships indicates the presence of other

mediating factors that impact friendship group formation. The review of friendship quality

indicates that while studies have looked at dyadic friendships and the overall popularity of

students, friendship quality in friendship groups has not been extensively studied.

An important consideration in the study of peer group formation is the impact of gender

and ethnicity. In agreement with past research, a study on the structure o f peer networks revealed

that girls were more likely to be integral parts of social networks, have identified best friends, and


7be members of same-sex cliques than were boys (Urberg, Dggirmencigglu, Tolson, & Halliday-

Scher, 1995). Parker and Asher (1993) found that girls rated their friendships to be higher in

validation and caring, help and guidance, conflict resolution, and intimate disclosure than boys.

Since most friendships tend to be same sex dyads the possible differences in opposite sex

friendships have not been as extensively studied. While it is not as important an element in

dyadic friendships, opposite sex relationships take on more importance when friendship groups

are studied where mixed sex groupings are more likely to occur. It was also found that cultural

beliefs about the importance of friendship groups impacted the extent to which African-

Americans were members of defined groups. Urberg and colleagues (1995), for instance, found

that African-Americans were not as likely to be members of school friendship groups as were

Caucasian students, possibly suggesting a higher involvement in neighborhood friendship groups

as opposed to school groups.

Victimized Children and Social Relationships

There are a variety o f characteristics that may indicate whether or not a child is singled out

to be a victim. The most common attributes held by victims are as follows: social isolation, non

assertiveness, fear of aggression, weak, submissive, anxious, withdrawn, insecure, cautious,

immature, poor problem solvers, lonely, low self esteem, low confidence, and poor

communication skills (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Dunn, 2004; Pierce & Cohen, 1995). According

to research conducted by Boulton and Smith (1994), victims rate themselves as less athletically

competent than others do and as having lower opinions of their self worth. Studies have also

shown that victims rarely initiate prosocial behaviors, are passive, display an inflexible playing

style, initiate few social conversations, have low leadership ratings, and were frequently described

as being sad (Bernstein & Watson, 1997; Pierce & Cohen, 1995).


There are certain characteristics such as anxiety and depression that some researchers

believe could have come after the onset of victimization and may not have influenced their target

status, while others believe they were present beforehand (Bernstein & Watson, 1997; Dunn,

2004; Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). Researchers have identified other outcomes commonly

associated with victimization that can either cause the victimization or be a result of it. For

example, it has been observed that many victimized children have lower grades than aggressive

children and average peers and are often in special education classes (Bernstein & Watson, 1997;

Hoover & Hazier, 1991). Children who are repeatedly victimized may be anxious in school,

hindering their academic success, and their lack o f understanding of class material may make

them easy targets for ridicule. One other possible outcome of victimization can be seen as a cause

or a result of bullying. Many victims report feeling unhappy during playtime compared to

average peers, and while this may be a direct effect of being ridiculed during the school day, it is

also possible that the victims’ lack of social skills and interactions result in a lack of stimulation

and enjoyment during playtime. However, regardless o f which view is taken, victims are

consistently seen as targets for specific reasons and the victimization may only exaggerate these

characteristics (such as heightened anxiety and depression).

Some research indicates that victims do not have many friends and are usually rated as

less popular than both aggressive children and average peers (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Hoover &

Hazier, 1991). As a result of their constant rejection and lack of social support, many victims

may not develop normative views of proper social interactions (Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). With

no friends to help them, the result is likely to be distress and more rejection. As reported by

Batsche and Knoff (1994), “one in five students reported having either no, one, or two friends at


school, indicating that many victims have few peer-level resources for either problem solving or

support” (169).

It has been found that if victimized children have friends, they are most likely victimized

as well. According to Pierce and Cohen (1995) “friends of rejected children were viewed higher

in victimization than were the friends o f children in any other sociometric category” (305). This

illustrates that even if victims have some type o f support, they are most likely associating with

other victims, which may increase their victimization since they have no peers to stick up for

them. Since peer victimization impairs children’s feelings o f trust and security, it may cause

some children to avoid school, causing numerous social and academic deficiencies (Ladd,

Kochenderker, & Coleman 1997; Orpinas & Horne, 2006). Luckily, research has shown that

victims are less likely to feel total rejection if they have a “best friend” (Hodges et al., 1999)

because a close friendship may create enough emotional support to decrease the likelihood of

these problems.

Aggressive Children and Social Relationships

There are two types o f aggression, overt and relational. Overt aggression is the physical

abuse that occurs and relational aggression is name calling, social isolation, and shunning of the

victim (Pellegrini, 1998). One assumption about aggressive children is that they have poor peer

relationships and are usually loners. Bierman, Smoot, and Aumiller (1993) studied aggression in

boys from four categories: Aggressive-Rejected, Aggressive-Nonrejected, Nonrejected, and a

Comparison group. They then conducted peer ratings, teacher ratings, peer interviews, and

observations to see who was most aggressive. Overall, Aggressive-Rejected boys were perceived

to be more aggressive, disruptive and less prosocial than any other group. However, in contrast to

this study, Cairns et al. (1988) found that aggressive children and adolescents tend to form


10“coercive clusters” where aggressive boys form bonds and friendships with other aggressors.

These clusters can result in many negative effects: they provide opportunities for aggressive boys

to be aggressive with one another; they enable aggression to become heightened because boys

become aggressive towards others and themselves; and the groups encourage aggressive behavior.

Through a variety of peer questionnaires, Cairns et al. (1988) attempted to establish who was

most aggressive, popular, and intelligent and who were “best friends.” It was established that

aggressive children were less popular than a group o f non-aggressive children, but that aggressive

children rated themselves to be as popular as non-aggressors. In addition, results indicated that

aggressive children have as many “best friend” nominations as non-aggressors. Mouttapa,

Valente, Gallagher, Rohrbach, and Unger (2004) found that aggressive children were often central

members of their peer groups while victims were not.

Together, these studies show that aggressive boys do not always get rejected by everyone.

In fact, it has been suggested that children who engage in “gender-normative aggression”

(relational for girls, overt for boys) are better accepted than those who engage in “gender-

nonnormative aggression” (overt for girls, relational for boys) (Phillipsen, Deptula, & Cohen

1999). Despite the evidence that aggressive children have social groups, other studies have

shown that the friendships formed in coercive clusters are not as potent as those in other social

groups because there is less interpersonal trust and they are less able to resolve their conflicts

(Coie, Dodge, Terry, &Wright, 1991). Friendships between girls who are rated high on relational

aggression are reported to be more intimate than nonaggressive girls (Grotpeter & Crick, 1996).

However, it was also found that relationally aggressive girls had more conflict, betrayal,

exclusivity, jealousy, and relational aggression in their friendships than did nonaggressive girls.

It was suggested that their high levels of intimacy are a result of more self-disclosure present in


the relationship as a way to gain control over one another (Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). Although

aggressive and nonaggressive girls differ on these qualities, they do not differ on friendship

qualities such as validation, caring, entertainment, or companionship. Friendships of physically

aggressive peers, however, report low levels o f intimacy and high levels of companionship

(Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). Physically aggressive children prefer to have a friend with whom to

play more than one with whom to form a bond. In fact, these children often desire friends that

will engage in aggressive behaviors with them towards those with whom they are not friends.

Boulton and Smith (1994) found that aggressive children’s self-assessed self-esteem was

comparable to average peers. This issue is similarly addressed in a study conducted by

Kumpulainen, Rasanen, Henttonen, Almqvist, Kresanov, Linna, et al. (1998) of seven to nine year

olds from rural and urban area school districts. The participants took the Children’s Depression

Inventory and aggressive children rated significantly higher on self-confidence and leadership

than did victims. Hoover and Hazier (1991) suggest that aggressive children are much less likely

to be “leadership material” than they see themselves. In fact, they are unwilling to accept others’

ideas, follow others, negotiate the rules o f games, or politely ask for game changes.

Attachment

Parent-child attachment history also has an impact on children’s abilities to form close

friendships with their peers. The presence of a secure parent-child attachment means that the

children are confident that their caregivers will be responsive and available to them (Kerns et al.,

1996). Attachment figures are considered a safe base from which children can explore the world

around them and as someone to trust in times of fear. As children get older, physical proximity is

no longer necessary, but children must feel that the caregiver is physically accessible, open to

communication, and responsive when they are in need (Kerns et al., 1996). Securely attached


children regularly explore their environment and interact with peers, developing the social skills

necessary to maintain friendships. Consequently, securely attached children have more

cooperative and responsive interaction styles with their parents which generalize to their

interactions with peers, something which may not occur with insecurely attached children (Kerns

et al., 1996; Lieberman, Doyle, & Markiewicz, 1999). In contrast, insecurely attached children

view caregivers as unavailable, unhelpful, or harmful to them. Hence, the insecurely attached

often have uncooperative and non-responsive interaction styles with their parents that they

generalize to interactions with peers (Kerns & Richardson, 2005). Securely attached children are

also more likely to effectively modulate negative affect, allowing them to interact more positively

with their peers. Meanwhile, insecurely attached children are more likely to display their negative

affect in an inappropriate manner, damaging their peer interactions (Lieberman et al., 1999). The

secure relationship between a caregiver and child results in the development of positive beliefs

about future relationships, and leads to securely attached children being more likely to enter into

friendships with a positive outlook than are insecurely attached children (Kerns et al., 1996). It is

believed that securely attached children may consciously or unconsciously form relationships

with peers that are comparable to their beliefs (Kerns et al., 1996). Secure children are also more

likely to see themselves as loveable and see others as responsive to their needs, whereas

insecurely attached children see themselves as unlovable and assume others will be unconcerned

with their needs (Lieberman et al., 1999). Hence, secure children will behave in ways that evoke

positive interactions with peers while insecure children behave in ways that elicit negative

interactions.

Research indicates that securely attached children are more likely to be rated as popular by

their peers than are insecurely attached children (Kerns et al., 1996; Lieberman et al., 1999;


13Shulman et al., 1994). Kerns et al. (1996) report that children involved in secure parent-child

relationships are liked more by their peers, have more reciprocal friendships, and report feeling

less lonely than those not involved in secure relationships. They also found that secure-secure

friendship dyads were not as critical of one another, were more responsive, and reported higher

levels of companionship than were secure-insecure dyads. The authors assert that since

insecurely attached children can form reciprocated friendships with securely attached children,

attachment is not the most important aspect of peer relationships. While this is an accurate

statement, the authors failed to investigate the relationships among children in insecure-insecure

dyads and also failed to discover how rewarding the secure-insecure friendships were. Friendship

quality is an important factor in peer relationships as well. While some researchers do not find a

connection between parent-child attachment and friendship quality (Kerns et al., 1996),

Lieberman et al. (1999) found that secure attachment was significantly related to many

components of friendship quality. The study by Lieberman et al. (1999) indicates that the

availability of help from a friend, the closeness of the relationship, the low levels of conflict in the

relationship, and feelings of security in that relationship were all related to security of attachment.

With these qualities as determinants, it seems that securely attached children have more stable

friendships than do insecurely attached children.

Kerns and Richardson (2005) believe that attachment style research has neglected the

developmental period known as middle childhood (ages 6-12). Stemming from both Ainsworth

and Bowlby’s works on secure and insecure attachment, the attachment security of infants has

been extensively studied (Kerns & Richardson, 2005). The focus has mainly been on the

following four attachment categories: secure, preoccupied, avoidant, and disorganized. Kerns and

Richardson believe that middle childhood is a unique developmental phase that results in many


14emotional and physical changes and that the attachment categories created in early infancy may

not be appropriate for use with that age group.

In attachment literature, the next stage of research occurs in adulthood. Bartholomew and

Horowitz’s (1991) contribution to adult attachment style is also relevant and valuable to the study

of attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence. Although research has shown that

attachment style impacts friendships, there is not a lot of information about the different types of

attachment. Most studies have measured insecure and secure attachments, neglecting the

subtypes o f insecure attachment. Their proposed model o f attachment includes the following four

categories which incorporate an individual’s sense o f self and their sense of others: secure

attachment is characterized by a subjective sense o f worthiness and the belief that others are

accepting and responsive; preoccupied (ambivalent) attachment is defined as a subjective sense o f

unworthiness and a positive evaluation o f others; fearful attachment is characterized by a sense of

unworthiness and the belief that others are untrustworthy and rejecting; and dismissive attachment

is defined as a sense of worthiness and the belief that others are untrustworthy and rejecting

(Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). These specific types o f attachment are related to an

individual’s ability to initiate and maintain peer relationships. An investigation of the subtypes of

insecure attachment and their relation to the formation of friendship groups is important because

the fearful, dismissive, and preoccupied (ambivalent) types o f insecure attachment are present in

children with a variety of different personality characteristics and behaviors. Additionally, most

research has been done on attachment styles’ influence on dyadic friendships but not its influence

on friendship groups.


Family Relationships o f Victimized Children

Attachment patterns and its influence on victimization has been extensively studied.

Theorists posit that if children develop insecure attachments to their parents, then they may go on

to form insecure relationships with others (Bernstein & Watson, 1997; Bowers, Smith, & Binney,

1994). Many victims have received unpredictable care from their parents and doubt their ability

to influence caregivers, and in turn, their peers. Since their parents may alternate between

responsiveness and rejection, these children do not give up on the relationship because of the

responses they get, and also learn to accept the rejection, making it more likely that they will be

victimized by their peers (Bernstein & Watson, 1997). The influence that attachments have on

peer interactions was illustrated in a study by Troy and Sroufe (1987) where it was observed that

when children with avoidant attachments (aggressive children) were paired with children with

anxious and ambivalent attachments (victims) aggression would inevitably follow. However,

when either a victimized or aggressive child was paired with a securely attached child, the

interactions were more positive.

Many victims believe that their families are overly involved to the extent that they are

unable to develop their own identity or cope without their family (Oliver, Oaks, & Hoover, 1994;

Schwartz, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 2000). The enmeshed family structure has been documented by

numerous researchers, and Oliver et al. (1994) have given a very convincing reason for why this

occurs. In their study, they found that a possible reason for this type of family functioning is that

since victims are socially isolated, their needs for psychological comfort at home will increase

and the family becomes overly enmeshed. This type of family relationship also coincides with

the data that mothers of victims are often overprotective, controlling, and restrictive, while their

fathers are hostile or indifferent (Bernstein & Watson, 1997; Bowers et al., 1994). Duncan (1999)


16found that victims’ parents might instill in their children the belief that they are not valuable

and have no power to stop others from mistreating them. If children believe that they are

worthless, they will not have the confidence to socialize with other children adequately.

Family Relationships o f Aggressive Children

Evidence has shown that attachment patterns are also important in the development of

aggression. Parents of insecure-avoidant infants are more intrusive and negative than parents of

secure children, contributing to a lack of security and more aggression in the child (Lyons-Ruth,

1996). Lyons-Ruth (1996) has also shown that mothers of disorganized children have fewer

interactions with their children and even less when their children initiate it. Therefore, many

children initiate aggressive contact in order to be noticed. Moreover, East (1991) has shown that

if children are insecurely attached then feelings o f hostility toward the parents transfer over to the

children’s relationship with their peers.

Families directly affect their children’s social skills as well. When children are exposed

to dysfunctional social skills and parenting behavior their future relationships with peers are

affected. East (1991) analyzed parent-child relationships using two questionnaires, one in which

a child rated parental support and another where a parent rated his/her support to the child. This

study indicated that aggressive children felt that their relationships with their fathers were not

supportive enough, while these fathers felt that their relationships were not as warm or satisfying

as fathers of non-aggressive children. Mothers of aggressive children felt that they gave less

support to their children and were less satisfied. Interestingly, aggressive children overestimated

the level of their mothers’ satisfaction and underestimated their support (East, 1991). East

suggested that aggressive children may lack “social sensitivity” and are not able to detect

dissatisfaction in the relationship. She also proposed that (a) children who detect rejection from


their parents may acquire attitudes of mistrust and tend to aggress towards peers in order to

defend against more rejection or (b) that because the children in the family do not receive much

warmth from their parents, this lack o f nurturance frustrates the child and leads them to become

aggressive towards their peers (East, 1991).

The dynamics of family interactions and parenting practices are important as well. For

example, Haapasalo and Tremblay (1994) found that non-aggressive boys were better supervised,

less punished and had fewer rules at home than aggressive boys. Hence, it can be concluded that

aggressive boys may come from homes with authoritarian parenting styles, which are based on

stringent rules, and that this may contribute to the development of aggression. Evidence has

suggested that when aggressive children are confronted with ambiguous signals they believe that

the people have hostile intentions toward them. Dix and Lochman (1990) found that mothers

attributed their children’s aggressive behavior to negative personality attributes and attributed

responsibility to the children. However, Barret, Rapee, Dadds, and Ryan (1996) concluded that it

was not only the children’s personality, but also that family dynamics played a much larger role

than expected. The study consisted of presenting groups o f children with 12 ambiguous situations

and asking them what they would do, as well as proposing the same situation to their parents and

asking them what their children would do. The ambiguous situation could be threatening

(physically or socially) or non-threatening. Aggressive children were increasingly biased toward

perceiving the situation as threatening. The parents o f aggressive children were also biased

toward perceiving threatening situations and predicted that their children would behave

aggressively. A final step in this study was for the families to gather together and discuss the

situations and consider solutions. The importance of the relationship between the aggressive

children’s responses and the responses of their parents was brought into focus by the fact that


18after these meetings the children’s aggressive solutions increased. The suggestion is that when

children from such families are confronted with an ambiguous situation concerning their peers,

they will act aggressively even if there were no hostile intentions. Additionally, children take the

expectations of threatening situations with them into new social situations with peers who have

not made assessments of their personality and have no reason to be hostile (Coie et al., 1991).

Research has also shown that family relationships of aggressive children influence the

development of attitudes that support violence and aggression (Orpinas & Home, 2006).

Social Problem Solving

The ways in which children perceive the world around them and process the information

they receive vary in important ways. The variation that is evident has effects on their behaviors,

which have lasting repercussions on their social status, and the way they interact with others.

Rogers and Tisak (1996) suggested that before children act they undergo decision making

processes which include response evaluation, outcome expectation, and response selection.

However, for many children these processes are faulty and lead to ineffectual cognitive

processing and peer interactions. Research has shown the link between children’s social problem

solving skills and their peer status (Crick & Ladd, 1990; Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Rose &

Asher, 1999). Crick and Dodge (1994) utilized social-cognitive theory to describe the process by

which children solve problematic social situations (Dodge, Laird, Lochman, & Zelli 2002). The

first step they propose is an encoding process whereby situational cues are perceived and put into

working memory. The encoded information is then considered to demonstrate consistent patterns

of behaviors. After cues are encoded they are given meaning and associated with particular goals

and are then used when certain situations arise. As a psychological meaning is given to an event,

problem solving occurs where specific goals are accessed and used to carry out the desired


19behaviors. Social problem solving is also commonly organized in terms of the quality and the

quantity of solutions children produce when confronted with a conflict situation (Goodman,

Barfoot, Frye, & Belli, 1999).

Attachment style has also been associated with social functioning and problem solving

(Dodge, 1993). It is believed that a secure attachment style enables children and adolescents to

develop more sophisticated social skills and a better ability to process experiences in relationships

with peers than are insecurely attached children and adolescents (Allen. Marsh, McFarland,

McElhaney, Land, Jodi, et al., 2002). In turn, those with insecure attachment styles seem to have

more difficulty navigating interpersonal relationships, impacting their ability to solve

interpersonal conflict. This research did not, however, investigate the differences among the three

insecure subtypes. Research with adults has shown that attachment style influences the problem

solving approaches used in interpersonal conflict (Kobak & Duemmler, 1994; Simpson, Rholes,

& Phillips, 1996). Simpson et al. (1996) found that ambivalent individuals evidenced large

amounts of stress during arguments and felt more hostility towards their partners after an

argument. The authors supported their findings using attachment research that documented the

tendency of those with ambivalent attachment styles to be anxious and uncertain about the

supportiveness o f attachment figures. When those with an ambivalent attachment style are

confronted with a conflict in an interpersonal relationship their need for psychological closeness

is strong but they are overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and fears of abandonment (Ainsworth,

Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1977; Simpson et. al., 1996). In turn, ambivalently

attached individuals tend to perceive conflictual interactions and their outcomes in more negative

ways and become more hostile towards their partners as a result o f their perceived neglect.

Avoidant individuals, in contrast, do not report more anger towards their partner or towards the


20situation but do show less warmth towards their partner during and after conflict (Simpson et.

al., 1996). Attachment theory posits that those with an avoidant attachment style do not believe

their attachment figures are available to them and become self-reliant and avoid situations where

their attachment needs would be stimulated (Bowlby, 1977). As a result, during conflictual

situations those with avoidant attachments are more removed and emotionally distant from their

partners. In contrast to each insecurely attached style, securely attached individuals were able to

express themselves more freely and felt better about themselves and their partners during and

after the conflict (Simpson et. al., 1996). Since this research was done predominantly with adults

it is necessary to examine if the same patterns o f behavior can be seen in children with these

attachment styles.

Children who have difficulties with social problem solving are believed to also have low

social status. Rose and Asher (1999) found that the manner in which children resolve conflicts

with their peers is related to the number of friendships they have and the quality of those

friendships. Research has shown that popular children are more likely to use prosocial problem

solving strategies and have friendly goals for behaviors whereas rejected children are more likely

to use aggressive problem solving strategies and have unfriendly goals (Richard & Dodge, 1982;

Marked & Asher, 1984). The goals that guide children’s behaviors can be based on either

instrumental or relational outcomes. When children use instrumental goals they are most

concerned with the attainment of a goal but when relational goals are implemented they are

concerned with how their strategies impact friendships (Crick & Ladd, 1990).

Crick and Ladd (1990) investigated the different social strategies and goals of popular,

average, neglected, and rejected children. They found that rejected children tended to focus on

instrumental outcomes more than relational outcomes than did their peers. Rejected children also


21

felt that verbal aggression would be instrumentally successful and did not place much emphasis

on relational outcomes. Crick and Ladd (1990) posited that rejected children are not aware of the

impact their behaviors have on others in social situations, negatively impacting their social status.

Although neglected children are also low in social status they are different from rejected children

in that they are ignored rather than rejected by their peers. In contrast to rejected children who

desire instrumental outcomes and value their success, neglected children often feel that they will

be less successful both instrumentally and relationally and tend to withdraw and engage in few

social interactions (Crick & Ladd, 1990). In comparison to their peers popular children often

believe that socially acceptable behaviors lead to more favorable outcomes and tend to use such

approaches in social situations. Studies that focus on childhood aggression also point to the large

impact social problem solving skills has on social competence. For instance, Lochman and

Dodge (1994) found that children with social problem solving difficulties who believe that

aggression will lead to positive outcomes are more likely to behave aggressively in conflict

situations. In addition, those with problem solving deficits are also more likely to develop

internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems (Goodman et. al., 1999).

Social Problem Solving: Victimized and Aggressive Children

Victimized and aggressive children have deficits in social information processing and

social problem solving that have lasting repercussions on their social status and the way they

interact with others. Victims have problems with social information processing that inhibits them

from interacting normally with their peers. Studies show that victims have trouble with role

taking, social knowledge, the ability to generate adequate alternatives to a problem, and difficulty

attending to and encoding social cues (Hughes, Robinson, & Moore, 1991). More aggressive

victims have trouble distinguishing between hostile and positive cues in social interactions and


22may assume they are hostile, causing them to act aggressively. Hughes et al. (1991) also posit

that more aggressive victims have fewer positive social encounters with peers because they

continuously interpret their actions as negative and never positive, leading to fewer and fewer

interactions with their peers. Hence, due to few positive interactions and many negative ones,

their peers will tend not to like them, causing them to be rejected. More passive victims have

many of the same problems with social information processing, but tend to respond with

submissive alternatives to problems (Bernstein & Watson, 1997).

Aggressive children tend to have more trouble with social information processing and

problem solving than both victims and average peers. Aggressive children have similar problems

as victims, such as deficits in role-taking abilities, social knowledge, ability to generate adequate

solutions to problems, and errors attending to and encoding social cues (Hughes et al., 1991).

Like victims, aggressive children may have fewer positive interactions with their peers due to

their beliefs that their peers’ actions are hostile and not positive, also called the hostile attribution

theory (Hughes et al., 1991; Ray & Cohen, 1995). If aggressive children do not accurately

understand their feelings or those of others, they may misunderstand others’ actions and will also

not understand how much their actions hurt. Aggressive children also have difficulties generating

positive solutions to social problems and lack the knowledge needed to effectively respond to

their problems without using aggression (Slee, 1993).

Emotional Intelligence

Research has shown that some of the most important factors related to whether children

will be accepted or rejected are their levels of empathy, pro-social behavior, social intelligence

and perspective taking (Batsche & Knoff, 1994; Carlo, Knight, Eisenberg, & Rotenberg, 1991;

Roberts & Strayer, 1996). Due to their deficits in identifying the motives o f others and


23responding to people, rejected children have trouble interacting in social situations (Batsche and

Knoff, 1994; Roberts & Strayer, 1996). Roberts and Strayer (1996) indicated that “high levels of

negative emotions can disrupt behavior, including empathic responses and prosocial behaviors”

(449). Negative emotions such as anger “disrupt or even sever social relationships” (Roberts &

Strayer, 1996, 450). These negative emotions can play a large part in the actions o f rejected

children and their inability to function properly socially. Studies have shown that the more

individuals can express themselves, the more empathic they will be and the more they will

respond prosocially. However, the more anger they show, and the less they can identify the

emotions of both themselves and others, the less likely they will be to respond positively to others

(Roberts & Strayer, 1996). Rejected children’s deficits in perspective taking, a skill associated

with pro-social behavior, is also related to the lack of success that these children have in

interpersonal relationships (Carlo et al., 1991).

The two personal intelligences of Gardner’s (1993) Multiple Intelligence theory are of

particular interest to peer relationships. Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to identify and

respond properly to the moods, temperaments, motives, and desires of others. Intrapersonal

intelligence is the ability to identify one’s own feelings and use them to guide behavior

appropriately. These types of intelligence are very important, especially since many bullying

incidences are the result of the children’s inability to accurately identify the motives of others

(Pierce & Cohen, 1995).

Salovey and Mayer (1990) discussed how social intelligence is related to emotional

intelligence. Social intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive and influence others’

motivational states, which has important effects on prosocial behaviors. Social intelligence

contains two parts: motivational intelligence which is the understanding of the drives underlying


24

the need for achievement and power, and emotional intelligence which is the ability to identify

and express emotions, reason with emotion related material, and organize this information as part

of a problem solving technique (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). These abilities have been shown to be

very important to a person’s psychological health; if people lack these abilities, they are liable to

experience emotional and social impairment (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). These skills are very

important in understanding the possible problems rejected children face.

One component of emotional intelligence is empathy, where a person vicariously

experiences the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts o f another which may result in more prosocial

behaviors. An emotionally intelligent person creates a warm relationship with other emotionally

intelligent people and maintains a supportive social structure and greater life satisfaction (Salovey

& Mayer, 1990). These benefits of emotional intelligence are highly related to peer relationships

because behaviors that cause children to become rejected may interfere with their development of

the emotional and social resources that will help them cope with their difficulties (Grotpeter &

Crick, 1996). Additionally, Goleman (1995) reported studies illustrating that the inability to

express and regulate emotions are characteristics o f various forms of psychopathology.

Childhood is one of the most crucial periods during which to develop emotional

intelligence and parents are expected to help their children develop these abilities (Goleman,

1995). Parents who are emotionally intelligent validate their children’s feelings, model ways to

regulate their moods, and use emotional cues to solve problems. Children who have parents who

help them develop this intelligence are better equipped to deal with their emotions (Goleman,

1995). Parents who lack emotional intelligence themselves are less able to help their children

develop these skills and tend to ignore their children’s feelings, are permissive or authoritarian,

and are emotionally distant (Goleman, 1995). Hence, unlike emotionally intelligent children,


these children may be less likely to identify and regulate their emotions, correctly judge other’s

feelings, have adequate problem solving abilities, or be able to control their aggression (Goleman,

1995). The attachment style of those with high and low emotional intelligence is an important

area o f study. Lapidos, Yaar-Golan, and Curtis (2006) found that secure attachment was related

to higher emotional intelligence than was insecure attachment. More specifically, they found that

secure attachment was related to the following emotional intelligence factors: attention, clarity,

and repair. Interestingly, the repair factor was related to how individuals felt better after talking

to their parents about their emotions. Not only is this an important finding in the realm of

emotional intelligence but also in the realm o f friendship for it has also been found that those

children and adolescents who are securely attached are more likely to have friendships that allow

intimate disclosure.

Coping Skills

The ability of children to cope with the stress they encounter in school and the ways in

which they choose to do so are linked to social status and psychological adjustment. The concept

o f coping has been extensively researched and divided into different dimensions. The most

common dimensions of coping are: problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping, primary vs.

secondary control coping, and engagement vs. disengagement coping (Compas, Connor-Smith,

Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001). Compas and colleagues (2001) believe, however, that

these dimensions of coping do not take into consideration the complexities of coping and the

many ways that children attempt to cope with stress. Their comprehensive review acknowledges

the shortcomings of the many coping dimensions and calls for a more complex and

multidimensional categorization o f coping.


26The problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping dimension encompasses the decisions

people make to either deal with the source of stress or reduce the disconcerting emotions that

result from stressful situations. Problem-focused coping entails generating solutions to the

problem or taking some form of action to eliminate the source of stress whereas emotion-focused

coping constitutes the expression o f emotion and the tendency to seek support from others. The

primary control vs. secondary control coping dimension focuses on whether people try to gain

personal control over the situation and their reactions or if they try to adapt to the situation.

Primary control coping entails problem solving activities that impact the situation or engage in

emotion regulation while secondary control coping focuses on efforts to accept the situation or

engage in cognitive restructuring. The engagement vs. disengagement coping dimension

describes whether individuals approach or avoid the situation. Engagement coping refers to the

individual’s tendency to approach either the source of environmental stress or their emotional

reactions to the stress, implementing problem solving tactics or searching for emotional support.

In contrast, disengagement coping consists o f the individual’s tendency to avoid the stressor or

emotions it produces. However, the emphasis on avoidance is misleading because these tactics

often include the ability to direct their attention to something more constructive and does not

mean that the person does not have an awareness or understanding of the stressor.

Research has shown that the different types o f coping approaches have different effects on

psychological adjustment and peer acceptance. In a study investigating the impact of children’s

coping strategies on peer victimization, Kochenderfer-Ladd and Skinner (2002) found that the

impact o f coping strategies on victimization was different for boys and girls. Approach coping

strategies (also referred to as engagement coping) resulted in favorable outcomes when they

conformed to social norms. More specifically, when boys handled conflicts on their own they


27were less lonely and more likely to be accepted by peers than if they sought support from

others. For victimized boys, however, neither problem solving nor support seeking worked to

their benefit because not only are they unable to influence their peers or use effective strategies to

accomplish such goals but they also have limited peer relationships (Kochenderfer-Ladd &

Skinner, 2002). The findings are somewhat more startling for girls in that the negative effects of

victimization are reduced in victimized girls who seek emotional support from peers. In contrast,

nonvictimized girls who seek emotional support in times of stress have more social problems.

Avoidance coping, however, is associated with peer problems for both boys and girls, indicating

that ignoring problems is just as deleterious as confronting them.

In their review of the reliability and validity o f various coping measures Compas and

colleagues (2001) investigated various emotional difficulties that may be attenuated with the use

o f problem focused coping, emotion-focused coping, engagement coping, or disengagement

coping. Overall it was found that engagement coping and problem-focused coping were

associated with better psychological adjustment in the realms of internalizing and externalizing

behaviors and social competence. They also concluded that problem solving, cognitive

restructuring, and positive reappraisals of the stressor are the subtypes of engagement and

problem-focused coping that are most likely to be associated with adjustment. It is important to

realize, however, that many studies that Compas and colleagues (2001) analyzed also revealed

that those types of coping are not always associated with better adjustment or necessarily the best

for every situation. More specifically, further analysis showed that engagement and problem-

focused coping are not useful in situations that can not be controlled by the child. Disengagement

coping and emotion-focused coping, in contrast, were found to be associated with poor

adjustment, particularly in terms of internalizing and externalizing problems and social


28competence. Specific aspects of disengagement and emotion-focused coping that are related to

maladjustment are cognitive and behavioral avoidance, social withdrawal, resigned acceptance,

emotional ventilation, wishful thinking, and self-blame. An important distinction that must be

made within these types o f coping, however, is that it is not the release and consideration of

emotion that is related to poor adjustment, but the strategies that foster negative emotions, poor

self-image, avoidance, and unregulated emotional release. Other studies also indicated that

disengagement and emotion-focused coping led to better adjustment when children were faced

with uncontrollable stressors. Hence the results o f these studies seem to indicate that it is more

important for children to have a plethora of coping strategies that they are able access and

implement when faced with various stressors. In addition, it seems necessary for children to have

the capacity to understand the situations that they encounter and have the ability to determine

which coping strategy would work best in each situation.

The link between attachment style and stress is also of importance. Attachment theory

posits that stressful situations evoke attachment patterns and influence the ways in which children

cope. Research has shown that a secure attachment style is a valuable shield against the many

effects of stress (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987; Bowlby, 1988). In addition, Bowlby (1988)

proposed that those with secure attachment styles are more likely to have more adaptive coping

skills as well as increased feelings o f self-worth and self-efficacy than those with insecure

attachment styles. It is believed that the ability o f individuals with secure attachments to

experience less anxiety and fear in stressful situations allows them to implement adaptive and

effective coping strategies. Investigations into the relationship between attachment style and

coping strategies in traumatic situations found that individuals with secure, anxious-avoidant, and

anxious-ambivalent attachment styles did not differ on their use of problem-focused coping but


29did differ on their use o f support-seeking, emotion-focused, and distancing coping strategies

(Mikulincer et. al., 1993). More specifically, it was found that securely attached individuals

relied more on social support than other styles, ambivalently attached individuals relied more

heavily on emotion-focused coping than did secure individuals, and avoidant individuals relied

more on distancing strategies than secure individuals. Mikulincer, Florian, and Weller (1993)

also found that insecurely attached individuals reacted to stress with more emotional distress than

did securely attached individuals, indicating that an insecure attachment style may predispose

individuals to emotional maladjustment. This is an interesting finding in relation to attachment

style and peer relationships because children with the combined attributes of insecure attachment,

poor coping skills, and emotional maladjustment would inevitably have difficulty initiating and

maintaining friendships.

Affect Regulation

The regulation of emotions serves many adaptive functions, such as decision making, but

is particularly important in social relationships in that it allows us to understand the emotions and

behaviors of others and direct our social lives. Although the terms affect and emotion regulation

are often used to reflect the same phenomenon, some researchers propose that affect regulation be

considered a superordinate category consisting of emotions, emotion episodes (behaviors), mood

regulation, dispositional states, defense strategies, and coping strategies (Gross, 1998). Emotion

regulation consists of the methods by which people monitor, maintain, and attempt to control at

an optimal level what emotions they have, when they have them, and how they express them in

order to achieve their goals (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000; Gross, 1998; Shields &

Cicchetti, 1997). The literature on emotion regulation focuses on both the deliberate control of

emotions as well as the unconscious processes that influence the expression o f emotion,


30demonstrating the complexities of such behaviors. Research on emotion regulation is also

heavily influenced by coping literature, specifically the emotion-focused dimension of coping

discussed previously. Gross (1998) acknowledges the influence of coping research on emotion

regulation but makes an important distinction between the two whereby coping mainly focuses on

decreasing negative emotions whereas emotion regulation focuses on the monitoring and control

o f the expression and experience of emotions.

Emotion regulation is an important determinant in how children will behave in many

different social situations. Shields and Cicchetti (1997) found that preschool and grade school

children tend to develop more complex and integrated emotion regulation skills because of their

expanding representational thought and information processing abilities. Research on empathy

and sympathy has shown that children who are able to manage their emotional arousal during

empathy inducing situations tend to be concerned about others because they are aware of and

understand how others feel (Eisenberg, Fabes, Shepard, Murphy, Jones, & Guthrie 1998). In

contrast, it was found that children who become emotionally over aroused during such situations

tend to become preoccupied with their own negative emotions at the expense o f engaging or

sympathizing with others. Eisenberg and colleagues (1998) also found that high emotional

regulation and low negative emotionality are related to the experience of dispositional sympathy,

demonstrating the impact that emotion regulation has on peer relationships. In addition, research

on undercontrol (no emotion regulation) and overcontrol (too much emotion regulation) of

behaviors show that undercontrol is related to externalizing problems and overcontrol is related to

internalizing problems, illustrating the impact of regulation on the quality o f social interactions

(Eisenberg et. al., 2000). Based on these results it is possible to conclude that children who can


31optimally regulate their emotions and exhibit low intensities of negative emotion are more

likely to engage in prosocial and empathic relationships with peers, influencing their social status.

The social benefits o f affect regulation are made clear through studies focusing on why

physically aggressive children are often not rejected by peers. Research has shown that when

aggressive children are able to control their behaviors and implement them to gain social goals as

opposed to using aggression in response to their environment they are more readily accepted by

peers (Dodge & Coie, 1987). Other research has shown that rejected-aggressive children tend to

exhibit other poorly modulated behaviors in addition to aggression, such as hyperactivity,

emotional outbursts, low frustration tolerance and negative affectivity (Pope, Bierman, &

Mumma, 1991), demonstrating the impact of affect regulation on social status. Similarly, Pope

and Bierman (1999) found that rejected-nonaggressive children often exhibited patterns of

irritable, inattentive, atttention-seeking, dependent, disruptive, and intrusive behaviors that thwart

them from forming and maintaining peer relationships.

The relationship between attachment style and affect regulation is also an important

dimension of social functioning. Attachment theory posits that securely attached individuals are

able to learn how to regulate their emotions from their caregivers (Bowlby, 1988). As securely

attached children mature they are able to internalize the emotion regulation patterns present in the

parent-child relationship and mimic that in their relationships with peers. In contrast to insecurely

attached children, securely attached children are more able to regulate their emotions and often

display more socially appropriate behaviors (Eisenberg et. al., 2000; Pope & Bierman, 1999).

Research with preschool children showed that attachment style is related to how children display

affects in social situations. Specifically, securely attached children tend to use more positive


32

affect than do insecurely attached children when initiating and maintaining interactions with

peers (Contreras, Kerns, Weimer, Gentzler, & Tomich 2000).

Purpose o f study

Recent and past tragedies in America’s schools have increased the nation’s focus on the

problems that cause children and adolescents to commit such crimes. O f particular interest to this

investigation are the relationships that children form with their peers. Since children influence

one another’s conduct and children often rely on friends to act as references for their behavior,

research on friendships can lead to a better understanding of how children and adolescents

respond to events in their lives. Although such bullying occurrences and the actual dyadic

friendships that children form have been extensively studied, there has been less emphasis on

friendship groups. The purpose of this study is to investigate attachment style, friendship groups

and group status (central or peripheral member) and their relationship to emotional intelligence,

friendship quality, coping skills, and affect regulation. These three factors are expected to

influence all children and adolescents, including those who are the bullies and victims of peer

abuse.

In terms of the formation of friendship groups, attachment style has rarely been

investigated. Since many studies focus on the differences between securely attached and

insecurely attached children in dyadic friendships, it is important to investigate the friendship

groups of those children and adolescents who are classified as having any of the three different

subtypes o f insecure attachment in order to address this gap in attachment research for this age

group. Once children and adolescents are initiated into friendship groups their interpersonal skills

development becomes extremely important. Since it is known that children and adolescents

influence one another in many ways, being members of friendship groups that contain securely


attached children and adolescents, which are expected to be higher functioning groups, may

enable children and adolescents to function better in social situations. In contrast, membership in

friendship groups that contain insecurely attached children and adolescents, which are expected to

be lower functioning groups, may hinder their interpersonal functioning.

The influence that friendship group status has on children’s and adolescent’s interpersonal

skills is also o f interest in this study. It is proposed that even if children and adolescents are able

to form friendships, whether they are central or peripheral members of those groups is of

importance. Most research in the area of central and peripheral group status has focused on

aggressive, nonaggressive, and rejected children (Bagwell, et al., 2000; Mouttapa, et al., 2004).

This present study is unique in that it will investigate the relationship between attachment style

and the attainment of central or peripheral group status.

The friendship group status and social functioning o f children and adolescents who are

labeled as either bullies or victims is also of interest in this study. Since some studies show that

such children group together because of their rejected status (Cairns et al., 1988; Hodges et al.,

1999) and others refute such claims (Ray et. al., 1997), it is an important area o f social

functioning that needs to be investigated. This study addresses not only the friendship group

formation of bullies and victims, but also attachment style and group status, two aspects of

friendship not commonly studied.

Attachment style, friendship group formation, and group status are also expected to

influence children’s and adolescents’ performance on measures assessing friendship quality,

emotional intelligence, coping skills, and affect regulation. Although each of these aspects of

functioning have been investigated before, their relationships to attachment style, friendship


34group formation, and group status have not been as extensively studied but is of use to those in

clinical and school settings.


35Hypotheses

Individual Attachment Style

Friendship Quality.

1. Secure children/adolescents will rate their friendships higher in validation and caring,

companionship and recreation, help and guidance, conflict resolution, and intimate disclosure

than fearful and dismissive children/adolescents as measured by the Friendship Quality

Questionnaire. They will also rate them lower in conflict and betrayal than fearful and dismissive

children/adolescents. Preoccupied children/adolescents’ scores on the Friendship Quality

Questionnaire will fall in between the securely attached and fearful and dismissive

children/adolescents scores. This hypothesis was based on research that indicated that securely

attached children are more likely to form responsive and caring friendships than are insecurely

attached children. Research also shows that insecure children do not always differ on levels of

intimacy (Kerns et al., 1996). By separating the insecure group into three different subtypes,

more differences are expected to emerge.

Reactions to Teasing.

2. Securely attached children/adolescents will seek help from others when teased more than any

o f the three insecure subtypes as measured by the communication subscale o f a reaction to teasing

measure. Fearful and dismissive children/adolescents will use more avoidant reactions (as

evidenced by higher scores on both the denial and withdrawal subscales) to teasing than the

secure and preoccupied. This hypothesis was based on attachment research which stated that

secure children have positive internal working models of others (Kerns & Richardson, 2005).

Based on this research, it is proposed that securely attached children will seek help from others


36when in need. In contrast, since they have a negative internal working model of others, it is

proposed that the fearful and dismissive are more likely to use avoidant reactions.

Affect Regulation.

3. Secure children/adolescents will use more interpersonal help-seeking, contemplation of

feelings, and interpersonal activity to regulate their emotions as measured by the affect regulation

measure than the other attachment styles. The fearful and dismissive will use more solitary

activities and aggression and withdrawal to regulate their emotions (aggression and withdrawal is

one subscale in this measure) than the secure and preoccupied. The preoccupied

children/adolescents will use more interpersonal help-seeking, contemplation of feelings, and

interpersonal activity than the fearful and dismissive but less solitary activities and aggression and

withdrawal than the fearful and dismissive. Prior research indicates that children with secure

attachments are better able to regulate their emotions than are insecurely attached children and

will seek support when in need (Bowlby, 1988). In addition, research indicates that those with a

preoccupied attachment react to emotional stressors with intense and prolonged distress whereas

those with dismissive attachment styles react with more emotional distance (Bonanno, Wortman,

Lehman, Tweed, Haring, Sonnega, et al., 2002; Hazan & Shaver, 1994). This study aims to

confirm prior research in these areas. The fearful category of attachment in children and

adolescents has not been extensively studied and this research proposes that their negative views

of self and other and their tendency to avoid interpersonal interactions may predispose them to

exhibit more emotional reactions than the dismissive category but less than the preoccupied

category.


Coping Skills.

4. Secure children/adolescents will use more support seeking strategies and active coping than

fearful and dismissive children/adolescents, as measured by The Children’s Coping Strategies

Checklist. Preoccupied children/adolescents will use those strategies less than the secure but

more than the fearful. Dismissive children/adolescents will use more distraction strategies than

secure, preoccupied, and fearful children/adolescents. Fearful children/adolescents will use more

avoidance strategies than secure, preoccupied, and dismissive children. Prior research indicates

that whereas the ability to implement problem-focused coping skills may not vary across

attachment style the use of other strategies does (Mikulinicer et al., 1993). Research has found

that securely attached individuals experience less anxiety in stressful situations, allowing them to

implement more adaptive strategies than insecurely attached individuals (Mikulincer et al., 1993).

The different types of insecure attachment styles also differ on the type of coping strategy they

use, with preoccupied individuals using more emotion-focused coping and avoidant individuals

using more distancing strategies. This study aims to confirm prior research in this area. Although

the fearful and dismissive attachment styles have been found to implement the same type of

coping style, this hypothesis was generated in order to ascertain whether or not they vary in their

use of distancing and avoidant strategies.

Emotional Intelligence.

5. Securely attached children/adolescents will have higher self-reported emotional intelligence

than fearful and dismissive children/adolescents whereas preoccupied children/adolescents will

score in between securely attached children and the fearful and dismissive children/adolescents.

This hypothesis aims to confirm prior research in this area and was based on findings that the


38

securely attached have higher emotional intelligence than the insecurely attached (Barry &

Wentzel, 2006; Batsche & Knoff, 1994).

Friendship Groups

Friendship Quality.

6. Individuals in groups that contain only securely attached children/adolescents will rate their

friendships higher in validation and caring, companionship and recreation, help and guidance,

conflict resolution, and intimate disclosure than groups that contain only insecurely attached

children/adolescents as measured by the Friendship Quality Questionnaire. Individuals in groups

that contain only securely attached children/adolescents will rate their friendships lower in

conflict and betrayal than those groups that contain only insecurely attached. This hypothesis is

based on research that securely attached children and adolescents have better quality friendships

than the insecurely attached (Kerns, et. al., 1996). Prior research has investigated the relationship

between attachment style and dyadic friendships but not its relationship to friendship groups. The

friendship quality o f friendship groups has also not been extensively studied and this research

proposes that attachment style will influence the friendship quality of friendship groups.

7. Individuals in groups of children that contain securely attached children as well as insecurely

attached children (secure-insecure) will rate their friendships higher in validation and caring,

companionship and recreation, help and guidance, conflict resolution, and intimate disclosure as

measured by the Friendship Quality Questionnaire than groups that contain only insecure

children/adolescents (insecure only). They will rate their friendships lower in conflict and

betrayal than groups that contain only insecure children/adolescents. Those in groups that contain

only securely attached children will always have friendships of better quality than the other two


39groups. Once again, prior research has focused on dyadic friendships and this research

proposed that attachment style will also influence the friendship quality o f friendship groups.


8. Individuals in groups that contain only securely attached children/adolescents will seek help

from others when teased more often than those groups that contain only insecurely attached

children/adolescents as measures by the communication subscale of the reaction to teasing

measure. Individuals in groups that contain only the insecurely attached will use more

withdrawal, aggression, and denial subscales. This research proposes that children and

adolescents who are in higher functioning groups (secure only) will use more adaptive strategies

than those in lower functioning groups (insecure only). While this is not a common area o f study,

the hypothesis is based on the findings that when children and adolescents interact with higher

functioning peers they develop more adequate interpersonal skills (Lieberman, et al., 1999).

9. Individuals in groups of children that contain securely attached children as well as insecurely

attached children (secure-insecure) will seek help from others when teased more often than

groups that contain only insecure children/adolescents (insecure only) as measured by the

communication subscale o f the reaction to teasing measure. Those in groups that contain only

insecure children/adolescents will use more denial, withdrawal, and aggression than groups that

contain secures and insecures (secure-insecure). Those groups that contain only securely attached

children/adolescents will use more adaptive strategies than the other two groups. This research

proposes that children and adolescents who are in higher functioning groups (secure-insecure)

will use more adaptive strategies than those in lower functioning groups (insecure only). While

this is not a common area of study, the hypothesis is based on the findings that when insecure


40children and adolescents interact with secure peers they develop more adequate interpersonal

skills (Lieberman, et al., 1999).

Affect Regulation.

10. Individuals in groups that contain only securely attached children/adolescents will use more

interpersonal help-seeking, contemplation of feelings, and interpersonal activity to regulate their

emotions as measured by the affect regulation measure than those in groups that contain only the

insecurely attached. Those in groups that contain only the insecurely attached will use more

solitary activities and aggression and withdrawal to regulate their emotions (aggression and

withdrawal is one subscale in this measure) than groups with only the securely attached. Prior

research indicates that those with secure attachments are better able to regulate their emotions

than are the insecurely attached (Bowlby, 1988; Bonanno, et al., 2002; Hazan & Shaver, 1994).

This study aims to confirm prior research in these areas. Research has focused less on how

friendship groups influence affect regulation and this research proposes that children and

adolescents who are in higher functioning groups (secure only) will use more adaptive strategies

to regulate their emotions than those in lower functioning groups (insecure only).

11. Individuals in groups of children that contain securely attached children/adolescents as well as

insecurely attached children/adolescents (secure-insecure) will use more interpersonal help-

seeking, contemplation o f feelings, and interpersonal activity to regulate their emotions as

measured by the affect regulation measure than those in groups that contain only the insecurely

attached. Those in groups that contain only the insecurely attached will use more solitary

activities and aggression and withdrawal to regulate their emotions (aggression and withdrawal is

one subscale in this measure) than groups with the securely and insecurely attached. Prior

research indicates that those with secure attachments are better able to regulate their emotions


41than are the insecurely attached (Bowlby, 1988; Bonanno, et al., 2002; Hazan & Shaver, 1994)

and that associations with higher functioning peers impacts interpersonal functioning (Lieberman,

1999). Research has focused less on how friendship groups influence affect regulation and this

research proposes that children and adolescents who are in higher functioning groups (secure-

insecure) will use more adaptive strategies to regulate their emotions than those in lower

functioning groups (insecure only).

Coping Skills.

12. Individuals in groups that contain only securely attached children/adolescents will use more

support-seeking and active coping strategies than those groups that contain only insecurely

attached children/adolescents; individuals in groups that contain only the insecurely attached will

use more distraction strategies than groups that contain only the securely attached. Research has

found that securely attached individuals experience less anxiety in stressful situations, allowing

them to implement more adaptive strategies than insecurely attached individuals (Mikulincer et

al., 1993). This hypothesis aims to confirm prior research. Research has focused less on how

friendship groups influence coping skills and this research proposes that children and adolescents

who are in higher functioning groups (secure only) will use more adaptive strategies to cope with

stress than those in lower functioning groups (insecure only).

13. Individuals in groups that contain securely and insecurely attached children/adolescents

(secure-insecure) will use more support-seeking and active coping strategies than groups that

contain only insecure children/adolescents (insecure only). Those in groups that contain only the

insecurely attached will use more distraction strategies than those in groups that contain the

securely and insecurely attached. Those in groups that contain only securely attached children

will use more adaptive strategies than the other groups. Research has focused less on how


42

friendship groups influence coping skills and this research proposes that children and

adolescents who are in higher functioning groups (secure-insecure) will use more adaptive

strategies to cope with stress than those in lower functioning groups (insecure only).


14. Individuals in groups that contain all securely attached children/adolescents will have higher

self-reported emotional intelligence than those in groups that contain only insecurely attached

children/adolescents as measured by the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory- Youth Version.

The hypothesis is based on prior research in this area and was based on findings that the securely

attached have higher emotional intelligence than the insecurely attached (Barry & Wentzel, 2006;

Batsche & Knoff, 1994). Research has focused less on how friendship groups influence

emotional intelligence and this research proposes that children and adolescents who are in higher

functioning groups (secure only) will have higher self-reported emotional intelligence than those

in lower functioning groups (insecure only).

15. Individuals in groups that contain securely attached children/adolescents as well as insecurely

attached children/adolescents (secure-insecure) will have higher self-reported emotional

intelligence than groups that contain only insecure children/adolescents (insecure only).

Individuals in groups that contain only securely attached children will have higher emotional

intelligence than the other groups. Research has focused less on how friendship groups influence

emotional intelligence and this research proposes that children and adolescents who are in higher

functioning groups (secure-insecure) will have more emotional intelligence than those in lower

functioning groups (insecure only). This hypothesis is based on research that suggests once

insecurely attached children interact with securely attached children they begin to develop more

adequate interpersonal skills (Lieberman et al., 1999).


43Impact o f Central or Peripheral Group Status

16. Securely attached children/adolescents are more likely to be classified as “central” group

members while insecurely attached children are more likely to be listed as “peripheral” group

members. Fearful and dismissive children/adolescents are more likely to be “peripheral” group

members than preoccupied children/adolescents. This hypothesis is based on research which

indicates that securely attached children/adolescents are more likely to be rated as popular by their

peers, which would make them central members, than are insecurely attached

children/adolescents, which would make them peripheral members (Kerns et al., 1996; Lieberman

et al., 1999). Research in this area has focused on aggressive, nonaggressive, and rejected

children and this study aims to add to these findings by focusing on attachment style.

Children/adolescents who are insecurely attached are often less likely to have positive interactions

with peers because they often enter into relationships assuming they are unworthy (Lieberman et

al., 1999). The literature focusing on the different types of insecure attachment styles describes

how each type of attachment style interacts differently with peers. It suggests that those with

preoccupied attachment styles have positive internal working models of others, allowing them to

be more likely to interact with peers than those with fearful and dismissive attachment styles

because o f their negative internal working models of others (Lopez, Melendez, Sauer, Berger, &

Wyssmann, 1998).

17. Children and adolescents who are classified as central members of groups will perform better

on all dependent variables than those who are classified as peripheral members. Research in this

area is limited and this hypothesis proposes that children/adolescents’ association with peers

influences their skills development in a positive manner (Kems et al., 1996; Bagwell et al., 2000),

making it possible that those with central membership will function better in various areas.


4418. Insecurely attached children/adolescents who are classified as central members of groups

will perform better on the dependent variables when compared to insecure children/adolescents

who are peripheral members o f groups. While insecurely attached children/adolescents are

expected to perform poorly when compared to securely attached children/adolescents, the impact

o f central or peripheral group membership may play a part in how well insecurely attached

children/adolescents perform. Research is limited in this area and this study aims to fill this gap.

Bullies and Victims o f Peer Abuse

19. Children/adolescents who are classified as being victims of peer abuse are more likely to have

a preoccupied attachment style than secure, dismissive or fearful attachment style. Troy and

Sroufe (1987) found that children who display an ambivalent (preoccupied) attachment style are

more likely to be victimized by peers than are children who display other types o f insecure

attachment. Victims of peer abuse are more likely to be peripheral members of groups than

central members and bullies are more likely to be central members o f groups. Research has

shown that bullies are often able to become central members of their groups whereas victims are

not (Mouttapa, et al., 2004), and this study aims to confirm research done in this area.

20. Children/adolescents who were classified as being aggressive towards peers are more likely to

have a fearful attachment style than a secure, preoccupied, or dismissive attachment style. This

study aims to confirm research done by Troy and Sroufe (1987) who found that children who

have an insecure avoidant attachment are more likely to expect hostility from others and be

aggressive towards peers.

21. Children/adolescents who are classified as bullies will perform better on the various

dependent variables than those who are classified as victims. Since aggressive children have been

found to be central members of groups (Bagwell et al., 2000) and rejected less often than victims,


45it is believed that they will perform better in these areas when compared to victimized children.

There is limited research done in this area and this study aims to fill that gap.

22. Children/adolescents who are classified as victims that are “central” members of groups will

perform better on the dependent variables than those victims who are “peripheral” members of

groups. This hypothesis is based on research indicating that the presence o f friends buffer low

status children from the effects of victimization (Bagwell et al., 2000). The impact of friendship

group status on victims in the areas o f emotional intelligence, friendship quality, affect regulation,

and coping skills has not been extensively studied and this research aims to fill that gap.

23. Children/adolescents who are classified as bullies that are “central” members of groups will

perform better on dependent variables than those who are “peripheral” members of groups. The

impact of friendship group status has on bullies in the areas of emotional intelligence, friendship

quality, affect regulation, and coping skills has not been extensively studied and this research

aims to fill that gap

24. Children/adolescents who are classified as victims are more likely to be in friendship groups

that contain only insecurely attached children/adolescents than in groups that contain both the

securely and insecurely attached or only the securely attached. Children/adolescents classified as

bullies are more likely to be in friendship groups that contain the securely and insecurely attached

than groups that contain only the insecurely or only securely attached. There is no known

research addressing how bully or victim status is related to friendship group membership and this

study aims to address this gap.

Loners

25. Children/adolescents who are classified as loners (they are not members o f any friendship

group) will perform worse on the various dependent measures than those children/adolescents


46who are members of friendship groups. This hypothesis is based on research illustrating that

association with high functioning peers impacts interpersonal functioning (Dunn, 2004;

Lieberman et. al., 1999). Therefore, those classified as loners are more likely to have lower

emotional intelligence and less adaptive affect regulation abilities and copings skills than those

involved in friendships.

26. Those classified as loners are more likely to be insecurely attached than securely attached.

Research has shown that the insecurely attached are more likely to be rejected by peers than the

securely attached (Bagwell et al., 2000) and this study aims to confirm this.

27. Those classified as loners are more likely to be victims of peer abuse than they are to be

bullies or noninvolved peers. Research has shown that those without friends are more likely to be

the victims of peer abuse than those with friends (Bagwell et al., 2000; Dunn, 2004) and this

study aims to confirm this.

General Hypothesis

There are many factors related to how children and adolescents function socially. This research

proposes that attachment style, friendship group membership, and group status (central or

peripheral) are significantly related to children and adolescents’ friendship quality, emotional

intelligence, coping skills, and affect regulation abilities.


AlMethod

Participants

Participants were 197 fifth through eighth grade students, ages 10-15, enrolled in two public

schools in an urban New Jersey city. This city has a population of 39,482 with a median income

of $62,550 but with 11% of the population being below the poverty line (United States Census

Bureau, 2000). There were a total of fifty-one 5th grade students, thirty-five 6th grade students,

forty-eight 7th grade students, and sixty-three 8th grade students that participated in this study.

Based on the class census, 79% of 5th grade students, 65% of 6th graders, 55% of 7th graders, and

78% of 8th graders participated in this study. Students represented the diverse population of the

city, with most students being Caucasian, African-American, or Hispanic. The two schools that

participated in this study had similar populations, with 67% of the population being Hispanic,

17% being Caucasian, 16% being African-American, and 2% Asian. The ethnicities of the subset

of students who participated in this study were as follows: 53% Hispanic, 36% Caucasian, 10%

African-American, and 1% Asian. School administrators were provided with the research

materials for final approval before the start of the study and consent letters were sent to parents

informing them of the purpose of the study as well as providing them with contact information

should they have any questions. Only those students with parental approval were allowed to

participate in the study and if a signed consent form was not returned the student was unable to

participate.

Procedure

Students who were able to participate in this study remained in their classrooms during data

collection. Data collection took place in one session, lasting between 1.5 and 2.5 hours,

depending on the skill level of the students in the class. Each classroom was assigned one of four


48doctoral candidates to supervise the data collection. The directions for each measure were read

aloud by the doctoral candidate and they also provided examples and assisted the students with

any questions that they had.

Measures

Friendship Groups.

Students from each grade were instructed to list the names o f their closest friends. A modified

version of the factor analysis procedure used by Bagwell, Coie, and Terry (2000) determined

which students were in which friendship groups. A voter by votee matrix was constructed for

each grade using ones and zeros to reflect friendship nominations (lath is voter nominated this

votee, 0=this voter did not nominate this votee). Once the matrixes were created the factor-

analytic procedure was implemented by decreasing the number of factors by one until the

eigenvalues of each factor were greater than or equal to 1.0 and each factor had at least three

significant loadings (meaning at least three children per group). Each factor that was created

represented a friendship group. The factors that were created were manually inspected to ensure

that no child or adolescent was represented in more than one group. If the factor analysis placed a

participant in more than one group, they were manually placed into the group in which they had

the highest loading.

Central or Peripheral Group Status.

Children/adolescents were classified as central or peripheral members based on the factor

loadings from the above mentioned factor-analytic procedure. Those who had a factor loading of

less than .4 were considered peripheral members and those with a factor loading of more than .7

were considered central members. Those who had factor loadings between .4 and .7 were


49considered average members o f groups. The loadings used to determine central and peripheral

group membership were the same as those used by Bagwell, Coie, and Terry (2000).

Bullies and Victims.

In order to determine which students were the victims and perpetrators of peer abuse teachers

were asked to list those students who were victimized by others and those who bullied others.

The design of the study initially called for students to list who they believed were bullies and

victims but school administrators requested it be done by teacher rating in order to avoid potential

conflicts between students. Research has shown that teacher ratings of victimization, aggression,

popularity, prosocial behavior, and hyperactivity are reliable and are similar to peer ratings of the

same behaviors (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997;Rowell Huesmann, Eron, Guerra, & Crawshaw,

1994).

Attachment Style.

The Adolescent Relationship Questionnaire (Scharfe, 1999), which is based on the

Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) attachment style classification system, was used to place

children into one of the following categories: secure, fearful, preoccupied, or dismissive.

Participants were asked to read four paragraphs that describe ways in which people relate to

others and asked to rate on a scale from one to seven how much the paragraph described

themselves. The Adolescent Relationship Scales Questionnaire, which is a revised version o f the

Adolescent Relationship Questionnaire, was also used to validate the findings of the four

paragraph version. The seventeen item questionnaire represents the four attachment patterns

defined by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1990) and reflect the degree to which children are secure,

fearful, preoccupied, or dismissive. This attachment questionnaire was chosen because it is easy

to understand and has been shown to effectively identify the different attachment styles.


50

Intercorrelations between an attachment semi-structured interview and self-report ratings of

attachment and other areas interpersonal of interpersonal relating were consistent with the four

category model. Attachment ratings were validated by data from measures assessing self-concept

and interpersonal functioning. Based on their attachment style classification, participants’

performances diverged in theoretically meaningful ways on the various measures. For instance,

the securely attached had overall higher scores on measures assessing warmth and sociability than

the other styles, the preoccupied revealed higher scores in areas of dominance and expressiveness,

the dismissive scored higher on scales assessing introversion than the other styles, and the fearful

had more difficulty with assertiveness and self-expression than the other styles. Alpha

coefficients were computed to assess reliability o f the four attachment prototypes; reliabilities

ranged from .87 to .95 (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). This attachment measure was chosen

instead of the more commonly used measure “Experiences in Close Relationships Scale” (ECRS)

created by Brennan, Clark, and Shaver (1998). The ECRS is a thirty-six item self-report measure

o f adult attachment anxiety and avoidance. It was determined that the Adolescent Relationship

Questionnaire would be more appropriate for use with children and adolescents. In addition, due

to the design of this study, it was necessary to use a measure that separated individuals into one of

the four attachment groups (secure, preoccupied, fearful or dismissive) and not just measure

levels of anxiety and avoidance.

The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) was also used to assess the positive and

negative attributes of students’ relationships with parents and peers (Armsden & Greenberg,

1987). This questionnaire was chosen as a supplement to the Adolescent Relationship

Questionnaire because it measures the quality of the different aspects of attachment relationships

and does not merely separate children into attachment groups. This questionnaire assesses the


51following three dimensions: degree of mutual trust, quality of communication, and extent of

anger and alienation. The revised version was used because it assesses separately the perceived

quality of attachment to mothers and fathers instead of parents combined. The instrument is a

self-report questionnaire with a five point likert-scale response format and consists of 25 items in

each of the mother, father, and peer sections, yielding three attachment scores. Internal

reliabilities are reported as follows: Mother attachment, .87, Father attachment, .89, and peer

attachment, .92. The parental attachment scores are moderately to highly related to Family and

Social Self scores from the Tennessee Self Concept scale and to most subscales on the Family

Environmental Scale (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). Peer attachment is also positively related to

scores o f social self concept as measured by the Tennessee Self Concept scale and to family

expressiveness on the Family Environment Scale (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987).

Friendship Quality.

The Friendship Quality Questionnaire-Revised is a self-report instrument that measures

qualitative aspects of children’s friendships (Parker & Asher, 1989). The questionnaire is a 40

item, self report measure which contains six subscales: companionship and recreation, validation

and caring, help and guidance, intimate disclosure, conflict resolution, and conflict and betrayal.

A five point rating scale is used to assess how true each statement is about their friendships. The

scoring system of the Friendship Quality Questionnaire does not provide for an overall friendship

quality score but instead yields scores for each of the six subscales. In the research and

development of this questionnaire Parker and Asher (1989) found that children’s friendship

quality is better described by these six important features of friendship than by an overall score.

The Friendship Quality Questionnaire-Revised is a revision of an earlier measure developed by

Parker and Asher (1989). The earlier version was based on a questionnaire developed to address


52

friendships and was changed by Parker and Asher to meet their research needs. One of the

revisions made by Parker and Asher was to personalize the questionnaire by including the name

of each child’s best friend on the questionnaire itself (eg. Stephanie and I always sit together at

lunch). There is, however, a more general approach where children are told to mentally select a

friend while answering the questions which has good internal validity and consistency (Parker &

Asher, 1989). While this questionnaire has mostly been used to measure the quality of dyadic

friendships, the same subscales are relevant to measure the quality o f friendship groups. This

questionnaire was chosen because it measures important factors related to friendship quality.

Cronbach alphas for each subscale are as follows: Validation and Caring (.90), Conflict

Resolution (.73), Conflict and Betrayal (.84), Help and Guidance (.90), Companionship and

Recreation (.75), and Intimate Disclosure (.86). The six subscales ranged from moderately and

highly intercorrelated, with correlations ranging from .16 to .75; the conflict and betrayal subscale

was negatively correlated with all other subscales. Results of a study conducted by the authors to

validate their measure they found that each of the six Friendship Quality subscales predicted

loneliness and social dissatisfaction and demonstrated the ability of the measure in distinguishing

friendship adjustment from overall peer acceptance (Parker & Asher, 1989).


A short questionnaire assessing how children react when teased by peers was created for use

in this study. Students were asked to identify how often they engage in particular behaviors when

teased by peers and respond on a five point likert scale. Factor analysis revealed the presence of

four factors: communication, aggression, withdrawal, and denial. This questionnaire was created

because there were not many short measures available to assess specific reactions to teasing.

Coping Skills.


53The Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (Program for Prevention Research, 1999) is a

self-report questionnaire in which children describe how they cope on a daily basis. There are

two versions of the checklist, one that assesses the strategies children used to cope with a specific

event and one which measures children’s dispositional style o f coping. For the purposes of this

study the latter was used. The questionnaire contains four major factors: Active Coping

Strategies, Distraction Strategies, Avoidance Strategies, and Support Seeking Strategies. Each

factor also contains separate subscales. This questionnaire was chosen because children are

instructed to think about everyday stressors in their lives and not traumatic experiences, allowing

the questionnaire to be used by the general population. Another valuable feature of this

questionnaire is that it incorporates the various types of coping strategies written about in the

literature. The developers of this scale found that children’s coping skills are better described by

the individual subscales than an overall score so that is what is used in this research. Cronbach

alphas for each subscale are as follows: Active Coping (.89), Distraction Strategies (.80),

Avoidance Strategies (.73), and Support Seeking Strategies (.78). Comparisons between

performance on the coping scales and performance on various self-report measures yielded

theoretically meaningful differences. For instance, active coping was related to high self-esteem

and low reports of depression, avoidant strategies were related to increases in depression and

conduct disorder.

Affect Regulation.

A modified version of an affect regulation scale developed by Schaffer (2000) was used in

order to assess what children and adolescents do when they experience painful emotions. The

original version of this affect regulation scale contained items inappropriate for

children/adolescents (i.e.: sexual and occupational content) and these were eliminated from the


54modified version. Some items were changed to reflect the interests and hobbies of children

instead of adults (i.e.: reading a book to cope with emotions was changed to playing video games)

and some items were changed to reflect the cognitive abilities o f children and adolescents (i.e.:

fantasize about disappearing was changed to wish you were somewhere else). Factor analysis

revealed the presence o f 5 factors which were labeled Aggression and Withdrawal, Interpersonal

Help-Seeking, Contemplate Feelings, Interpersonal Activities, and Solitary Activities. Students

rated on a scale from one to five how often they engaged in certain activities in order to handle

their feelings. An overall score is not available in this measure so the individual subscales will be

used to describe the affect regulation skills o f participants in this study. There is no psychometric

data available for this measure.


The Emotional Quotient Inventory-Youth Version (Bar-On & Parker, 2000) is a self-report

measure o f emotional intelligence and looks at children’s awareness of their feelings and the

feelings o f others, their ability to communicate their needs to others, self-control, planning

abilities and flexibility to change, and social skills. Students responded to questions using a five

point scale ranging from “never true of me” to “always true of me.” There are a total of seven

subscales: intrapersonal, adaptability, general mood, stress management, interpersonal, overall

emotional intelligence, and a positive impression validity scale.

The Emotional-Quotient Inventory has internal reliability for 10-12 year olds of .80 and .90

for 13-15 year olds and has three week test-retest reliability of .82. The youth version correlates

.87 with the adult version. Construct validity is based on comparisons to other measures of

emotional intelligence, its relationship to measures o f basic personality, and relationship to other

measures of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Compared to the NEO-Five Factor Model


55of Personality the correlations converged and diverged in theoretically appropriate ways. The

intrapersonal scale o f the Emotional Quotient Inventory was not associated with any of the basic

personality scales and there was a low negative correlation between the adaptability scale and

neuroticism. It was also compared to the Children’s Depression Inventory. High correlations

were found between the general mood scale and various measures on the Depression Inventory.

There were also moderate correlations for the total emotional intelligence and the various scales,

indicating that a positive mood is associated with emotional intelligence (Bar-On et. al., 2000).


56

Results

Individual Attachment Style Results

Students’ performance on the various dependent measures were analyzed according to

their attachment style (secure, preoccupied, fearful, and dismissive) using a One-Way ANOVA

with the various measures as the dependent variables and attachment style as the independent

variable. Table 1 displays the number o f children/adolescents classified as each attachment style.

Table 1Attachment Style

Attachment Style Number of Students Percentage

Secure 108 55.4

Preoccupied 28 14.4

Fearful 32 16.4

Dismissive 27 13.8

195 100

Friendship Quality.

On a measure of Friendship Quality, there were significant differences on the subscales

between some o f the attachment styles. The hypothesis that secure children and adolescents

would score significantly higher on the companionship and recreation, validation and caring, help

and guidance, intimate disclosure, and conflict resolution subscales but lower on the conflict and

betrayal subscale than those with an insecure attachment was partially confirmed. On both the

Companionship and Recreation subscale and the Validation and Caring subscale securely attached

children/adolescents scored higher than the fearful, F(3, 188) = 6.06, p < .05 and F(3, 193) = 2.89,

p < .05 respectively. On the Conflict Resolution subscale both secure and dismissive


57children/adolescents scored higher than the fearful, F(3, 192) = 3.35, p < .05. There were no

significant differences between attachment styles on the Help and Guidance, Intimate Disclosure,

or Conflict and Betrayal subscales of the Friendship Quality Questionnaire.


When asked about how they responded to being teased by peers, the hypothesis that the

securely attached would have higher scores than those with an insecure attachment on the

communication subscale o f the teasing measure was not confirmed. However, the hypothesis that

the fearful and dismissive would have more avoidant reactions to teasing than the secure and

preoccupied was partially confirmed, as the fearful scored higher than the secure and dismissive

on the Withdrawal response subscale, F(3, 193) = 10.62, p < .05 whereas the dismissive scored

higher than the preoccupied on the Denial response subscale, F(3, 194) = 3.91, p < .05. There

were no significant differences among attachment styles on the Communication response or

Aggression response subscales.

Affect Regulation.

On a measure of Affect Regulation the hypothesis that the securely attached would have

higher scores on the interpersonal help seeking, contemplates feelings, and interpersonal activity

subscales than the insecurely attached was partially confirmed. The hypotheses that the fearful

and dismissive would have higher scores on the aggression and withdrawal (“aggression and

withdrawal” is one subscale on this measure) and solitary activity subscales than the secure and

preoccupied whereas the preoccupied would have the lowest scores on all subscales were partially

confirmed. Results indicated that the fearful had higher scores on the Aggression and Withdrawal

subscale than the secure, F(3,190) = 3.66, p < .05 whereas both the secure and dismissive scored

lower on the Contemplates Feelings subscale than the fearful, F(3,194) = 5.41, p < .05. On the


58Interpersonal Activity subscale the secure, preoccupied, and dismissive all scored higher than

the fearful, F(3,194) = 1.92, p < .05. There were no significant differences between attachment

styles on the Interpersonal Help Seeking or Solitary Activity subscales of this measure.

Coping Skills.

On the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (CCSC), the hypothesis that the securely

attached would have higher scores on the Support Seeking and Active Coping subscales than the

insecurely attached was not confirmed. The hypotheses that the dismissive would have higher

scores on the Distraction Coping Strategies subscale and the fearful would have higher scores on

the Avoidance Coping Strategies subscale than the secure and preoccupied were also not

confirmed. The hypothesis that those who had a preoccupied attachment would have scores that

fell in between the secure and the fearful and dismissive on the various subscales was partially

confirmed in that those who are preoccupied scored higher than the fearful on the Distraction

Strategies subscale, F(3, 194) = 3.23, p < .05.


The hypothesis that those who are securely attached would score higher than the

insecurely attached in the area o f emotional intelligence whereas the preoccupied would have

scores that fell in between the secure and fearful and dismissive was partially confirmed. Results

indicated that the preoccupied scored higher than the fearful on the Intrapersonal Intelligence

subscale of a self-report emotional intelligence measure, F(3, 193) = 2.92, p < .05. The securely

attached scored lower than the fearful and the preoccupied on the Stress Management subscale of

the emotional intelligence measure, F(3, 192) = 1.71 >P< .05. There were no differences among

attachment styles on the Interpersonal, Adaptability, or Overall Emotional Intelligence subscales

of the emotional intelligence measure.


59

Friendship Group Results

There were a total of forty-two friendship groups in this study, ten were classified as

secure only, twenty-seven were classified as secure-insecure, and five were classified as insecure

only. The groups contained between three and seven members: 5 groups contained three

members, 8 groups contained four members, 13 groups contained five members, 10 groups

contained six members, and 6 groups contained seven members.

Performance on Dependent Measures

Friendship Quality.

In order to test the hypothesis that the friendship groups that children/adolescents form is

related to their performance on the various measures, separate One-Way ANOVA’s with each

measure as the dependent variable and friendship group membership (secure only, secure-

insecure, insecure only) as the independent variable were conducted and subsequent post-hoc

analyses (Tukey’s post-hoc test was used for all analyses). On the Friendship Quality

Questionnaire the hypothesis that those who are friends with only the securely attached would

score higher on the companionship and recreation, validation and caring, help and guidance,

intimate disclosure, and conflict resolution subscales but lower on the conflict and betrayal

subscale than those who are friends with the securely and insecurely attached was partially

confirmed. The results showed that secure children/adolescents who are friends only with other

securely attached rated their friends as being more available to spend time with them, more likely

to offer then help and support, more intimate, and more willing to resolve conflicts than those

secure and insecure children/adolescents who are friends with each other rated their friend to be

[F(2, 180) = 5.79, p < .05; F(2, 180) = 5.98, p < .05; F(2, 180) = 6.43, p < .05; and F(2, 184) =


606.54, p < .05]. In addition, the hypothesis that those in friendship groups that contain both the

securely and insecurely attached would score higher on the companionship and recreation,

validation and caring, help and guidance, intimate disclosure, and conflict resolution subscales but

lower on the conflict and betrayal subscale than those who were in friendship groups with only

the insecurely attached was also partially confirmed. Results showed that the securely and

insecurely attached children/adolescents who are friends with each other scored higher on the

Companionship and Recreation, Intimate Disclosure, and Conflict Resolution subscales than

those insecurely attached children and adolescents who are friends only with other insecurely

attached children and adolescents [F(2, 180) = 5.79, p < .05; F(2, 180) = 6.43, p < .05; and F(2,

184) = 6.54, p < .05]. Table 2 displays the mean scores on the subscales based on friendship

group membership.

Table 2Means fo r Friendship Quality Subscales Based on Friendship Group Membership

Friendship Quality

Friendship

Secure Only

Group

Secure and Insecure

Membership

Insecure Only

Companionship and Recreation 4.11 3.70 2.96

Help and Guidance 4.07 3.56 2.94

Intimate Disclosure 4.05 3.48 2.64

Conflict Resolution 3.95 3.66 2.48

Note. All means presented here are for significant results, p < .05

There were no significant differences between groups on the Validation and Caring or Conflict

and Betrayal subscales. Also, the hypothesis that those in friendship groups that contained only

the securely attached would score higher on the five aforementioned subscales and lower on


61

conflict and betrayal than those in groups with only the insecurely attached was confirmed. As

was expected, securely attached children/adolescents who are friends with only other secures

performed better on all subscales than insecurely attached children/adolescents who are friends

only with other insecurely attached children [Companionship and Recreation, F(l, 20) = 4.40, p <

.05; Validation and Caring, F (l, 20) = 6.82, p < .05; Help and Guidance, F (l, 20) = 13.51, p <

.05; Intimate Disclosure, F(l, 20) = 7.32, p < .05; Conflict Resolution, F (l, 20) = 9.63, p < .05;

and Conflict and Betrayal, F(l, 20) = 7.22, p < .05].


The hypothesis that those in friendship groups with only the securely attached would have

higher scores on the emotional intelligence subscales than those in groups with only the

insecurely attached was not confirmed. In fact, group membership was not related to

performance on overall emotional intelligence, but was related to scores on the Stress

Management subscale. Interestingly, on that subscale, insecurely attached children/adolescents

who are friends with only other insecures scored higher than securely attached

children/adolescents who are friends only with other secures, F(l, 161) = 3.96, p < .05. There

were no significant differences between groups on the Intrapersonal Intelligence, Interpersonal

Intelligence, Adaptability, or Total Emotional Intelligence subscales. However, when the secure

and insecure group was excluded from the statistical analyses and an ANOVA with subscale

scores as the dependent variable and “secure only” and “insecure only” as the independent

variable was used, as was expected secure children who are friends only with other secures scored

higher on Intrapersonal Intelligence than insecure children/adolescents who are friends with only

other insecures, F (l, 21) = 5.96, p < .05. The hypothesis that those in groups with both the

securely and insecurely attached would have higher scores on the emotional intelligence subscales


62than those who were in groups with only the insecurely attached was not confirmed.


Group membership was also related to reactions to teasing. The hypothesis that those in

groups with only the securely attached would have higher scores on the communication subscale

than those in other groups was not confirmed. The hypothesis that those in groups that contained

the securely and insecurely attached would have higher scores on the communication subscale

than those who are friends with only the insecurely attached was also not confirmed. The

hypothesis that those in groups with only the insecurely attached would have higher scores on the

denial, withdrawal, and aggression subscales than those in groups with the securely and

insecurely attached as well as those in groups with only the securely attached was partially

confirmed. Results indicated that the securely attached children and adolescents who are friends

with only other secures used fewer withdrawal reactions to teasing than did secures and insecures

who are friends with each other, F (l, 162) = 4.89, p < .05. In addition, children and adolescents

who are friends with both secures and insecures used fewer withdrawal reactions than insecures

who are friends with only other insecures, F (l, 162) = 4.89, p < .05. On the denial reactions

subscale, the securely attached who are friends with only other securely attached scored lower

than secures and insecures who are friends with each other, F(2, 163) = 4.54, p < .05. There were

no differences between groups on how much they went to others for help (communication

subscale) or became aggressive (aggression subscale).

Coping Skills and Affect Regulation.

The hypotheses that group membership would impact performance on the coping skills

and affect regulation measures (where groups with only the securely attached having the best

scores, those in groups with the securely and insecurely attached falling in the middle, and those


63in groups with only the insecurely attached having the lowest scores) were not confirmed.

Results indicated that there were no significant differences between groups on these measures.

Attachment Style and Friendship Groups

In order to determine if an interaction existed between attachment and group status, a

MANOVA was conducted with the various measures as dependent variables and attachment style

and group membership as the fixed factors (Tukey’s post-hoc test was used for all analyses).

There were four groups used-secure only; secure-insecure; insecure-secure; and insecure only.

The secure-insecure group consisted o f secure children and adolescents who nominated insecure

children and adolescents as friends, whereas the insecure-secure group consisted of insecures who

nominated secures as friends. It was hypothesized that those in secure only groups would

perform better than those in secure-insecure groups and insecure only groups and that those in the

secure-insecure groups would perform better than those in the insecure only groups. These

hypotheses were partially confirmed.

Although there was no interaction for Friendship Quality between attachment style and

group membership, results of the MANOVA showed that securely attached children/adolescents

who are friends with only securely attached children/adolescents had higher scores on the Help

and Guidance and Conflict Resolution subscales than friendship groups that contained secures

and insecures and groups with only insecures, [F(3, 147) = 3.34, p < .05 and F(3, 147) = 3.33, p <

.05]. Although there was also no interaction between attachment and group membership for how

they reacted to teasing, it did indicate that securely attached children/adolescents who are friends

with other secures use fewer denial reactions than secures and insecures who are friends with each

other, F(3, 253) = 4.39, p < .05. Although there was also no interaction on the measure o f Affect

Regulation, this analysis showed that insecures who are only friends with other insecures


64Contemplate Feelings more than secures who are only friends with other secures, F(3, 153) =

2 .13 ,p < .05. There was also no interaction between attachment and group membership on

measures of emotional intelligence and coping skills.

Impact o f Central or Peripheral Group Status

Attachment Style.

A Chi-Square test using attachment style and central/peripheral group status as variables

was used to determine the attachment styles of children and adolescents who are most likely to be

central members o f groups and those who are most likely to be peripheral members o f groups.

The hypothesis that the securely attached will be central members of groups whereas the

insecurely attached will be peripheral members o f groups was confirmed. Results indicate that

central members of groups are most likely to be secure, X (1, N=195) 5.18, p < .05 and peripheral

members o f groups are most likely to be insecure, X (1, N=195) 5.70, p < .05. There were no

significant differences among the insecure subtypes. Results are displayed in Figure 1 on the

following page.

Performance on Dependent Measures.

MANOVA’s were conducted to test the hypothesis that children/adolescents who are

central members of groups will perform better on the various measures than those who are

peripheral members of groups. In addition, it was hypothesized that insecurely attached children

who are central members of groups will perform better on the measures than insecures who are

peripheral members. Both hypotheses were confirmed. On the measure o f Friendship Quality

there was an interaction between attachment and central/peripheral group membership on the

Companionship and Recreation, Validation and Caring, Help and Guidance, and Conflict

Resolution subscales. Secure peripherals scored higher than fearful peripherals on


c e n t r a l p e r ip h e r a l

Central or Peripheral Group Member

Figure 1. Number of Secure and Insecure students classified as Central or Peripheral

Group Members.


6 6

Companionship and Recreation, F(3, 160) = 4.47, p < .05, Validation and Caring, F(3, 160) =

3.25, p < .05, Help and Guidance, F(3, 160) = 2.85, p < .05, and Conflict Resolution, F(3, 160) =

2.87, p < .05. Fearful centrals scored higher than fearful peripherals on Companionship and

Recreation, F(3, 160) = 4.47, p < .05, Validation and Caring, F(3, 160) = 3.25, p < .05, Help and

Guidance, F(3, 160) = 2.85, p < .05, and Conflict Resolution, F(3, 160) = 2.87, p < .05.

Dismissive peripherals scored higher than fearful peripherals on Companionship and Recreation,

F(3, 160) = 4.47, p < .05 and Conflict Resolution, F(3, 160) = 2.87, p < .05. Preoccupied

peripherals scored higher than fearful peripherals on Validation and Caring, F(3, 160) = 3.25, p <

.05. Overall, central members of groups scored higher on the Companionship and Recreation

subscale than peripheral members, F (l, 160) = 7.95, p < .05. Based on these results, it appears

that for central members o f friendship groups attachment style was irrelevant as there were no

significant differences among scores on the Friendship Quality subscales. Interestingly, there

were no consistent differences in performance within attachment style based on central or

peripheral group membership for any attachment style other than the fearful.

There was an interaction between attachment style and central/peripheral status on

whether or not children/adolescents turn to others for help when they are teased by peers (based

on the communication subscale o f the reaction to teasing measure). Fearful peripherals turned to

others less often than dismissive peripherals and fearful centrals, F(3, 166) = 5.63, p < .05.

Surprisingly, dismissive peripherals turned to others more than secure peripherals and dismissive

centrals, F(3, 166) = 5.63, p < .05. Once again attachment style was not related to performance

for central members o f groups as there were no significant differences between scores on the

teasing subscales. In addition, there were no differences in performance within attachment style

based on central or peripheral group membership for the secure or preoccupied. Although there


67were no interactions between attachment and central/peripheral status on the Affect Regulation,

Coping Skills, or Emotional Intelligence scales, on the Emotional Intelligence measure central

members scored higher than peripheral members on the Stress Management and Overall

Emotional Intelligence subscales, F (l, 165) = 8.31, p < .05 and F(l, 165) = 8.53, p < .05.

Insecure Central Members vs. Insecure Peripheral Members.

An Independent Samples T-Test was conducted to test the related hypothesis that insecure

children/adolescents who are classified as central members of groups would perform better on the

dependent variables when compared to insecures who are peripheral members of groups. Results

are presented in Table 3. As expected, on the measure of Friendship Quality insecures who were

central members of groups scored higher than insecures who were peripheral members o f groups

on the Companionship and Recreation subscale, t(70) = 2.8, p < .05 and on the Validation and

Caring subscale, t(70) = 2.14, p < .05. On a measure of Emotional Intelligence insecures who

were central members of groups scored higher than insecures who were peripheral members of

groups on the Overall Emotional Intelligence, t(73) = 2-13,p < .05 and Stress Management

subscales, t(73) = 2.93, p < .05. There were no significant differences among insecure central

members and insecure peripheral members on Affect Regulation, Coping Skills, or reactions to

teasing.


Attachment Style.

It was predicted that children/adolescents who were classified as being victims of peer

abuse were more likely to have a preoccupied attachment style than a secure, fearful, or

dismissive style. A 2 x 2 Chi-Square analysis was conducted to determine if victimization

occurred more often with secure or insecure children and adolescents. Although victimization


6 8

Table 3Mean Results fo r Insecure Central Members and Insecure Peripheral Members

Insecure Central Insecure Peripheral

Friendship Quality Mean SD Mean SD

Companionship and Recreation 3.73 .75 3.13 1.06

Validation and Caring 3.6 .74 3.15 1.06


Overall Emotional Intelligence 67.47 8.72 62.81 10.17

Stress Management 17.17 4.32 14.19 4.22

Note. All results presented here are significant, p < .05


69

was somewhat infrequent among the children in this study (31 out of 195, 16%), it was much

more prevalent among insecurely attached children (24 out of 87, 33%) than among securely

attached children (7 out of 108, 7%). A 2 x 4 Chi-Square analysis was carried out to determine if

the prevalence o f victimization occurred more often with certain kinds o f attachment styles.

Subsequent post-hoc analyses ( 2 x 2 Chi-Square analyses) carried out comparing the securely

attached children with those who fell into one of the three insecure attachment styles indicated

that there were no significant differences among the three insecure subtypes. A similar

hypothesis was created for bullies, whereby those who were classified as bullies were more likely

to have a fearful attachment style than a secure, preoccupied, or dismissive style. A 2 x 2 Chi-

Square analysis was conducted to determine if those classified as bullies were more likely to have

a secure or insecure attachment style. Although children and adolescents classified as “bullies”

was somewhat infrequent in this study (33 out of 195, 17%), it was more prevalent among

insecurely attached children (18 out o f 87, 20%) than among securely attached children (15 out of

108, 13%). A 2 x 4 Chi-Square analysis was conducted to determine if the prevalence o f bullies

occurred more often with certain kinds o f attachment styles. Subsequent post-hoc analyses ( 2 x 2

Chi-Square analyses) carried out comparing the securely attached children with those who fell

into one of the three insecure attachment styles indicated that there were no significant differences

among the three insecure subtypes. Results are presented in Table 4 below.

Table 4Number o f students classified as Bully or Victim based on Attachment Style

YesVictim

No%

VictimsBully

Yes No%

BulliesSecure 7 101 7% Secure 15 93 13%

Insecure 24 63 33% Insecure 18 69 20%


70Performance on Dependent Measures.

It was predicted that children who were classified as bullies and victims would perform

worse on the various dependent variables than those who were not classified as either bully or

victim. It was also predicted that due to their victimized and rejected status, victims would

perform worse than bullies on the measures. Both of these hypotheses were partially confirmed.

One-Way ANOVA’s with the various measures as the dependent variables and bully/victim status

as the independent variable was used to test this hypothesis. In comparison to students who were

not classified as bullies or victims (non-involved peers), victims scored lower than non-involved

peers on the Companionship and Recreation subscale on the measure of Friendship Quality, F(2,

188) = 4.57, p < .05 and victims scored higher than non-involved peers on the Withdrawal

subscale of the reactions to teasing measure, F(2, 195) = 9.04, p < .05. In comparison to non-

involved peers, bullies scored higher on the Conflict and Betrayal subscale of the Friendship

Quality measure, F(2, 188) = 7.60, p < .05, higher on the Aggression subscale of the reactions to

teasing scale, F(2, 196) = 8.19, p < .05, and higher on the Aggression and Withdrawal subscale of

the Affect Regulation scale, F(2, 191) = 5.30, p < .05. In comparison to each other, bullies scored

higher than victims on the Aggression subscale of the reactions to teasing scale, F(2, 196) = 8.19,

p < .05 whereas victims scored higher than bullies on the Withdrawal subscale of the reactions to

teasing scale, F(2, 196) = 8.19, p < .05 and the Avoidance subscale of the Coping Strategies

measure, F(2, 196) = 3.06, p < .05.

In order to determine if there was an interaction between bully/victim status and

attachment, MANOVA’s with the various measures as dependent variables and bully/victim

status and attachment style as the fixed factors were conducted. There was only an interaction

between bully/victim status and attachment on the Companionship and Recreation subscale o f the


71Friendship Quality measure where fearful bullies scored higher than fearful victims and fearful

non-involved peers, F(6, 187) = 2.68, p < .05.

Impact o f Friendship Group Membership and Group Status.

The hypothesis that bullies were more likely be members of secure-insecure groups than

other groups was confirmed whereas they hypothesis that victims were more likely be members

o f insecure only groups than any other group was not confirmed. In order to determine if bullies

and victims were members of particular types o f friendship groups a 2 x 3 Chi-Square analysis

was conducted. Post-hoc analyses ( 2 x 2 Chi-Square analyses) revealed that both bullies and

victims were more likely to be members of groups that contain both the securely and insecurely

attached than members o f groups that contain only securely or only insecurely attached, X2(4,

N=196) 27.56, p < .05. A 2 x 2 Chi-Square analysis also revealed that bullies and victims were

more often members of friendship groups than not, X2(l, N=59) 5.4, p < .05. In order to

determine if bullies and victims were more likely to be central or peripheral members o f groups a

2 x 2 Chi-Square analysis was conducted but did not reveal significant results. The hypothesis

that bullies would be central members of groups and victims would be peripheral members of

groups was not confirmed. Although the differences were not significant, it was interesting that

more bullies were central members o f groups than were victims (63% of the bullies were central

members whereas 36% of the victims were) and more victims were peripheral members of groups

than were bullies (37% bullies were peripheral whereas 64% victims were peripheral). Results

are presented in Figure 2.

In order to assess whether bullies’ and victims’ performances on the dependent measures

was related to their friendship group status, MANOVA’s with the various measures as dependent

variables and bully/victim and group membership (secure only, secure and insecure, insecures


72

18

Bully or Victim

Ivictim

c e n t r a l p e r ip h e r a l

Central or Peripheral Group Member

Figure 2. Number of Bullies and Victims classified as Central or Peripheral Group Member.


73only, no group membership) as the fixed factors were conducted. There was an interaction

between bully/victim status and group membership on Overall Emotional Intelligence where

bullies who were not members of a friendship group scored lower than bullies in groups, victims

in groups and not in groups, and non-involved peers in groups and not in groups; on the same

measure victims in insecure only groups scored lower than victims in groups that contained

secures and insecures, F(6, 194) = 2.33, p < .05. There was also an interaction on the measure of

Affect Regulation where bullies who were members of insecure only groups scored higher on the

Aggression and Withdrawal subscale than bullies who were members of other friendship groups

and those who were not members of any group, higher than all victims (both in friendship groups

and not in friendship groups), and higher than all non-involved peers; on the same subscale o f the

Affect Regulation measure non-involved peers who were not members o f groups scored higher

than other non-involved peers who were members of groups; and victims who were not members

of friendship groups scored higher than victims who were members of groups, F(6, 191) = 2.45, p

<.05.

Centrality o f Group Membership and Bully/Victim Status.

It was predicted that children/adolescents who were classified as victims and were central

members of groups would perform better on the dependent variables than those victims who were

peripheral members of groups. This hypothesis was partially confirmed. Independent Samples t-

test’s with the various measures as the dependent variables and status (central victim or peripheral

victim) as the grouping variable were conducted. It was found that victimized central members of

groups scored higher than victimized peripheral members of groups on the Help and Guidance

subscale of the Friendship Quality measure, t(23) = 2.67, p < .05; and higher on the Intrapersonal

t(23) = 2.91, p < .05, Interpersonal t(23) = 2.62,p < .05, Stress Management t(23) = 2.64, p < .05,


74

Adaptability t(23) = 2.14, p < .05, and Overall Emotional Intelligence, t(23) = 4.09, p < .05

subscales of the Emotional Intelligence measure. Victimized peripheral members scored higher

than victimized central members on the Denial subscale of the reaction to teasing measure, t(23) =

-2.48, p < .05. There were no significant differences between victimized central and victimized

peripheral members on the Coping Skills or Affect Regulation scales. The hypothesis that bullies

who were central members of groups would perform better on the dependent measures than those

bullies who were peripheral members of groups was not confirmed. Interestingly, there were no

differences among central bullies and peripheral bullies on any o f the dependent measures.

Significant results are presented in Table 5.

In order to determine if there was an interaction between bully/victim status and

central/peripheral status MANOVA’s with the various measures as the dependent variables and

bully/victim status and central/peripheral status as the fixed factors were conducted. It was found

that peripheral bullies scored higher on Companionship and Recreation than peripheral victims

and peripheral victims scored lower than central non-involved peers, F(2, 160) = 4.94, p < .05 and

on the Help and Guidance subscale, peripheral victims scored lower than central victims and

central bullies scored lower than central victims, resulting in an interaction, F(2, 160) = 6.28, p <

.05. There was also an interaction on the Support Seeking Strategies subscale of the Coping

Skills measure where central victims scored higher than peripheral victims, central bullies, and

both central and peripheral non-involved peers, F(2,167) = 3.34, p < .05. Results are presented in

Table 6.


75Table 5Mean Results for Victimized Central Members and Victimized Peripheral Members

Central

Mean

Victim

SD

Peripheral

Mean

Victim

SD

Friendship Quality

Help and Guidance M l .62 3.07 1.12


Overall Emotional 75.57 11.27 59.06 8.16

Intelligence

Intrapersonal Intelligence 17.57 3.74 13.22 3.21

Interpersonal Intelligence 21.14 2.79 17.28 3.48

Adaptability 19.43 4.47 15.50 3.99

Stress Management 17.43 3.69 13.06 3.73

Teasing Measure

Denial Subscale 1.71 .95 3.17 1.42

Note. All of these results are significant, p < .05


76

Table 6Mean Results for Bully/Victim Status x Central/Peripheral Status

Central

Victim

Peripheral

Victim

Central

Bully

Peripheral

Bully

Central

Non-

Involved

Peripheral

Non-

Involved

Friendship Quality

Companionship and

Recreation

4.08 2.94* 3.57 3.97* 3.95* 3.58

Help and Guidance

Coping Skills

4.35* 2.87* 3.48* 3.57 3.71 3.63

Support Seeking

Strategies

2.88* 2.07* 2.07* 2.28 2.15* 2.11*

Note. *p < .05


77Loners

MANOVA’s were conducted with the various measures as dependent variables and

attachment style and whether a child/adolescent was a loner or member of a friendship group as

fixed factors. In this sample 17% of the children and adolescents were classified as loners (33 out

of 197). As measured by an Affect Regulation scale children/adolescents who were classified

as loners (they were not nominated by classmates as friends nor did they nominate anyone as a

friend) scored lower on the Contemplates Feelings subscale than children/adolescents who were

members of friendship groups, F(l, 184) = 4.54, p < .05. On the Children’s Coping Strategies

Checklist, those who are loners scored higher on the Distraction Coping Strategies than those who

were in friendship groups, F (l, 187) = 3.94, p < .05.

A 2 x 4 Chi-Square analysis was conducted in order to determine if children/adolescent

who were classified as loners were more likely to have a particular attachment style. Subsequent

post-hoc analyses ( 2 x 2 Chi-Square analyses) revealed that loners were more likely to have a

preoccupied attachment style than a fearful style, X2(l, N=56) 5.01, p < .05. Results o f a 2 x 3

Chi-Square analysis also revealed that loners were more likely to be victims than bullies, X2(l,

N=57) 6.31, p < .05.

Sex Differences and the Impact o f Ethnicity

There were a total of 88 males (45%) and 109 females (55%) in this study. Chi-Square

analyses were conducted to address possible sex differences in attachment style, bully/victim

status, centrality of group membership, and type of friendship group membership (secure only,

secure-insecure, insecure only, or no friendship group/loner). No differences were found in any

of these areas.

There were a total of forty-two friendship groups in this study. Twenty-two o f them


78contained a mixture of boys and girls (52%), seven of the groups contained all boys (17%) and

thirteen o f the groups contained all girls (31%). ANOVA’s were conducted to determine if there

were differences among the groups on the various dependent variables. On the Friendship

Quality Questionnaire, those in the all girls group rated their friendships higher in validation and

caring than those groups of all boys, F(2, 161) = 5.04, p < .05 and higher in intimate disclosure

than groups of all boys and a mixture of boys and girls, F(2, 156) = 14.31, p < .05. Those in

groups o f all girls and a mixture of girls and boys sought help from others when teased more often

than those in groups o f all boys, F(2, 163) = 3.84, p < .05 and those in all girl groups also used

more withdrawal tactics when teased than those in all boy groups, F(2, 162) = 4.34, p < .05.

Surprisingly, those in all girls groups and groups with both boys and girls used more aggression

and withdrawal to regulate their emotions than those in all boys groups, F(2, 162) = 4.52, p < .05

yet all girl groups contemplated their feelings more often than those in groups of all boys and both

boys and girls, F(2, 163) = 21.02, p < .05. When handling stressful situations, those in all boys

groups use more distraction strategies than those in all girls groups, F(2, 163) = 5.48, p < .05. On

a self-report measure o f emotional intelligence, those in groups of all boys are more flexible and

realistic than those in groups of all girls, F(2, 161) = 7.15, p < .05 but those in groups of both boys

and girls have higher overall emotional intelligence, F(2,161) = 4.16, p < .05 and are better able to

understand the feelings of others and have satisfying interpersonal relationships than those in

groups o f all girls, F(2,161) = 4.51, p < .05. Although this study did not include hypotheses about

possible sex differences, it was important to establish if there were significant sex differences in

this study. Parker and Asher (1989) found that females often have more satisfying relationships

than males, and these results do show some agreement with prior findings. Although there were

differences among the sexes on the various dependent variables, there were no significant


79

differences found in the areas o f attachment style, friendship group membership, or group status

which were the three major areas of interest in this study.

In order to determine the influence that ethnicity had on friendship groups Chi-Square

analyses were conducted with ethnicity and friendship groups as variables. A 2 x 4 Chi-Square

analysis revealed significant differences between ethnicities in whether they form single race or

mixed race groups. Subsequent post-hoc analyses ( 2 x 2 Chi-Square analyses) revealed that only

Caucasians and Hispanics formed single race groups, X (1, N=103) 3.23, p < .05. There was also

a relationship between ethnicity and gender. Chi-Square analyses revealed that all friendship

groups (female only, male only, and male/female) were more likely to contain a variety of

ethnicities than a single race/ethnicity, but that single race groupings were more common in

mixed sex groups (male/female groups), X2(l, N=164) 15.84, p < .05. There were no significant

differences between friendship groups in how often they contained mixed ethnicity/race. Results

are presented in Table 7 below.

Table 7Ethnicity/Race x Sex Friendship Groups___________________________________________________

Mixed Ethnicity/Race Single Ethnicity/Race

Female Only 10 3

Male Only 6 1

Male/Female 14 8

Note. Data represent the number of groups for each category; results are significant, p< .05

Although this study did not include hypotheses about possible ethnic/race differences, it

was important to establish if there were significant differences. ANOVA's were conducted to

determine if there were differences among the ethnicities/race on the various dependent measures.

On a measure of Friendship Quality, Hispanic children/adolescents scored higher on the Help and


80Guidance subscale than African-American children/adolescents, F(3, 188) = 2.88, p< .05 and on

a self-report measure of emotional intelligence and both Hispanic and Caucasian students scored

higher on the Interpersonal Intelligence subscale than African-American students, F(3, 194) =

3.99, p< .05. Although there were limited differences among the different ethnicities/races on the

various dependent variables, there were no significant differences found in the areas of

attachment style, friendship group membership, or group status which were the three major areas

of interest in this study.

Grade Differences

Although this study did not include hypotheses about possible differences between

children/adolescents in different grades, it was important to establish if there were significant

differences. MANOVA’s were conducted to determine if there were differences among the

grades on the various dependent measures. Differences between the grades occurred only

between fifth and eighth graders. On a measure assessing children’s/adolescents reactions to

teasing, fifth grade students scored higher than eighth graders on the Communication subscale,

F(3, 196) = 3.07, p> .05; on the Affect Regulation measure, fifth graders use more Interpersonal

Help Seeking than eighth graders, F(3, 192) = 5.56, p< .05; on the Coping Skills measure fifth

graders scored higher than the eighth graders on the Support Seeking subscale, F(3, 195) = 6.32,

p< .05; and on the self-report measure o f Emotional Intelligence, fifth graders scored higher than

the eighth graders on the Intrapersonal Intelligence subscale, F(3, 194) = 3.40, p< .05 and Overall

Emotional Intelligence, F(3, 194) = 6.33, p< .05. Although there were differences among grades

on the various dependent variables, there were no significant differences found in the areas of

attachment style, friendship group membership, group status, or the presence o f bullies and

victims which were the major areas of interest in this study.


Discussion

Individual Attachment Results

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that there is a relationship among

friendship group membership, attachment style, and the social competence of children and

adolescents. It has been well established that children’s and adolescent’s social networks directly

influence their behaviors, ideals, and emotional development (Grotpeter & Crick, 1996;

Phillipsen, 1999). In addition, the friendships that children and adolescents form are crucial to the

development of their self-image and social skills and often impacts school performance (Schwartz

et al., 2000). Of significant interest in this research was the relationship between attachment

style, friendship group membership, group status (central or peripheral), bully-victimization

status, and performance on measures assessing friendship quality, emotional intelligence, coping

skills, and affect regulation.

The general impact of attachment style on students’ performances on the various measures

in this study was obtained by analyzing each student separately and not as a member of a group.

The results indicate that in relation to other attachment styles, those children and adolescents who

have a fearful attachment style performed significantly different on the various measures, most

often worse than those with other attachment styles.

On a measure of Friendship Quality fearful children and adolescents perceived their

friendships to be lower in companionship, validation and caring, and the ability to resolve

conflicts than children and adolescents who were securely attached. The fearful also felt that their

friendships had less opportunity to resolve conflict than the dismissive felt about their friendships.

It was expected that secures would have higher scores than the fearful and dismissive on five of

the six subscales of the Friendship Quality questionnaire (this excludes conflict and betrayal


82

which would be lower). It was also thought that those with a preoccupied attachment style

would have scores that fell in between the securely attached and the fearful and dismissive.

Understanding the characteristics that differentiate these four attachment styles is important in

determining why these differences occurred. The attachment style classification system used in

this study was that of Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991). Securely attached children and

adolescents believe that they are worthy o f love and support and view others as trustworthy and

available. In contrast, the fearful feel unworthy of love and support and view others as unreliable

and rejecting. It is no surprise, therefore, that the fearful would score lower on a measure of

friendship quality, especially on the subscales of companionship and recreation, validation and

caring, and conflict resolution than the securely attached. These subscales assess the degree to

which children and adolescents spend time with peers, care about them, and are capable of

appropriately resolving conflicts with them. Since the fearful are fearful o f intimacy and socially

avoidant, it is less likely that they would spend time with peers or have relationships with peers

where they were intimate and able to resolve conflicts easily.

Of interest is the finding that the dismissive had higher scores on the Conflict Resolution

subscale than the fearful. Dismissive children and adolescents have a positive self-image but a

negative model of other people, causing them to dismiss intimacy and consider others to be

untrustworthy and rejecting. In addition, the dismissive tend to deny the necessity o f intimacy

needs and rely on their independence. As a result, it is possible that the dismissive scored higher

than the fearful because they are not as concerned by conflicts within peer relationships. In

addition, since the fearful often expect rejection from others, they may be more likely to perceive

certain interactions as hostile than would the dismissive. As expected, the preoccupied did not

score significantly different than the other styles and obtained mean scores that fell in between the


83

securely attached and the fearful and dismissive.

The fearful appear to utilize more withdrawal techniques when being teased by peers than

do the secure and dismissive. This is not surprising considering the tendency for the fearful to be

socially avoidant. The dismissive utilize more denial techniques than the preoccupied, also not

surprising when one considers the ways in which these two styles differ in their relationships with

others. Dismissive individuals avoid close relationships with others and rely on themselves to

handle situations, often seeming “cold” to others (Horowitz, Rosenberg, and Bartholomew, 1993).

Therefore, it makes sense that these individuals would react to teasing with the following

statement, “It doesn’t bother me” (taken from the teasing questionnaire) more often than

preoccupied individuals who are very concerned with social acceptance. Similarly, as measured

by an Affect Regulation scale, the fearful use more aggression and withdrawal than secures when

trying to regulate their emotions and they are less likely to engage in interpersonal activity to

regulate their emotions than the secure, preoccupied, and dismissive. These findings indicate that

the fearful are more likely to use withdrawal strategies to handle situations in their lives,

strategies that most likely hinder them from overcoming the difficulties they are having. It seems

that the fearful do not turn to others for assistance and most likely isolate themselves in order to

cope with certain situations. This is not surprising based on the characteristics of the fearful

(socially avoidant and fearful of intimacy), but it does point to how these children and adolescents

are often unable to utilize more adaptive strategies.

Surprisingly, there were no differences between the attachment styles on overall emotional

intelligence. However, the preoccupied had higher Intrapersonal Intelligence than the fearful and

the fearful and preoccupied had higher Stress Management scores than the secure. The

Intrapersonal Intelligence subscale assesses the degree to which children can understand their


84emotions and communicate their feelings (Bar-On and Parker, 2003), indicating that

preoccupied children and adolescents are more capable o f doing this than the fearful. Those who

are classified as preoccupied tend to gain self-acceptance through group acceptance. Therefore, it

is possible that the preoccupied are able to express their feelings and needs more often than the

fearful in order to gain the acceptance o f the peer group. In fact, it is likely that the fearful are

unlikely to express their feelings and needs due to their beliefs that others are untrustworthy and

rejecting.

O f interest is the finding that the fearful and preoccupied had higher Stress Management

scores than the secure. Individuals with high stress management scores are able to work under

pressure and respond to stress without an emotional outburst (Bar-On and Parker, 2003).

Although the difference between the preoccupied and secure appears counter-intuitive when one

considers the well known emotionality of the preoccupied, research on emotion regulation

indicates that those children and adolescents who experience more negative emotions find it

necessary to develop a skill-set that enables them to control those emotions if they desire peer

acceptance (Contreras et. al., 2000). Therefore, the preoccupied have most likely developed the

ability to respond to stress without expressing too much emotion so that they can gain social

acceptance. Similarly, the finding that the fearful have better developed Stress Management skills

than the secure is related to this study’s finding that the fearful withdraw when teased by others.

Although it can be assumed that higher stress management scores indicates a better ability to

handle stress, for the fearful it is possible that it signifies the lack of an “emotional outburst”

when confronted by a stressful situation since they are more likely to withdraw.

Friendship Group Results

Friendship quality appears to be the area in which friendship group membership was


85significantly related to the social functioning o f children and adolescents. As expected,

securely attached children/adolescents who are friends with only other secures rated their

friendships as being higher in the areas of companionship, guidance, intimacy, and conflict

resolution than those secure and insecure children/adolescents who are friends with each other. It

is not surprising that securely attached children/adolescents in groups with other secures felt that

their friends were more likely to spend time with them, offer them assistance in time of need, be

trustworthy enough to reveal the intimate details of their lives, and have a bond strong enough to

withstand conflict than those secures and insecures who are in friendships with each other. Prior

research shows that securely attached children/adolescents are more likely to form responsive and

caring friendships than the insecurely attached and the results above from this study confirm that

area o f research (Kerns & Richardson, 2005). A similar study evaluating the friendships of

students based on their group acceptance illustrates this most clearly. Similar to the findings from

this current study, Phillipsen (1999) found that low-accepted dyads (both children were rated as

not being accepted by the entire peer group) had fewer positive interactions and more conflict

than high-accepted dyads (both children were accepted by the peer group).

O f more interest to the focus of this study was the result that children and adolescents in

those groups that contain both securely attached and insecurely attached children rated their

friendships as being higher in companionship, intimacy, and the ability to resolve conflict than

insecure children and adolescents who are only friends with other insecures. This was an

expected outcome of this study as it was believed that being involved in friendships that contain

securely attached children and adolescents has a mediating effect on the insecurely attached,

positively impacting their social skills and ability to form close friendships relative to those

insecurely attached children and adolescents who are friends with only insecurely attached


86children and adolescents. Research shows that securely attached children and adolescents are

able to form close, cooperative friendships with others whereas the insecurely attached are often

less competent socially (Dunn, 2004; Kerns & Richardson, 2005; Shulman et. al., 1994). Despite

the large amount of research focused on friendships o f the secure and insecure separately,

comparisons between secure only, secure-insecure, and insecure only friendships are not

common. Therefore, this study illustrates the possibility that the presence o f a securely attached

child and adolescent in the friendship may help the insecurely attached function more

appropriately in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, this study’s result that those friendship

groups that contain children/adolescents who are friends with both the securely and insecurely

attached believe their friends would spend time with them socially, were trustworthy enough to

tell their secrets to, and that they had a strong enough relationship to overcome conflicts within

the friendship than those insecurely attached children/adolescents who were friends with only

other insecures points to the benefits of these friendships. This also shows the necessity for

further research in this area as a way to help and assist insecurely attached children and

adolescents who are usually viewed as less able to form close, fulfilling relationships.

It was unexpected that there were no differences among groups on how validating they felt

their friends were or in the amount of conflict present in their friendships as the securely attached

were expected to be involved in friendships that were based on mutual affection and validation

where they would increase each other’s self-esteem by making them feel good about

accomplishments and support them in their endeavors as well as be less likely to argue and betray

one another than those friendships that involved the insecurely attached. Interestingly, in

comparison to Parker and Asher’s (1993) mean results for these subscales [Validation and Caring

(M=2.85), Conflict and Betrayal (M=1.04] it appears that the children and adolescents in this


87study had higher mean scores on these subscales [Validation and Caring (M=3.8), Conflict and

Betrayal (M=2.3)]. It is possible, therefore, that differences did not emerge within this sample as

they generally display these features within friendships more than other samples.

It was surprising that friendship group membership was not related to

children/adolescents’ Overall Emotional Intelligence scores. It has been suggested that the

securely attached are more likely to demonstrate prosocial behaviors than the insecurely attached,

making this negative finding difficult to evaluate. Barry and Wentzel (2006) identified social-

learning and observational learning theories as contributing to the prosocial behavior of children.

They found that children often behave prosocially when they have friends who do so. Despite the

influence of group membership on the other areas of functioning included in this study, it is

possible that emotional intelligence is not related to attachment style and group membership as it

may be by other factors related to friendship, specifically that of central and peripheral group

status which will be discussed more later. The one aspect o f emotional intelligence that was

influenced by friendship group membership was the Stress Management subscale where

insecurely attached children/adolescents who are friends with only other insecures were more able

to work under pressure and respond to stressful events without emotional outbursts than securely

attached children and adolescents who are only friends with other secures. It is quite possible that

those insecurely attached children/adolescents have learned to adjust to stress within the

classroom.

Prior research has illustrated that difficulties in the realm of affect regulation impact peer

relationships and that the insecurely attached have more problems in this areas than the securely

attached (Lopes, Salovey, Cote, & Beers, 2005; Rubin, Dwyer, Booth-LaForce, Kim, Burgess, &

Rose-Krasnor, 2004). However, this study’s finding that those in groups that contain only the


insecurely attached are better able to handle their emotions during times of stress refutes prior

findings. Although a cause and effect relationship can not be established, it is possible that the

ability o f these insecurely attached children and adolescents to form friendships has enabled them

to handle stress more adequately than is usually expected of the insecure. This finding is related

to the reactions that children/adolescents have when they are being teased by others. It was found

that insecurely attached children/adolescents who are friends with only other insecures are more

likely to withdraw when teased by their peers than are insecures and secures who are friends with

each other. For example, they report to be more likely to “walk away and sit by m yself’ or do

“nothing.” When one looks at the tendency for the friendship groups of only insecurely attached

children/adolescents to have high Stress Management scores (as measured by Emotional

Intelligence scale) where they do not react to stress emotionally, it makes sense that they are also

more likely to withdraw when teased. Surprisingly, there were no differences among friendship

groups for how often they went to one another for help or became aggressive. It is possible that

while members of friendship groups with only insecurely attached children are more likely to

withdraw when teased, they are also able to go to their friends for help or become aggressive just

as much as those in other friendship groups. This finding indicates that despite their withdrawal

tendencies, those insecurely attached who are friends with other insecures still attempt support-

seeking behaviors when in need.

It was unexpected that there were no differences among friendship groups in the areas of

coping skills and affect regulation. Prior research on coping skills points to an interesting feature

o f coping skills and may explain why no differences were found in this study. Kemp and

Neimeyer (1999) believe that those with fearful and dismissive attachment styles may not differ

from secures in the area of coping skills because they have become adept at suppressing their


89

reactions to stress, causing them to either not experience or not report their avoidant and

distancing reactions to stress. In addition, prior findings that attachment style may only influence

coping skills when stress levels are high, such as after a traumatic incident, and not when they are

low, such as during everyday stressors (Simpson, Rholes, and Nelligan, 1992), supports the lack

o f differences among friendship groups in this study. The lack of differences in affect regulation

could also be based on a similar trend in this area. For instance, it is possible that attachment

style impacts affect regulation only when individuals are faced with intensely negative emotions

on a chronic basis. Therefore, children and adolescents in different friendship groups may not

differ in how they regulate their emotions unless they are under severe stress. Another possibility

is the finding that children and adolescents who experience more negative emotions find it

necessary to develop a skill-set that enables them to control those emotions if they desire peer

acceptance (Contreras et. al., 2000), possibly accounting for the lack of emotion regulation results

in this study. More related to this study’s hypotheses, and discussed earlier in relation to

emotional intelligence, is the possibility that their ability to become members o f friendship groups

may have increased their ability to regulate their emotions. In fact, the individual attachment

results presented previously revealed differences between the four attachment styles that were not

present when friendship group membership was analyzed, indicating the positive benefits of being

involved in a friendship group. For instance, the secure, preoccupied, and dismissive all found

that participating in interpersonal activities helped them regulate their emotions when

overwhelmed whereas the fearful did not. However, when children and adolescents are members

of friendship groups these differences do not emerge, illustrating how when involved in a

friendship group the fearful are able to regulate their emotions by seeking support from others.


90Impact o f Central or Peripheral Group Membership

O f interest in this study other than the impact that friendship group membership has on

children and adolescents is the influence of central or peripheral group status. Research indicates

that whether children and adolescents are central or peripheral members o f groups is related to

various aspects o f their functioning within the friendship group (Bagwell et. al., 2000) as well as

to aggressive and prosocial behaviors (Mouttapa et al., 2004). However, the issue of centrality in

friendship groups has not been extensively studied in other areas of functioning and this research

addresses this gap. Although this current study did not find differences among the insecure

subtypes, it was revealed that central members o f groups are more likely to be securely attached

and peripheral members of groups are more likely to be insecurely attached. This is an interesting

finding as it points to the impact that attachment style has on the functioning of children and

adolescents in the area o f friendships. Securely attached children and adolescents are more likely

to have central roles in friendships than are the insecurely attached. This means that these

children and adolescents are liked by most members of their friendship group and have more of

an impact on the functioning of the group, such as deciding what activities to engage in, who to

let into the friendship group, and how the friendship group relates to those not in the group. It is

not surprising that securely attached children and adolescents undertake this role in friendships as

the securely attached are more often leaders and are more comfortable interpersonally (Engels,

Finkenauer, Meeus, & Dekovic 2001). In contrast, peripheral members of groups are often on the

outskirts of the group, participating minimally in activities, having fewer close friendships within

the group, and having less of an impact on the functioning of the group. Peripheral members

often have less association with their socially competent peers and this can lead to social and

behavioral maladjustment (Bagwell et. al., 2000). It was expected that insecurely attached


91children and adolescents would be peripheral members of friendship groups since it has been

found that the insecurely attached are less likely to take the leadership role because they avoid

social interaction, have lower self esteem, and are less competent socially (Kerns & Richardson,

2005; Shulman et. al., 1994).

This study revealed an interaction between attachment style and central or peripheral

group status in the areas of friendship quality and reactions to teasing. As reported before, the

fearful were most likely to have difficulty in various areas, such as friendship quality, reactions to

teasing, affect regulation, and emotional intelligence. In terms of attachment style, in comparison

to other peripheral members of friendship groups, those who have a fearful attachment style

appear less likely to engage in beneficial and productive friendships. This study revealed that

fearful peripheral members believe that their friends are not as available to spend time with them

as secure peripherals or dismissive peripherals, less likely to make them feel good about

themselves and support them in their endeavors as friends o f secure peripherals and preoccupied

peripherals, are not there to help them when in need as are friends of secure peripherals, and do

not have the strong bond to withstand conflicts that the secure peripherals and dismissive

peripherals have with their friends. When fearful peripheral members are compared to fearful

central members, the fearful peripheral members rated their friendships as lower in the same four

areas o f friendship quality mentioned above than the fearful central members o f friendship

groups. This finding illustrates the importance of friendship group status on how

children/adolescents interact within friendship groups.

Fearful peripheral members of friendship groups are also less likely to turn to others when

teased by peers than are dismissive peripherals and fearful centrals. When friendship group

membership status is not taken into account, the fearful do not differ from the other attachment


92styles in how often they turn to others when in need. However, when central or peripheral

group status is taken into account this pattern changes and the fearful children and adolescents

who are peripheral members of groups feel unable to turn to others when they are teased by peers.

As seen with friendship quality, attachment status did not impact performance for central

members of friendship groups in how they react to teasing by peers, highlighting the importance

o f being a central member of a friendship group regardless of attachment style. Interestingly,

when the insecure subtypes were combined, there were no differences between all insecure

central and all insecure peripheral members in how they reacted to teasing, illustrating the unique

position of the fearful children and adolescents in relation to their friendships. Although research

has indicated that central and peripheral group membership are important factors in friendships

(Bagwell, et. al., 2000), attachment style appears to be overlooked. Therefore, this study points to

the issue of attachment style as an important element to the functioning o f friendship groups.

More specifically, since this study revealed that fearful children/adolescents who are peripheral

members of friendship groups have less fulfilling friendships than most others (in terms of both

attachment style and group status), these children/adolescents may require more help with

interpersonal functioning than do others. The numerous findings in this study regarding those

with a fearful attachment style accentuate the differences that exist between the various subtypes

o f insecure attachment. Much of the attachment research available focuses primarily on

distinctions between the secure and insecure (Kerns & Richardson, 2005; Lieberman et al., 1999).

When insecure attachment is investigated, those who are classified as having a preoccupied

attachment are often o f most interest. Therefore, this study’s many findings for those with a

fearful attachment style indicate that there are important differences among those with

preoccupied, fearful, and dismissive attachments.


93Interestingly, in the area of friendship quality it appears that attachment style did not

impact performance for central members of friendship groups, possibly indicating that the

differences between attachment styles is less dramatic when children/adolescents are central

members o f friendship groups, highlighting the difference it makes between being a central,

leading member of a friendship group versus a peripheral, less involved member.

Although there was no interaction between attachment style and central or peripheral

group status for any insecure subtypes other than the fearful on the various measures, when the

insecure subtypes were combined, insecures who were central members of friendship groups had

higher overall emotional intelligence scores than insecures who were peripheral members of

friendship groups. Once again this points to the importance of friendship group status (central or

peripheral) in how children and adolescents interact with peers. Although a cause and effect

relationship can not be established, it is still important to note that those insecurely attached

children who are central members o f groups are more likely to understand their emotions and

communicate their needs to others, have satisfying relationships and empathy for others, be

flexible and realistic, and work well under pressure than those insecures who are peripheral

members o f friendship groups. Jean Rich Harris’ (1998; 2006) work on child development offers

an interesting addition to this study’s findings regarding central and peripheral group

membership. Harris (1998) emphasizes the importance of friendships in children’s’ personality

development over both the parental environment and genetic influences. Similar to findings in

this study, Harris (1998) argues that peer group status (high or low) has effects on children’s

personality. Interestingly, she believes that children are influenced by their social environment

(the peer group) more than their family because the family environment teaches children how to

interact only with family members. In order to illustrate this more clearly, Harris (2006) points to


94differences in personalities of identical twins who are raised in the same household. Harris

(2006) argues that within the peer group children learn what it means to be a member of a group

and they absorb the culture and behaviors of that group. In addition, Harris (2006) believes that

knowledge of the “se lf’ develops when children measure themselves against peers, both rivals

and friends. These works by Harris demonstrate how important peer group membership is to

overall development, something also clearly illustrated in this study.

It was surprising that there were no differences among insecure central or peripheral

members on affect regulation or coping skills. However, the consistent lack of findings in these

two areas of functioning could be accounted for in one of three ways. First, as has been

established before, unless children and adolescents are faced with high levels of stress or intensely

negative emotions, differences may not appear. Second, the fact that these children and

adolescents are members of friendship groups, whether central or peripheral, reduces the

differences expected to emerge. Third, and a limitation of this study, is that these two measures,

the affect regulation measure in particular, do not seem to differentiate among the groups

represented in this sample.


The issue of peer abuse (bullying) has become a topic o f much discussion. The victims of

peer abuse have reacted to their victimization in violent ways such as school shootings, and

victims are more likely to be depressed, anxious, withdrawn, and socially inept than bullies and

non-involved peers (Veenstra, Lindenberg, DeWinter, Oldehinkel, Verhulst, & Ormel 2005). As

the perpetrators of this abuse, the bullies are more likely to be aggressive, hostile, impulsive,

antisocial, drug abusers, and uncooperative in social contexts (Orpinas & Horne, 2006: Veenstra

et. ah, 2005). This paper’s hypotheses that attachment style, friendship group membership, and


95friendship group status all impact friendship and the various skills children and adolescents

possess in order to navigate through social relationships can also be applied to the area of peer

abuse.

Attachment Style

The impact of attachment style on peer abuse has been extensively studied, with most

research pointing to insecure children as the likely victims of the abuse (Bernstein & Watson,

1997; Orpinas & Home, 2006). Although victimization was infrequent in this study, it was much

more prevalent among insecurely attached children and adolescents (33%) than the securely

attached (7%). The presence o f bullies was also infrequent in this study, but once again it was

more prevalent among the insecurely attached (20%) than the securely attached (13%).

Although this study did not confirm the hypothesis that victims and bullies were more

likely to have particular insecure attachment subtypes, it is possible that if both the number of

bullies and victims and the number of students categorized in each insecure subtype were not so

small (only 16% of the sample was classified as victims and 17% as bullies; 16% fearful, 14%

preoccupied, and 14% dismissive), more differences would have emerged between the subtypes.

An interesting finding in this study related to attachment style was that fearful children and

adolescents who were classified as bullies believed that their friends were available to spend time

with them more than fearful victims and fearful non-involved peers felt their friends to be

available. As seen before, children and adolescents classified as fearful were less likely to find

their friends available to them as were the securely attached. The fact that fearful bullies feel

their friends are more available to them points to an interesting feature of the friendships of

fearful bullies that differs from the friendships o f other fearful children and adolescents.

Although the fearful are fearful of intimacy and socially avoidant, knowledge o f the friendships of


96bullies makes this finding more understandable. Although the data in this study did not support

prior findings that bullies were more likely to form friendships with other bullies than with other

children and adolescents, it is likely that the friendships they do form encourage the use of

bullying tactics. Grotpeter and Crick (1996) found that children were not concerned by the

aggressive tendencies of their friends, as long as the aggression was directed towards peers

outside of the friendship group. Similar to the findings of this present study for fearful bullies,

Grotpeter and Crick (1996) also found that aggressive children often value the companionship of

friends more than the intimacy. Given the fact that the fearful (regardless o f whether they are

victims, bullies, or non-involved peers) are less social and more fearful o f intimacy, it makes

sense that those who are bullies would be more likely to value the companionship of their friends

than those fearful who are victims or non-involved peers. Moreover, since the fearful bullies feel

comfortable expressing their aggressive tendencies within their friendships, it makes it easier for

them to become involved in social interactions than it is for other fearful children and adolescents

who are less comfortable with interpersonal relationships.

Performance on Dependent Measures

It was hypothesized that bullies and victims would have lower functioning in the areas of

friendship quality, emotional intelligence, affect regulation, coping skills, and reactions to teasing

than would those peers who were not classified as either bullies or victims (referred to as non-

involved peers). It was also believed that victims would perform worse than bullies in these

areas. These hypotheses were partly confirmed in this study. It was found that victims rated their

friends as less likely to spend time with them than the non-involved peers rated their friends, that

victims responded to teasing by peers with withdrawal more often than their non-involved peers

and bullies, and victims used more avoidance tactics to respond to stress than bullies. These


findings are not surprising as research has shown that victims are often less involved in

friendship groups and when they are, they are often friends with other victimized or rejected

children and adolescents, making it less probable that they would have fulfilling friendships that

help them develop social skills (Bagwell, et. ah, 2000; Buhs and Ladd, 2001). It was also

established that due to perpetual maltreatment by peers, victims often withdraw from social

interactions in order to cope with and avoid further victimization and that their tendency to

socialize with other low status children and adolescents hinders them from developing social

competencies (Bagwell, et. al., 2000; Buhs & Ladd, 2001). Therefore, it is not a surprise that

victims would feel socially isolated from friends and withdraw when confronted by stress.

Bullies believed that their friendships contained more conflict and betrayal than the

friendships of their non-involved peers, they responded to teasing with more aggression than non-

involved peers and victims, and responded to difficult emotions by using aggression and

withdrawal (aggression and withdrawal is one subscale on the affect regulation measure) more

often than non-involved peers. These findings also confirm prior research which shows that

bullies are obviously more aggressive than others and will respond to various situations with

aggression (Veenstra, et. al., 2005). As expected, the friendships of bullies would be

characterized as containing more conflict. It has been suggested that while aggressive children

may not be the most popular students, they are able to form friendships, especially with other

aggressive children, resulting in what some term coercive clusters (Cairns, et. al., 1988; Ray, et.

al., 1997). As stated before, although this study did not find that bullies formed friendship groups

with only other bullies, it is likely that they are able to form friendships with other children and

adolescents not classified as bullies who encourage the bullies’ use of aggression to obtain their

needs, perpetuating their use of bullying tactics because they view it as socially acceptable.


98Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, Ruan, Simpson-Morton, and Scheidt (2001) found that many bullies

find that they are able to make friends relatively easily, making it easier for them to feel that their

actions are acceptable.

Surprisingly there were no differences between victims, bullies, and non-involved peers in

the other aspects of friendship quality. Although research has shown that the friendships of

bullies and victims are different from the friendships of non-involved peers, the results of this

study indicate that there are other factors involved in the perceived friendship quality of bullies

and victims other than their victim or bully classification, such as central and peripheral group

status which will be discussed further. The limited findings in the areas of coping skills and

affect regulation was a surprise considering the results o f prior research that points to differences

in these areas. An interesting research finding by Hoover, Oliver, and Hazier (1992) indicated

that while a majority (over 75%) o f their sample o f middle and high school students reported

being bullied, less than 15% of them believed that they were impacted socially, academically, or

emotionally by these incidents. It was proposed by Kochenderfer-Ladd and Skinner (2002) that if

children and adolescents have adequate coping skills, the victimization would be less detrimental

to their well-being. Due to the lack of significant differences between bullies, victims, and non-

involved peers in the area of coping skills and affect regulation, it is possible that these students

have been able to develop more adequate skills in these areas than expected.

Impact o f Friendship Group Membership and Group Status

This research focused on the impact that attachment style has on friendships overall in

addition to the friendships of victims and bullies. Interestingly, victims and bullies were more

likely to be in friendship groups that contained both the securely and insecurely attached and were

also more likely to be members of friendship groups than not. When the friendship groups of


99bullies and victims were investigated, the main differences occurred in the area o f overall

emotional intelligence. Bullies who were not members of a friendship group had overall lower

emotional intelligence than bullies, victims, and non-involved peers who were members of a

friendship group. This finding confirms the hypothesis that being a member of a friendship group

is related to how children and adolescents interact socially. Although a cause and effect

relationship can not be established, the fact that bullies who are in friendship groups have higher

emotional intelligence scores than those bullies who are not, points to the importance of

friendships. In fact, research shows has shown that friendships often enable children and

adolescents to compensate for any deficits in social and emotional skills that they have (Schwartz,

et al., 2000).

Interestingly, victims who are members of friendship groups that contained only the

insecurely attached have lower emotional intelligence scores than those victims in friendship

groups that contained both the securely and insecurely attached and that bullies involved in

friendship groups that contained only the insecurely attached use more aggression and withdrawal

to handle difficult emotions than do bullies, victims, and non-involved peers who are involved in

other types of friendship groups (those with only the securely attached or those with both the

securely and insecurely attached). These findings also point to the benefit of having friendships,

particularly friendships with securely attached children. It has been established that the presence

o f friendships often decreases the likelihood of victims’ maladjustment, (Ladd et al., 1997).

Although harsh home environments have predicted victimization in grammar school, some have

found that these environments do not predict victimization when children report having many

friends (Rubin et al., 2004). It was hypothesized that forming friendships with secure peers, who

are historically better adjusted, will influence how insecurely attached children function socially.


100Although a cause and effect relationship can not be established, these findings indicate that

forming friendships with the securely attached can also impact how victims and bullies function

socially. Therefore, while friendship itself has an impact on victims and bullies, who they form

friendships with is of even more importance.

Results of this study illustrate the importance of friendship group status, showing that

being either a central or peripheral member of a group is related to friendship quality, emotional

intelligence, and how one reacts to teasing. Although not statistically significant, it is interesting

that 63% of bullies in this study were central members of friendship groups, 37% of bullies were

peripheral members, 36% of victims were central members, and 64% of victims were peripheral

members of friendship groups. The fact that a higher percentage of victims were peripheral

members o f groups illustrates the impact that being a victim has on children and adolescents,

because even when they are members o f groups they are on the periphery which minimizes their

exposure to the group, their impact on the group’s functioning, and participation in group

activities. Hence, as peripheral members of groups, victims do not reap the same rewards of the

friendship as would those who are central members. In contrast, bullies are able to become

central members of their groups more often, possibly allowing them to feel comfortable with their

bullying activities, making them less amenable to change. This finding is related to the other

findings from this study that bullies are often more interested in the companionship that

friendships provide so that they can form “coercive clusters” that enable them to feel good about

their aggressive activities (Cairns, et. al., 1988; Ray, et. al., 1997).

When the friendship group status of victims and bullies was investigated victims who

were peripheral members of friendship groups felt that their friends were less available to spend

time with them than bullies who were peripheral members felt their friends to be. Interestingly,


101central victims felt that their friends were there more often to offer them assistance when in

need than peripheral victims felt about their friends. Central bullies believed that their friends

were not as available to offer them support when in need as central victims’ friends. These

findings illustrate how friendship group status significantly impacts bullies and victims. Although

overall friendship group status results (without attachment style as a second factor) indicate

differences between central and peripheral members for how available their friends are to spend

time with, when the friendships of bullies and victims are investigated peripheral and central

status impacts both how available their friends are to spend time with as well as how available

they are to offer support and assistance.

In the area of emotional intelligence, victims who are peripheral members o f friendship

groups are less able to understand their emotions and communicate their needs to others, have less

fulfilling relationships, are less able to empathize with others, are less realistic and flexible when

managing change, and have lower overall emotional intelligence than victims who are central

members of friendship groups. As discussed before, results o f this study show that friendship

group status results (central or peripheral) impacts overall emotional intelligence. However,

when the friendship group status of victims is addressed, the issue of friendship group status

becomes even more important. These findings illustrate how not only is it important for victims

to be in a friendship group, but also that they are a central member of that group in order to

receive the full advantages of being in that friendship group. Research has indicated that having a

best friend buffers victims from many of the negative outcomes of victimization (Hodges et al.,

1999; Kochenderfer-Tadd & Skinner, 2002). Others have emphasized the importance of having

friends that will protect the victim from bullies and who care about their friends’ emotional well

being (Bollmer, Milich, Harris, & Maras, 2005). Although this study did not address the


102particular attributes of friendship cited above, the finding that being a central member of a

group is more beneficial to victimized children and adolescents than being a peripheral member

identifies group status as another type of buffer present in friendships. Interestingly, there were

no differences among central bullies and peripheral bullies, possibly indicating that friendship

group status does not have as much of an influence on bullies as it does on victims in certain areas

o f functioning. This proposition makes sense in light of prior research indicating that bullies are

able to make friends, become central members of groups, and participate in bullying activities

with their friends (Mouttapa et al., 2004). Therefore, whether or not they are a central member of

that group may not be as much of a concern for them since they only value the ability to be

involved in the friendship, and hence the ability to be involved in bullying tactics.

Loners

A small portion of this study investigated the functioning of “loners,” those children and

adolescents who have no friends in their class. Approximately 17% of the children and

adolescents in this study were classified as loners (33 out of 195) and it was found that loners are

more likely to have a preoccupied attachment style and more likely to be the victims of peer abuse

than the bullies. These results confirm prior research which suggests that children and

adolescent’s who are rejected by peers are often but not always the victims of peer abuse (Ladd,

Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1997). Those who are rejected by their peers often have difficulty

initiating and maintaining any contact with peers, have poor academic performance, display

emotional maladjustment, and have reduced participation in classroom activities (Buhs & Ladd,

2001). Surprisingly, those classified as loners in this study did not differ much from those who

are members of friendship groups except for their tendency to contemplate their feelings when

confronted by difficult emotions and use distracting strategies to cope with stress. It is possible


103

that if this sample had included more loners there would have been more significant

differences.

Limitations o f Current Study

One of the major limitations for this study was the relatively small sample used. Since

this study investigated the impact of attachment style on friendship groups, it was necessary that a

large number of children and adolescents represent each insecure subtype. However, the sample

in this study only contained eighty-seven students who could be classified as one o f the insecure

subtypes (28 preoccupied, 32 fearful, and 27 dismissive) versus the one hundred and eight

students classified as being securely attached. It is possible, therefore, that more significant

differences would have been obtained if a larger sample had been used. Another limitation is that

those students who were not given permission by their parents to participate in this study were

excluded from the friendship group nomination procedure. Therefore, the friendship groups that

were formed may not accurately reflect the friendships of those children and adolescents in this

study. In addition, it seems that Caucasian students were overrepresented in this study. Whereas

Caucasians represented 17% of the school population, 36% participated in this study. It has been

suggested that cultural beliefs about the importance o f friendship groups impacts the extent to

which African- Americans were members o f defined groups. Urberg and colleagues (1995), for

instance, found that African-Americans were not as likely to be members of school friendship

groups as were Caucasian students, possibly suggesting a higher involvement in neighborhood

friendship groups as opposed to school groups. Therefore, since this sample contained a limited

percentage of African-American students (10%) it is possible that it does not reflect an accurate

representation of their friendship groups.

The affect regulation method used in this study failed to detect differences among the


104different friendship groups. This measure was a revised version of a one hundred and five

item adult affect regulation scale and was created specifically for this study. This is the first time

this measure was used in a research project and was therefore not subject to reliability and

validity analyses. The original scale was shortened to include the thirty-nine items most

appropriate for use with children and adolescents. The factor analysis used to create the subscales

resulted in five factors: Aggression and Withdrawal, Interpersonal Activities, Contemplation of

Feelings, Solitary Activities, and Help Seeking Behavior. The first factor, aggression and

withdrawal, contained items that assessed how often children and adolescents either withdrew or

engaged in physical fights when anxious or upset. These two behaviors, aggression and

withdrawal, are two very different ways to respond to anxiety and should not have been included

in the same subscale. The other subscales, however, contained items that were appropriately

grouped together. This measure was used because it was one o f only a few self-report measures

available. Originally, the Emotion Regulation Checklist created by Shields and Cicchetti (1997)

was chosen as the affect regulation measure to be included in this study. However, this is a

teacher-report measure and was changed when concerns were raised by school administrators

about the time needed for teachers to complete a survey for each student in the study. In the

future the measure used in this study would not be recommended without further evaluation o f its

reliability and validity.

The attachment scale used in this study was based on Bartholomew and Horowitz’s (1991)

Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) which assesses four adult attachment categories. The

Adolescent Relationship Questionnaire (Scharfe, 1999) is a revised version of the RQ for

adolescents. This version uses the same four paragraph model as the RQ with minor changes to

the language in order to make it more appropriate for use with children and adolescents. This


105attachment style measure is being used less in attachment research than it has in the past. One

of the other attachment measures used in this study, the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-

IPPA (Greenberg and Armsden, 1987) is indicative of the trend in attachment towards looking at

areas such as the degree of trust, communication, and alienation that are present in relationships

instead o f relying specifically on attachment categories. The four category model was chosen for

this study so that children and adolescents could be placed into one o f four categories when the

data was analyzed. It is possible that had the IPPA been used to separate children and adolescents

into groups based on their scores for the above mentioned subscales (such as high trust vs. low

trust, high communication vs. low communication, and high alienation vs. low alienation),

different results would have been obtained.

One aspect of this research that was not carried out to the researchers’ satisfaction was the

method of classifying children and adolescents as bullies and victims. Due to school concerns,

students were not allowed to identify which children were bullies and which were victims.

Although the teacher reports that were used may have been reliable for in-class peer abuse, those

children and adolescents who participated in peer abuse outside of class may not have been

identified.

Directions fo r Future Research

Children and adolescents in this study classified as having a fearful attachment style

consistently performed poorly in certain areas o f friendship quality, affect regulation, and

emotional intelligence. O f more interest, when fearful children and adolescents were peripheral

members of groups, their scores on these measures were worse than both those fearful who were

central members of groups and those peripheral members o f groups who were classified as a

different insecure attachment style. A future direction of research would be to investigate the


parent and peer relationships o f the fearful and assess how their friendships and possible

overall social and emotional adjustment may be different from those with other attachment styles.

One o f the findings in this study pointed to fearful bullies as having higher companionship and

recreation scores on the friendship quality measure than other fearful children and adolescents.

Further exploration of what these friendships are like is warranted. Do these friendships foster

aggressive behaviors, making it easier for these children and adolescents to feel comfortable with

their actions? Do they try to stop them from engaging in these behaviors and what are the

consequences of doing so? Do they ignore their friends’ bullying tactics, enabling them to

continue these actions? The family lives of these children and adolescents are o f interest as well.

Whether their parents are abusive or neglectful would be an important factor in understanding

how these children and adolescents become bullies. Prior research focusing on the families of

aggressive youth often generalize findings based on levels of intrusiveness, supportiveness, and

aggressiveness (East, 1991; Lyons-Ruth, 1996; Orpinas & Horne, 2006). When attachment is

considered it does focus on the family relationships of the insecure-avoidant. However, since this

study utilized Bartholomew and Horowitz’s (1991) attachment style classification system that

separates the insecure-avoidant style into fearful and dismissive, the prior findings may not be as

relevant. Since this study found significant differences for fearful bullies, future research on this

particular subset of bullies is warranted. It is possible that fearful children and adolescents who

are bullies need more assistance from the school system. In addition, they may require individual

or family counseling, not only to combat the bullying actions but also for them to see the value of

an adequate and caring support system.

The issue of affect regulation and its relationship to friendship warrants further study.

Results of this study indicate that the insecurely attached had higher stress management scores (as


107measured by the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory), indicating that they are able to work

well under pressure and respond to stress without “emotional outbursts.” It is possible that the

insecurely attached are emotionally under controlled, limiting their ability to communicate with

peers and receive assistance when under stress. Although the affect regulation measure used in

this study did not find significant differences among friendship groups, it is possible that

differences would have emerged if another affect regulation measure was used. It is possible that

insecurely attached children need more assistance in identifying and understanding their emotions

as well as assistance in coping with them.

The friendship group status (central or peripheral status) of bullies and victims was

discussed in this research. Based on the results o f this study, being central or peripheral members

of groups is related to the emotional intelligence of bullies and victims. For instance, in the area

o f emotional intelligence central victims had higher scores on all of the subscales than the

peripheral victims, indicating the relationship between group status and emotional intelligence.

However, a cause and effect relationship could not be established through this research. It would

be interesting to determine if the central victims already had higher emotional intelligence which

enabled them to become central members o f groups. Future study could also help create school

wide assistance programs that would offer peripheral victims (and other children as well) more

support in an effort to help them become involved in more fulfilling friendships and help them

cope with the stressors they confront in school. There are many intervention programs already in

existence that aim to reduce the incidences of bullying. Some interventions focus on assisting

children in the development of certain skills such as prosocial behavior, responsibility, and

empathy (Menesini, Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003). Others focus on school-wide counseling

programs for both bullies and victims that include peer support, parental intervention, and


108endorsement of a school-wide anti-bullying position (Orpinas & Horne, 2006). Based on the

findings of this study, programs that include assisting children in the development o f prosocial

behaviors and empathy, the implementation of anti-bullying policies, and the use of counseling

programs would be most beneficial. Understanding and utilizing the benefits of friendship would

also assist program development. Intervention programs that assist children in making and

keeping friends would be of great value to all children and adolescents, especially those who are

the victims and perpetrators of peer abuse. In addition, programs that focus on teaching children

and adolescents how to be assertive rather than aggressive when solving problems and expressing

themselves could assist in the reduction of peer abuse.

There are personality characteristics present in children and adolescents that were not

addressed in this research and it is possible that these characteristics contributed to the findings of

this research. For instance, in the findings for victimized central and peripheral members of

groups that were discussed above, it is possible that personality traits such as temperament

impacted the results. It is possible that victimized children and adolescents who are less irritable

and display moderate amounts of internalizing (depression, low self-esteem) and/or externalizing

(fighting, temper tantrums) behaviors are more likely to become central members of groups than

those victims whose temperaments are more irritable and contain more internalizing and

externalizing behaviors. Personality characteristics such as temperament, ego strength,

neuroticism, self-esteem, self-control, resilience, and agreeableness (Dunn, 2004) could have

contributed to how the children and adolescents in this research performed on the various

measures. Research on loners (those who are rejected by peers) also investigates the personality

characteristics of these children and adolescents that may contribute to their loner status. An

understanding of the personality characteristics o f both those who are classified as loners and


109victims may also help in identifying warning signs for school violence. Whether these

children and adolescents display particular patterns of behavior, such as increases in withdrawal

and irritability, before they resort to violence would assist school counselors in identifying at risk

students. The family relationships of loners and the parenting styles of their parents are important

areas for future research. Whether parents actively assist their children with the formation and

maintenance of friendships (i.e.: driving them to classmates’ homes, allowing them to become

involved in after-school activities), or if they ignore this aspect of their children’s lives would be a

particularly informative avenue of research.

Conclusions

The literature review included in this study illustrates how it is well known that children

and adolescents benefit from forming fulfilling friendships. Overall findings indicate first, that

friendship group membership, specifically those groups based on attachment (secure only, secure-

insecure, and insecure only) is related to the quality of friendships that children and adolescents

form. This is not surprising considering that attachment style itself is based on the quality of

relationships to caregivers. Second, it appears that central or peripheral group status is related to

emotional intelligence, particularly for those children and adolescents who are insecurely

attached. It seems that when attachment and group status are taken into account, the insecurely

attached who are central members of groups have higher levels of emotional intelligence than

those who are peripheral members. This is an interesting finding and points to the importance

that group status has on insecure children and adolescents. Third, when investigating friendships

of bullies and victims, once again emotional intelligence stands out as a main difference. It seems

that group membership and group status are related to victims’ emotional intelligence scores

whereas only group membership is related to bullies’ emotional intelligence scores, indicative of


1 1 0

the differences between the friendships of bullies and victims. Fourth, the findings for those

children and adolescents who have a fearful attachment style indicate that these children and

adolescents seem to have fewer positive interactions with peers and lower scores in the various

areas of functioning assessed by this research.

This study illustrated the unique relationship that attachment style has to friendship.

Based on these findings, with whom children and adolescents form friendships is of great

importance. The differences in friendship quality between friendship groups containing secure

only, secure-insecure, and insecure only children and adolescents indicates that overall, secure

only groups had better quality friendships than secure-insecure and insecure only groups, but

more importantly, that secure-insecure groups had better quality friendships than insecure only

groups. Flence, the hypothesis that forming friendships with higher functioning children and

adolescents positively influences those who are lower functioning was confirmed. Although a

cause and effect relationship can not be established, it is still an important finding that indicates

the relationship between friendship and attachment. This also held true for victims of peer abuse.

When they were in friendship groups with only the insecurely attached, their emotional

intelligence scores were lower than those victims who were in groups with the securely and

insecurely attached.

Whether children and adolescents are central or peripheral members of their friendship

groups was also found to be highly important, especially for the insecurely attached. The main

effect occurred in the area of emotional intelligence, where insecurely attached central members

of groups had more abilities in this area than the insecurely attached peripheral members.

Therefore, whereas the friendship group itself may help insecurely attached children function

better socially, if they are able to become central members of groups, the benefits may increase.


I l lAgain, although a cause and effect relationship can not be established, it is an important

finding that warrants attention. Interestingly, there were no differences between the securely

attached central or peripheral members of groups which further show the importance that group

status has for the insecure. More specifically, since the secure children and adolescents’

emotional intelligence is not related to central or peripheral status it shows that by being securely

attached their emotional intelligence skills are intact and not influenced by their friendships. In

contrast, the insecurely attached emotional intelligence scores are related to their friendships and

may improve when they form friendships with higher functioning peers.

That group membership and group status are related to victims’ emotional intelligence

scores whereas only group membership was related to bullies’ emotional intelligence scores is an

interesting finding. Since victims of peer abuse are often limited in their abilities to function

socially, it is necessary to identify which aspects of friendship formation have the most impact on

victims in order to assist them. It seems that when victims are in friendship groups that contain

only the insecurely attached, their overall emotional intelligence scores are lower than those

victims who are in friendship groups with both the secure and insecure. Since it was found that

most victims of peer abuse are insecurely attached, it seems that they have more overall emotional

intelligence when they are friends with the securely attached. In addition, when the victims are

central members of groups their performance in the many areas of emotional intelligence is higher

than those victims who are peripheral members of groups. These two findings illustrate the

importance for victims to not only be members of certain friendship groups (secure-insecure vs.

insecure only) but also to be central members. The fact that emotional intelligence was one o f the

only differences between central and peripheral victims points to the importance of emotional

intelligence in how victims function socially. Future research may attempt to find out if the


victims’ higher emotional intelligence scores allow them to become central members of groups

or if these abilities increase as they become associated with higher functioning peers. It is

possible that having emotional intelligence, although not stopping them from being bullied by

others, does allow them to become central members of friendship groups, positively impacting

them in a variety of ways. These findings for victims become even more informative when they

are compared to the findings for bullies. It seems that when bullies are members o f any type of

friendship group (secure only, secure-insecure, or insecure only) they have higher emotional

intelligence scores than if they are not a member o f a group. Otherwise, there are no differences

between bullies based on their friendship group membership, unlike victims who benefited from

being in a secure-insecure group. This indicates that for bullies, friendship alone is related to

emotional intelligence. This is not surprising considering the findings that bullies often value the

companionship that friendship offers more than they value the more intimate aspects of

friendships, making the type o f friendship less o f an issue for bullies. In addition, there were no

differences in emotional intelligence between bullies who were central members o f group and

those who were peripheral members of groups, indicating that emotional intelligence is not as

related to the friendships of bullies as much as it is for victims. Of interest is the fact that bullies

who were not members o f friendship groups had lower emotional intelligence scores than victims

in groups. This shows that once bullies are members of any type of group, their emotional

intelligence scores increase whereas victims’ emotional intelligence scores tend to increase only

when they are members of particular groups and have a high status.

The results obtained in this study for those children and adolescents classified as having a

fearful attachment style are most interesting. Compared to other attachment styles, these children

and adolescents appear to have lower quality friendships and fewer appropriate methods to handle


113stress (i.e. aggression and withdrawal, distraction strategies). When their friendship group

status is taken into account, fearful peripheral members of groups have lower perceived friendship

quality than other peripheral members of varying attachment styles as well as lower friendship

quality than fearful central members o f groups, illustrating the unique position o f the fearful.

Interestingly, it seems that those children and adolescents who are classified as bullies and have a

fearful attachment style are able to form friendships that are available for companionship alone

more than other fearful children and adolescents and hence more likely to find friends that

encourage their bullying tactics. It was proposed that the ability for these children and

adolescents to form friendships that they felt good about enabled them to participate in bullying

activities more readily than if they were in friendships that did not allow this to happen. What is

it, therefore, about the friendship groups of fearful bullies that is different from the friendships of

others? Although this research can not answer that question, it is an interesting topic for future

study. Knowing why this interaction occurs would be helpful in school and clinical settings.

This research provided evidence linking attachment style, friendship group membership,

and group status to the areas of friendship quality and emotional intelligence. Although the

differences between groups that were expected in the areas of coping skills and affect regulation

did not occur, the findings related to friendship quality and emotional intelligence are most

interesting. Both friendship quality and emotional intelligence are related to interpersonal

exchanges, so it is not a surprise that research focused on friendships would find this relationship.

This study’s focus on attachment style, friendship groups, and group status added new pieces to

the extensive research on friendships. It is hoped that a greater understanding of how friendships

impact all children and adolescents will enable researchers, clinicians, and school administrators

to effectively help those students most in need.


114References

Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns o f attachment: A psychological study o f the strange situation. Oxford, England: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Allen, J., Marsh, P., McFarland, C., McElhaney, K., Land, D., Jodi, K., et al. (2002). Attachment and autonomy as predictors o f the development o f social skills and delinquency during midadolescence. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70(1), 56-66.

Armsden, G.C., & Greenberg, M.T. (1987). The Inventory of Parent and PeerAttachment: Relationships to well-being in adolescence. Journal o f Youth and Adolescence, 16(5), 427-454.

Bagwell, C. L, Coie, J.D., Terry, R.A., & Lochman, J.E. (2000). Peer clique participation and social status in preadolescence. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 46(2), 280-305.

Barret, P., Rapee, R., Dadds, M., & Ryan, S. (1996). Family enhancement of cognitive style in anxious and aggressive children. Journal o f Abnormal Child Psychology,24(2), 187-203.

Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L.M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology,61(2), 226-244.

Barry, C.M., & Wentzel, K.R. (2006). Friend influence on prosocial behavior: The role ofmotivational factors and friendship characteristics. Developmental Psychology, 42(1), 153-163.

Bar-On, R., & Parker, J. (2000). BarOn emotional quotient inventory: Youth version technical manual. Multi-Health Systems Inc.

Batsche, G., & Knoff, H. (1994). Bullies and their victims: Understanding a pervasive problem in the schools. School Psychology Review, 23(2), 165-174.

Bernstein, J., & Watson, M. (1997). Children who are targets o f bullying: A victim pattern. Journal o f Interpersonal Violence, 12(4), 483-498.

Bierman, K., Smoot, D., & Aumiller, K. (1993). Characteristics of aggressive-rejected,aggressive (nonrejected), and rejected (nonaggressive) boys. Child Development, 64(1), 139-151.

Bollmer, J.M., Milich, R., Harris, M., & Maras, M. (2005). A friend in need: The role offriendship quality as a protective factor in peer victimization and bullying. Journal o f Interpersonal Violence, 20(6), 701-712.


115

Bonanno, G., Wortman, C., Lehman, D., Tweed, R., Haring, M., Sonnega, J., et al.(2002). Resilience to loss and chronic grief: A prospective study from preloss to 18- months postloss. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1150-1164.

Boulton, M., & Smith, P. (1994). Bully/victim problems in middle-school children:Stability, self-perceived competence, peer perceptions and peer acceptance. British Journal o f Developmental Psychology, 12(3), 315-329.

Bowers, S., Smith, P., & Binney, V. (1994). Perceived family relationships of bullies, victims and bully/victims in middle childhood. Journal o f Social and Personal Relationships, 11(2), 215-232.

Bowlby, J. (1977). The making and breaking of affectional bonds: Aetiology andpsychopathology in the light o f attachment theory. British Journal o f Psychiatry, 130, 201 - 210 .

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York, NY: Basic Books Inc.

Buhs, E.S., & Ladd, G.W. (2001). Peer rejection as an antecedent of young children’sschool adjustment: An examination of mediating processes. Developmental Psychology, 37(4), 550-560.

Byrne, D. & Nelson, D. (1965). The effect o f topic importance and attitude similarity -dissimilarity on attraction in a multistranger design. Psychonomic Science, 3(10) 1965, 449-450.

Cairns, R.B., Cairns, B.D, Neckerman, H., & Gest, S. (1988). Social networks andaggressive behavior: Peer support or peer rejection? Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 815-823.

Cairns, R.B, Leung, M., Buchanan, L., & Cairns, B.D. (1995). Friendships and socialnetworks in childhood and adolescence: Fluidity, reliability, and interrelations. Child Development, 66, 1330-1345.

Carlo, G., Knight, G., Eisenberg, N. & Rotenberg, K. (1991). Cognitive processes andprosocial behaviors among children: The role o f affective attributions and reconciliations. Developmental Psychology, 27(3), 456-461.

Clark, M.L., & Drewry, D.L. (1985). Similarity and reciprocity in the friendships of elementary school children. Child Study Journal, 15(4), 251-264.

Coie, J.D, Dodge, K.A, Terry, R., & Wright, V. (1991). The role of aggression in peerrelations: An analysis of aggression episodes in boys' play groups. Child Development, 62(4), 812-826.


116Compas, B.E., Connor-Smith, J.K., Saltzman, H., Thomsen, A.H., & Wadsworth, M.E.

(2001). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence: Problems, progress, and potential in theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 127(1), 81-127.

Contreras, J.M., Kerns, K.A., Weimer, B.L., Gentzler, A.L., & Tomich, P.L. (2000).Emotion regulation as a mediator o f associations between mother-child attachment and peer relationships in middle childhood. Journal o f Family Psychology, 14(1), 111-124.

Crick, N.R., & Dodge, K.A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological-Bulletin, 115(1), 74-101.

Crick, N.R., & Ladd, G.W. (1990). Children’s perceptions of the outcomes o f socialstrategies: Do the ends justify being mean? Developmental Psychology, 26(4), 612-620.

Dix, T. & Lochman, J.E. (1990). Social cognition and negative reactions to children: Acomparison of mothers o f aggressive and nonaggressive boys. Journal o f Social and Clinical Psychology, 9(4), 418-438.

Dodge, K.A. (1993). Social-cognitive mechanisms in the development of conduct disorder and depression. Annual-Review-of-Psychology, 44, 559-584.

Dodge, K.A & Coie, J.D. (1987). Social-information-processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children's peer groups. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1146-1158.

Dodge, K.A., Laird, R., Lochman, J.E., & Zelli, A. (2002). Multidimensional latent-construct analysis of children’s social information processing patterns: Correlations with aggressive behavior problems. Psychological Assessment, 14(1), 60-73.

Duncan, R. (1999). Maltreatment by parents and peers: The relationship between childabuse, bully victimization, and psychological distress. Child Maltreatment: Journal o f the American Professional Society on the Abuse o f Children, 4(1), 45-55.

Dunn, J. (2004). Children’s friendships: The beginning o f intimacy. Massachusetts:Blackwell Publishing.

East, P. (1991). The parent-child relationships of withdrawn, aggressive, and sociablechildren: Child and parent perspectives. Merrill-Palmer-Quarterly, 37(3), 425-443.

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., Guthrie, I., & Reiser, M. (2000). Dispositional emotionality andregulation: Their role in predicting quality of social functioning. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 136-157.

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., Shepard, S., Murphy, B., Jones, S., & Guthrie, I. (1998).Contemporaneous and longitudinal prediction of children's sympathy from dispositional


117regulation and emotionality. Developmentcil-Psychology, 34(5), 910-924.

Engels, R.C.M.E., Finkenauer, C., Meeus, W., & Dekovic, M. (2001). Parentalattachment and adolescents’ emotional adjustment: The associations with social skills and relational competence. Journal o f Counseling Psychology, 48(4), 428-439.

Feltham, R. (1985). Friendship in normal and socially deviant children. Journal o f Early Adolescence, 5(3), 1985, 371-382.

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York, NY: Basic Books Inc.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Goodman, S., Barfoot, B., Frye, A., & Belli, A. (1999). Dimensions of marital conflictand children's social problem-solving skills. Journal o f Family Psychology, 13(1), 33-45.

Gross, J.J. (1998). The emerging field o f emotion regulation: an integrative review.Review o f General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299.

Grotpeter, J.K., & Crick, N.R. (1996). Relational aggression, overt aggression, and friendship. Child Development, 67, 2328-2338.

Haapasalo, J. & Tremblay, R. (1994). Physically aggressive boys from ages 6 to 12:Family background, parenting behavior, and prediction of delinquency. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(5), 1044-1052.

Harris, J. (1995). Where is the child's environment? A group socialization theory of development. Psychological Review, 102(3) Jul 1995, 458-489.

Harris, J. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. New York,NY: Simon & Schuster.

Harris, J. (2006). No two alike: Human nature and human individuality. New York, NY: V.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Hazan, C. & Shaver, P. (1994). Attachment as an organizational framework for research on close relationships. Psychological-Inquiry, 5(1), 1-22.

Hodges, E.V.E., Boivin, M., Vitaro, F., & Bukowski, W.M. (1999). The power offriendship: Protection against an escalating cycle of peer victimization. Developmental Psychology, 35(1), 94-101.

Hoover, J., & Hazier, R. (1991). Bullies and victims. Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, 25(3), 212-219.


118

Hoover, J., Oliver, R., Hazier, R. (1992). Bullying: Perceptions of adolescent victims in the Midwestern USA . School-Psychology-International, 13(1), 5-16.

Horowitz, L.M., Rosenberg, S.E., & Bartholomew, K. (1993). Interpersonal problems,attachment styles, and outcome o f brief dynamic psychotherapy. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61(4), 549-560.

Hughes, J., Robinson, M., & Moore, L. (1991). Children's attributions for peers' positivebehaviors: Social status differences. Journal o f Abnormal Child Psychology, 19(6), 645- 657.

Kemp, M., & Neimeyer, G. (1999). Interpersonal Attachment: experiencing, expressing, and coping with stress. Journal o f Counseling Psychology, 46(3), 388-394.

Kerns, K.A.. Klepac, L., & Cole, A. (1996). Peer relationships and preadolescents’perceptions o f security in the child-mother relationship. Developmental Psychology, 32(3), 457-466.

Kerns, K.A., & Richardson, R.A. (Eds.). (2005). Attachment in middle childhood. New York: The Guilford Press.

Kobak, R., & Duemmler, S. (1994). Attachment and conversation: Toward a discourse analysis o f adolescent and adult security. Advances in Personal Relationships, 5.

Kochenderfer-Ladd, B.J, & Skinner, K. (2002). Children’s coping strategies: Moderators of the effects of peer victimization? Developmental Psychology, 38(2), 267-278.

Kumpulainen, K., Rasanen, E., Henttonen, I., Almqvist, F., Kresanov, K., Linna, S.L., etal. (1998). Bullying and psychiatric symptoms among elementary school-age children. Child Abuse and Neglect, 22(7), 705-717.

Kupersmidt, J.B., DeRosier, M.E., & Patterson, C.P. (1995). Similarity as the basis for children’s friendships: The roles of sociometric status, aggressive and withdrawn behavior, academic achievement and demographic characteristics. Journal o f Social and Personal Relationships, 12(3), 439-452.

Ladd, G.W. (1983). Social networks o f popular, average, and rejected children in school settings. Merrill-Paimer Quarterly, 29, 283-307.

Ladd, G.W., Kochenderfer, B.J., & Coleman, C.C. (1997). Classroom peer acceptance,friendship, and victimization: Distinct relational systems that contribute uniquely to children’s school adjustment? Child Development, 68(6), 1181-1197.

Lapidos, A., Yaar-Golan, M., & Curtis, R. (2006, June). Emotional intelligence,attachment style, and recollections of parents’ behaviors. Paper presented at the meeting


119

of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Lieberman, M., Doyle, A., & Markiewicz, D. (1999). Developmental patterns in securityof attachment to mother and father in late childhood and early adolescence: Associations with peer relations. Child Development, 70(1), 202-213.

Lochman, J.E., & Dodge, K.A. (1994). Social-cognitive processes of severely violent,moderately aggressive, and nonaggressive boys. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(2), 366-374.

Lopes, P.N., Salovey, P., Cote, S., & Beers, M. (2005). Emotion regulation abilities and the quality o f social interaction. Emotion, 5(1), 113-118.

Lopez, F.G., Melendez, M.C., Sauer, E.M., Berger, E., & Wyssmann, J. (1998). Internal working models, self-reported problems, and help seeking attitudes among college students. Journal o f Counseling Psychology, 45(1), 79-83.

Lyons-Ruth, K. (1996). Attachment relationships among children with aggressivebehavior problems: The role of disorganized early attachment patterns. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(1), 64-73.

Marked, R. & Asher, S. (1984). Children's interactions in dyads: Interpersonal influence and sociometric status. Child-Development, 55(4), 1412-1424.

Menesini, E., Codecasa, E., Benelli, B., & Cowie, H. (2003). Enhancing children’sresponsibility to take action against bullying: Evaluation of a befriending intervention in Italian middle schools. Aggressive Behavior, 29, 1-14.

Mikulincer, M., Florian, V., & Weller, A. (1993). Attachment styles, coping strategies,and posttraumatic psychological distress: The impact of the gulf war in Israel. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 64(5), 817-826.

Mouttapa, M., Valente, T., Gallagher, P., Rohrback, L.A., Unger, J.B. (2004). Socialnetwork predictors of bullying and victimization. Adolescence, 39(154), 315-335.

Nansel, T.R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R.S., Ruan, W.J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P.(2001). Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. Journal o f the American Medical Association, 285, 2094-2100.

Oliver, R., Oaks, I., & Hoover, J. (1994). Family issues and interventions in bully and victim relationships. School-Counselor, 41(3) Jan 1994, 199-202.

Orpinas, P., & Home, A.M. (2006). Bullying prevention: Creating a positive schoolclimate and developing social competence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.


1 2 0

Parker, J.G., & Asher, S.R. (1989). Friendship quality questionnaire instructions and manual. Children’s Friendship Project, University of Michigan.

Parker, J.G., & Asher, S.R. (1993). Friendship and friendship quality in middlechildhood: Links with peer group acceptance and feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction. Developmental Psychology, 29(4), 611-621.

Pellegrini, A. (1998). Bullies and victims in school: A review and call for research.Journal o f Applied Developmental Psychology, 19(2), 165-176.

Phillipsen, L. (1999). Associations between age, gender, and group acceptance and three components of friendship quality. Journal o f Early Adolescence, 19(4), 438-465.

Phillipsen , L., Deptula, D., & Cohen, R. (1999). Relating characteristics o f children andtheir friends to relational and overt aggression. Child Study Journal, 29(4), 269-290.

Pierce, K., & Cohen, R. (1995). Aggressors and their victims: Toward a contextualframework for understanding children's aggressor/victim relationships. Developmental Review, 15(3), 292-310.

Pope, A.W., & Bierman, K.L. (1999). Predicting adolescent peer problems and antisocialactivities: the relative roles of aggression and dysregulation. Developmental Psychology, 35(2), 335-346.

Pope, A.W., Bierman, K.L. & Mumma, G. (1991). Aggression, hyperactivity, andinattention-immaturity: Behavior dimensions associated with peer rejection in elementary school boys. Developmental-Psychology, 27(4), 663-671.

Program for Prevention Research. (1999). Manual fo r the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist and the How I Coped Under Pressure Scale. Arizona State University.

Ray, G.E., & Cohen, R. (1995). Best friend networks of children across settings. Child Study Journal, 25(3), 169-189.

Ray, G.E, Cohen, R., Secrist, M.E., & Duncan, M.K. (1997). Relating aggressive andvictimization behaviors to children’s sociometric status and friendships. Journal o f Social and Personal Relationships, 41(1), 95-108.

Richard, B. & Dodge, K. (1982). Social maladjustment and problem solving in school- aged children. Journal o f Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50(2), 226-233.

Roberts, W. & Strayer, J. (1996). Empathy, emotional expressiveness, and prosocial behavior. Child-Development, 67(2), 449-470.

Rogers, M. & Tisak, M. (1996). Children's reasoning about responses to peer aggression:Victim's and witness's expected and prescribed behaviors. Aggressive-Behavior, 22(4),


1 2 1

259-269.

Rose, A.J., & Asher, S.R. (1999). Children’s goals and strategies in response to conflicts within a friendship. Developmental Psychology, 35(1), 66-79.

Rubin, K.H., Dwyer, K.M., Booth-LaForce, C., Kim, A.H., & Rose-Krasnor, L. (2004).Attachment, friendship, and psychosocial functioning in early adolescence. Journal o f Early Adolescence, 24(4), 326-356.

Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185-211.

Schaffer, C. (2000). [Affect regulation scale]. Unpublished measure.

Scharfe, E. (1999). A comparison of self-report and interview ratings of attachment. Unpublished manuscript.

Schwartz, D., Dodge, K.A., Pettit, G.S., and Bates, J.E. (2000). Friendship as amoderating factor in the pathway between early harsh home environment and later victimization in the peer group. Developmental Psychology, 36(5), 646-662.

Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children: Thedevelopment and validation o f a new criterion q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 906-916.

Shulman, S., Elicker, J., & Sroufe, L.A. (1994). Stages of friendship growth inpreadolescence as related to attachment history. Journal o f Social and Personal Relationships, 11, 341-361.

Simpson, J., Rholes, W.S., & Nelligan, J.S. (1992). Support seeking and giving withincouples in an anxiety-provoking situation: The role of attachment styles. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 434-446.

Simpson, J., Rholes, W.S., & Phillips, D. (1996). Conflict in close relationships: Anattachment perspective. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 71(5), 899-914.

Slee, P. (1993). Bullying: A preliminary investigation of its nature and the effects of social cognition. Early Child Development and Care, 87, 47-57.

Sroufe, L.A. (1986). Appraisal: Bowlby's contribution to psychoanalytic theory anddevelopmental psychology—attachment, separation, loss. Journal o f Child Psychology andPsychiatry, 27(6), 841-849.

Sullivan, H.S. (1953). The interpersonal theory o f psychiatry. (Flelen S. Perry and Mary Lad Gawel, Eds.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc.


1 2 2

Troy, M., & Sroufe, L.A. (1987). Victimization among preschoolers: Role o f attachment relationship history. Journal o f the American Academy o f Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 26(2), 166-172.

United States Census Bureau (2000). Your gateway to census 2000. Retrieved March 18,2006, from http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html.

Urberg, K.A., Dggirmencigglu, S.M., Tolson, J.M., & Halliday-Scher, K. (1995). Thestructure of adolescent peer networks. Developmental Psychology, 31(4), 540-574.

Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Oldehinkel, A.J., De Winter, A.F., Verhulst, F.C., & Ormel,J. (2005). Bullying and victimization in elementary schools: A comparison o f bullies, victims, bully/victims, and uninvolved preadolescents. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 672-682.


http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html

123

Appendixes


124CONSENT FORM

Dear Parent/Guardian:

My name is Keri Cassesa and I am a Doctoral Student at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, New York. I am currently interested in investigating the formation, maintenance, and quality o f friendships in middle school children. Research on this topic is particularly valuable considering current increases in school violence and peer victimization, and your child’s participation in this study may help us further understand these events.

Your child will be given surveys that assess how they interact with their friends, how they cope with certain life events, how they relate to important people in their lives, and how they understand and express emotions. Your child will participate in this research at school but the administration of these questionnaires will not interfere with their school work. Participation is voluntary and non-participation will have no impact on your child’s status in school. The administration of the questionnaires will take place during one session, lasting approximately two hours.

Your child’s responses to the surveys, as well as any other information that is provided to the research staff, will be kept confidential and available only to those involved in the research. Your child’s name will be kept strictly confidential and they will be identified by numerical code only. Upon completion o f this study I will provide general results to anyone who is interested. There are no known risks associated with this type o f study. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me at 201-736-2631 or my supervisor, Dr. Rebecca Curtis at 212-496-4128 or 516-877- 4812.

Thank you,

Keri Cassesa

I give my child permission to participate in this research.

I do not give my child permission to participate in this research.

Child’s Name Parent’s Signature

Grade Teacher’s Name


Friendship G roup Nomination Form125

NAME:__________________________

GRADE:_________________________

TEACHER:______________________

Please list the names of your closest friends

1. ____________________________________

2 . _______________________________________________________________________________

3 . ________________________________________________________________________

4 . ________________________________________________________________________

5 . ________________________________________________________________________

6 . ________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . ________________________________________________________________________

8 . ________________________________________________________________________________________

9 . ________________________________________________________________________

1 0 . ________________________________________________________________________________________

1 1 . _______________________________________________________________________________

1 2 .


Teacher Rating Scale-Identification of Bullies and Victims

NAME: GRADE:

Please list which students you believe get picked on the most by their classmates (if there not enough room provided please continue of the back of the paper).

1.

2 .

3 .

4 .

5 .

Please list which students you believe pick on their classmates the most

2 .

3 .

4 .

5 .

6.


Adolescent Relationship Scale (Attachment Style)127

Below are 4 different ways that kids act when they are with other people. Please read each paragraph and decide how much you are like each one when you are with people.

1. It is easy for me to feel close to people. I feel OK asking other people for help and I know that they will usually help me. When people ask me for help they can count on me. I don’t worry about being alone and I don’t worry about others not liking me.

Not at all Kind of Very muchlike me like me like me

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2. It is hard for me to feel close to people. I want to be close to people, but I find it hard to trust them. I find it hard to ask people for help. I worry that if I get too close to people they will end up hurting me.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3. I want to be really close to people, but they don’t want to get that close to me. I am unhappy if I don’t have people that I feel close to. I sometimes think that I care about people more than they care about me.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4. I don’t care if I am close to people. It is very important for me not to ask for help, because I like to do things on my own. I don’t like it if people ask me for help.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Adolescent Relationship Scales Questionnaire (Attachment Style)128

Think about all of the people in your life. Now read each of the following statements and rate how much it describes your feelings:_________ ___________ __________ __________

Not like me

1

A little like me

2

Somewhat like me

3

A lot like me 4

Exactly like me

51. I find it hard to count on other people2. It is very important to me to feel independent3 .1 find it easy to get emotionally close to others4 .1 worry that I will be hurt if I become too close to others5. I am comfortable without close emotional relationships6 .1 want to be completely emotionally close with others7 .1 worry about being alone

8. I am comfortable depending on other people.9 .1 find it difficult to trust others completely1 0 .1 am comfortable having other people depend on me1 1 .1 worry that others don't value me as much as I value them12. It is very important to me to do things on my own13. I’d rather not have other people depend on me14 .1 am kind of uncomfortable being emotionally close to people15. I find that people don’t want to get as close as I would like16 .1 prefer not to depend on people1 7 .1 worry about having people not accept me


129

Friendship Quality Questionnaire Think about your friendships with your closest friends. Answer the following questions by writing the number that tells how true that is of your friendshipPage 1 FQQ_______________________________ _________ ___________ _______________

Not at all true

A little true

Somewha t true

Prettytrue

Reall y true

1 2 3 4 51. My friends and I live really close to each other2. My friends and I always sit together at lunch3. My friends and I get mad at each other a lot4. My friends tell me I’m good at things5. If other kids were talking behind my back, my friends would always stick up for me6. My friends and I make each other feel important and special7. My friends and I always pick each other as partners8. If my friends hurt my feelings, they say “I’m sorry”9 .1 can think of some times when my friends said mean things about me to other kids1 0 .1 can always count on my friends for good ideas about games to play11. If my friends and I get mad at each other, we always talk about how to get over it12. My friends would still like me even if other kids didn’t like me at all13. My friends tell me I’m pretty smart14. My friends and I are always telling each other about our problems15. My friends make me feel good about my ideas


130Page 2 FQQ

Not at all true

1

A little true

2

Somewha t true

3

Prettytrue

4

Reall y true

516. When I’m mad about something that happened to me, I can always talk to my friends about it17. My friends and I help each other with chores or other things18. My friends and I do special favors for each other19. My friends and I do fun things together a lot20. My friends and I argue a lot

21.1 can always count on my friends to keep promises22. My friends and I go to each others houses after school and on weekends23. My friends and I always play together at recess24. When I’m having trouble figuring out something, I usually ask my friends for help and advice25. My friends and I talk about things that make us sad26. My friends and I always make up easily when we have a fight27. My friends and I fight

28. My friends and I always share things like sticker, toys, and games with each other29. If my friends and I are mad at each other, we always talk about what would help make us feel better30. If I told my friends a secret, I could trust them not to tell anyone else31. My friends and I bug each other

32. My friends and I always come up with good ideas on ways to do things


FQQNot at all true

1

A little true

2

Somewha t true

3

Prettytrue

4

Reall y true

533. My friends and I loan each other things all the time34. My friends often help me with things so I can get done quicker35. My friends and I always get over our arguments really quickly36. My friends and I always count on each other for ideas on how to get things done37. My friends don’t listen to me

38. My friends and I tell each other private things a lot39. My friends and I help each other with schoolwork a lot4 0 .1 can think of lots of secrets my friends and I have told each other41. My friends care about my feelings


132

Reactions to Teasing

When other kids tease you, make fun of you, or bully you how often do you do the following?

Do you: Never

1

HardlyEver

2

Sometimes

3

Most of the time

4

Always

5

Tell a friend

Walk away and sit by myself

Hit them

Tell a teacher

I feel angry

Tease them back

Nothing

Tell my parents

It doesn’t bother me

I feel sad


133Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist 2

Instructions: When faced with a problem, kids do different things in order to solve the problem or to make themselves feel better.

Below is a list of things kids may do when faced with a problem. For each item, select the response that best describes how often you do the behavior when you have a problem. There are no right or wrong answers, just say how often you do each thing in order to solve the problem or to make yourself feel better.

WHEN I HAVE A PROBLEM, I

Page 1 CCSC Never

1

Sometimes

2

Often

3

Most of the time

41. Listen to music

2. Think about what I could do before I do something3. Write down my feelings

4. Do something to make things better

5. Try to notice or think about only the good things in life6. Go bicycle riding

7. Try to stay away from the problem

8. Try to put it out of my mind

9. Figure out what I can do by talking with one of my friends10. Think about why it has happened

11. Think about what would happen before I decide what to do12. Try to make things better by changing what I do13. Talk about how I am feeling with my mother or father14. Tell myself it will be over in a short time15. Play sports

16. Talk about how I am feeling with some adult who is not in my family


134

Page 2 CCSC Never

1

Sometimes

2

Often

3

Most of the time

417. Cry by myself

18. Ask God to help me understand it

19. Go walking

20. Imagine how I’d like things to be

21. Talk to my brother or sister about how to make things better22. Try to understand it better by thinking about it23. Read a book or magazine

24. Try to stay away from things that make me feel upset25. Try to solve the problem by talking with my mother or father26. Think about what I can learn from the problem27. Let out feelings to my pet or stuffed animal28. Think about which things are best to do to handle the problem29. Talk with my brother or sister about my feelings30. Wait and hope that things will get better31. Think about what I need to know so I can solve the problem32. Go skateboarding or roller skating

33. Talk with one of my friends about my feelings34. Watch TV

35. Avoid the people that make me feel bad


135

Page 3 CCSC Never

1

Sometimes

2

Often

3

Most of the time

4

36. Do something to solve the problem

37. Remind myself that things could be worse38. Do some exercise

39. Try to figure out what I can do by talking to an adult who is not in my family40. Avoid it by going to my room

41. Try to figure out why things like this happen42. Wish that things were better

43. Tell myself it’s not worth getting upset about44. Do something like video games or a hobby45. Do something in order to get something good out of it


136Affect Regulation Scale

When you are experiencing painful feelings that are hard for you to deal with, how often doyou do the following things?

Page 1 Never

1

AlmostNever

2

Sometimes

3

Most of the Time

4

Always

51. Watch TV

2. Bite my nails

3. Cry

4. Play video games

5. Do my homework

6. Think about how I feel

7. Try to explain why I feel this way

8. Be alone

9. Listen to music

10. Clean my room

11. Sit quietly and think

12. Have a snack

13. Write in my diary

14. Think about what my friends would do

15. Play with my pet

16. Wish it weren’t happening to me

17. Play with my hair

18. Play with my friends

19. Wish you were somewhere else


137Page 2 Never

1

AlmostNever

2

Sometimes

3

Most of the Time

4

Always

5

20. Make plans to hang out with friends

21. Play with my brother or sister

22. Eat a lot of food

23. Talk to my parents

24. Call a friend

25. Pick on other kids

26. Daydream

27. Talk to my teacher

28. Play sports

29. Go on the internet

30. Pray

31. Blame someone else

32. Think about positive/good things

33. Get a headache

34. Ask someone for help

35. Go to sleep

36. Put myself down

37. Scream, yell, or punch things

38. Wait for my feelings to go away

39. Get a stomach ache


Due to copyright laws the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version and the

Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment are not included in the appendix.


Attachment Style

Documents

Transcript of Attachment Style