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THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL
ROOTS OF PEER-RELATIONS
RESEARCH
This chapter is a sketch of the social and intellectual contexts of research on childrenâs peer relations from its inception to the present day. Pioneer theorists explored peer relations as part of their search for an alternative to psychoanalysis. The political climate of the 1930s and 1940s resulted in sustained interest in the childhood roots of leadership and intolerance. During the years after World War II, the community mental-health movement provided strong impetus for the development of social-competence interventions in schools and communities and for research to help shape these efforts and document their success. The digital age and rapid urbanization since the 1980s has brought modes of relating to others that are qualitatively different from the face-to-face interaction styles of all previous eras. Some social critics maintain that relationships grounded in the new technology are lacking in the intimacy that is at the core of human social relationships.
Far more than any other species, humans seem programmed to form relationships with others, to rely on their relationship partners for support and assistance in times of trouble and to derive a sense of well-being from the relationships they create and cultivate. In the words of gifted playwright Tony Kushner, âthe smallest individual human unit is two persons, not oneâ (1993, p. 307). On the most fundamental level, human beings are driven to engage in sexual cooperation. The needs of children also reveal a biological preparedness to cooperate. Research suggests that cooperation between children begins to emerge at approximately two years of age, at the latest. Some of the cooperative behaviors that emerge include general abilities aimed at coordinating interaction around a set goal, behaving reciprocally and communicating effectively (Brownell and Brown, 1992). In addition, cooperative problem-solving, evidenced by children coordinating their actions with those of other children in order to achieve an otherwise unattainable goal occurs quite frequently among 24-month-olds (Brownell and Carriger, 1990). Theorists in several of the social sciences emphasize that the needs to belong and to relate are universal among humans and drive them to seek rewarding bonds with other people (Baumeister and Leary, 1995; Deci and Ryan, 2012).
Evolutionary psychologists have traced a progression starting with what they regard as genuine friendship among animals. In a convincing review paper, Seyfarth and Cheney (2012) note that behaviors interpretable as âfriendshipâ can be observed among horses, elephants, hyenas, dolphins, monkeys and chimpanzees. These behaviors involve cooperative interactions that recur at intervals separated in time. The animals appear to recognize these friendships. Importantly, the individuals who engage in these friendly, cooperative behaviors derive many benefits from them. They are more likely than other animals to reproduce successfully, to live longer and to have infants that survive.
These connections between childrenâs peer relations and the adaptation of the human species are the core of ethological theory. This intriguing theory brings developmental psychology into close contact with social anthropology and biology in studying the adaptive functions of different ways of relating to others (Benenson and Alavi, 2004). Peer-relations researchers have embraced the ethnographic methods used by ethologists to only a limited extent. These methods include observing children in interaction in natural settings, sometimes using detailed field notes (Rubin et al., 2013; Vaughn and Santos, 2009). Although its roots can be traced back to the work of Charles Darwin on human evolution in the nineteenth century, the field of human ethology experienced a resurgence in the 1970s. Its evolutionary approach represents an alternative to the classic behaviorism that was prominent at the time, which focused on observable stimuli and responses to them. The essence of the ethological approach is captured by four questions articulated by Tinbergen (1963, p. 410; see elaboration by Burkhardt, 2014):
1 How is it caused physiologically?
2 What is its survival value?
3 How has it evolved?
4 How does it develop in the individual?
The volume entitled Human Ethology by prominent ethologist Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1989) provides the most complete statement of the human ethological position. Human ethology as it exists today is sometimes considered a discipline of its own. Ethological ideas are also a fundamental part of attachment theory, which is discussed later in this chapter and in Chapter 3 (van der Horst, van der Veer and van Ijzendoorn, 2007).
The field of neuropsychology also brings peer-relations researchers into contact with biologists. Brain scientists are beginning to demonstrate a neurological basis of the centrality of relationships in human development and human well-being. The newest fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imagery) techniques are providing exciting evidence, although most of it pertains to relationships among adults. For example, Keysers and Gazzola (2014) review evidence from several studies on brain activity and empathy. These studies show that viewing the actions of others triggers mental images of performing similar actions ourselves, leading the individual to experience sensations similar to those of the person whose actions are experienced, perhaps leading the âwitnessâ to experience empathy. Hari and her colleagues (2013) discovered patterns of brain activity during face-to-face interaction. A series of studies by Eisenberger and her colleagues have shown neural responses by adolescents and adults to the experience of being socially rejected and even to witnessing another person being rejected (Eisenberger, 2013; Masten et al., 2013). The amygdala has been implicated in the developmental shift that results in the increased importance of peer relations that coincides with the onset of adolescence. Scherf, Smyth and Delgado (2013) propose that the amygdala, influenced by adolescent sex hormones, affects the adolescentâs perceptual, cognitive, emotional and motivational systems in ways that increase the relevance of such stimuli as the facial expressions of adolescent peers as the salience of such experiences as physical separation from parents is reduced.
As early as infancy, children are aware of their peers and recognize them in such ways as offering them objects (Underwood and Rosen, 2011; Williams, Ontai and Mastergeorge, 2010). Adorable and innocuous as these interactions among infants usually are, the roots of social dominance and some early forms of conflict among peers can also be traced back to the infant years (Plusquellec et al., 2007). This juxtaposition of pleasure and problems, this âparadoxically positive and negative natureâ (Perlman, 2007, p. 7), characterizes peer relationships throughout the lifespan. When negative emotions are tracked over periods of hours or days, sharing the experience with another person seems to reduce the duration of the negative experience (Brans et al., 2013). Even a brief positive social exchange with a stranger can change a personâs mood for the better, according to a laboratory study by Epley and Schroeder (2014). These researchers observe that strangers on a street or public-transportation vehicle often make the mistake of seeking solitude, when they might be happier if they evoked even a superficial positive social exchange with those around them. Unfortunately, many of these revolutionary studies on the species-wide basis of social interaction were conducted with adults. But there is no reason to doubt that the results apply to children, too; future researchers will hopefully find out how.
In many societies, children spend a great deal of time in each otherâs company, although the age at which this starts varies considerably. Spending long periods of time with other children has been the standard way of growing up in many agricultural societies for centuries: while adults work together, children play together; and older siblings have responsibility for the care of their younger brothers and sisters (Whiting and Edwards, 1988). In contrast, children in the United Kingdom, the United States and Western Europe are depicted as having spent most of their time with their families until the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Industrial Revolution and the resulting rapid societal change led to the decline of the family as the fundamental economic unit, as people of all ages began to work in factories together with co-workers outside their families. As a result, children began to congregate in play groups in the streets of large cities, without any substantial supervision by adults. With the advent of compulsory public education, school emerged as the venue in which children form peer relationships, and these are often continued outside of school. Contemporary patterns of school and community life vary from place to place and home to home. However, sophisticated technological advances, such as the sampling of childrenâs time using electronic pagers, has revealed that, at least in the United States, older school-age children and adolescents spend most of their free time in the company of peers (Larson, 2014).
If children are so intensively involved in interaction with their peers, it is logical to expect that children would have a major influence on the development and personalities of other children. The desire to understand that influence â and put it to good use â is the reason sometimes given for the earliest interest by scholars of many disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and education, in the scientific study of peer relations: that is, of childrenâs relations with other children (Renshaw and Parke, 1992). The debate as to how much of childrenâs behavior and personality is determined by peers and how much by family continues to rage. Such comparison of the weights of parent and peer influences has perhaps never received as much public attention as it did after Judith Rich Harris (1998) published her controversial bestseller entitled The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn out the Way They Do (see Chapter 3).
The first major theories of personality and child development also emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth. The theorists of the time speculated extensively about the importance of peer relations in child development. G. Stanley Hall, the pre-eminent psychological theorist of that time, believed that childrenâs association with other children was part of a process wherein ontogeny recapitulates psychology â in going through the stages of development, children repeat the process of evolution from more primitive species to more sophisticated ones. Hall saw herd-like association with other children as an important expression of an inborn âsocial instinctâ. He maintained that following the social instinct by associating with other children during the primary years enabled children, especially boys, to achieve independence from their parents and prepare themselves for the trials of adult life. Most of the other major theorists of the late 1800s and early 1900s offered theories that were not as bold as Hallâs, but they too emphasized childrenâs peer relations as an important element in child development. Another major psychological theorist, James Mark Baldwin, was interested in the ways children change as they grow from independent, separate individuals into cooperative members of society. He believed that being a member of a team in childhood play was an important part of that process. In a similar vein, the influential educational theorist John Dewey emphasized the value of childrenâs informal learning though play, with social experience a major source of the benefit. He believed that playgrounds should be run as miniature, democratically governed towns, with mayors, policemen and other civil servants, so that children could prepare for their roles as adults in a democratic society.
Jacob Moreno and the focus on social reputation
The importance of interpersonal relationships seems so obvious that one would expect relationships to be core elements of any and all theories of personality and human development. Therefore, it is surprising that many of the early scholars interested in the peer relations of children and adults felt that they were regarded as heretics in a psychology that was dominated in the 1920s by a fascination with events occurring inside single individuals â their feelings, instincts, drives and complexes. In the writings of peer-relations researchers in the 1920s, Freudian psychoanalysis is depicted as a tyrannical force that suppressed interest not only in interpersonal relationships but in systematic research about human behavior in general. Nowhere is this clearer than in the provocative writings of Jacob Moreno (1889â1974), the flamboyant founder of sociometry and psychodrama, two techniques that will be described later. Moreno was a physician of Romanian origin who trained in Vienna and was interested in social relations and inter-group and international problems. He dubbed psychoanalysis âthe vengeance of mediocrityâ (1953, p. xxxiv), because of its passivity, its stifling of creativity, and its insistence that healthy, creative, everyday events were the sources of sickness. If God had been no more active or creative than a psychoanalyst, taunted Moreno, the world never would have been created. However, God could well have been a psychodramatist, analysing from on high the relationships between the things he had created and endowing them with new ways of relating to each other (1953, p. xvi). It is thought that Moreno met Freud only once, at a lecture given by the latter in 1912. After the lecture, Moreno spoke briefly with the founder of psychoanalysis: âWell, Dr. Freud, I start where you leave off. You meet people in the artificial setting of your office, I meet them on the street and in their homes, in their natural surroundings. You analyze their dreams, I try to give them the courage to dream againâ (Moreno, 1972, cited in Hare and Hare, 1996, p. 7).
Mary Northway, the Canadian pioneer of peer-relations research with children, echoed the call for a counter-revolution against the psychoanalytic revolution and for a theory based on interpersonal relationships:
Consciously known living relationships are of major importance to the individual. The early relationship to his mother in infancy or to his father at his Oedipal stage has historical rather than dynamic meaning. The early psychoanalytic doctrine which considers society as an oppressing and stultifying prison is replaced by a view of society as a potentially rich soil out of which the individual derives nutriment for his growth and the sustenance necessary for an enriched life.
(Northway, 1952, p. 49)
Obviously, such ideas were unwelcome in the community of mental-health professionals that was still in a state of euphoria because of the recent major contributions of Freudian theory: the acceptance of psychiatric problems as natural, human phenomena that were to be understood rather than as manifestations of evil forces that had to be defeated (Goodwin, 1990). Morenoâs assault against what he saw as the uselessness of psychoanalysis (âstillborn to start withâ; 1953, p. liv) reached a climax when he belittled a psychoanalytic description of the personality of Abraham Lincoln that appeared in an American newspaper in 1932 (cited in Hare and Hare, 1996). Moreno felt that more could be learned by analyzing the reasons why modern psychoanalysts chose to dissect particular historical personalities than by analyzing the personalities of dead people whose social relationships could not be studied meaningfully from historical documents: âneither transference [the direction of positive feelings and desires towards a new object or person] nor resistance [the often unconscious refusal to admit to oneâs awareness of potentially useful insights] can be expected from a dead personâ (1953, p. xlvi).
From that point on, Moreno and his followers became outcasts in the community of mental-health professionals, outcasts who themselves studied people who were outcasts. Instead of studying peopleâs feelings, instincts and drives, as psychoanalysts did and do, Moreno and his followers focused on the roles people play in groups. Relationships and roles in them were to become the major unit of analysis. By no means were relationships to be considered a surface by-product of primitive sexual drives, as they are in Freudian theory, as it was interpreted by Moreno and his followers. Moreno used the term âroleâ as it is often used in social psychology â to refer to the privileges and responsibilities that accompany a given position in society. One can have the role of teacher, leader, scapegoat, supporter of unpopular individuals, and so on. In Morenoâs âspontaneity theoryâ, an individualâs personality is a reflection of the roles he or she plays in life. A psychologically healthy person is one who, in relating to others, can assume healthy roles in a flexible and spontaneous way (Hare and Hare, 1996; Moreno, 1953).
Learning from the relationships of ânormalâ people
Inattention to the social world was not the only flaw in Freudâs approach to which Moreno and his followers objected. Early peer-relations researchers also objected vociferously to the Freudian preoccupation with the exclusive study of abnormal behavior without learning, if only for comparison purposes, how the ânormalâ individual thinks, feels and relates. The study of both normal and abnormal development is another feature of early peer-relations research that has survived to the present day. As in the past, many contemporary peer-relations researchers believe that, in order to understand and help children who cannot get along with others, it is important to understand the social behavior of children who have no problem with their relationships with others. Northway (1956, p. 3) maintained that:
From the days of Freud on, investigations of the neurotic and the psychotic, of emotionally disturbed or retarded children, of criminals and delinquents, of deprived infants, have been made. On the basis of these discoveries, theories of mental health have been established, but these have not told us the whole and may have told us a distorted story. Mental health is not simply a lack of mental illness and a theory of mental healthiness can hardly be completed by saying that mental health is what these patients do not have. Mental health can only become understood by observing mental healthiness.
In the years since this criticism was voiced, much more research has been conducted on the development of normal children â although, according to many influential contemporary social scientists, still not enough. It has been remarked that the study of peer relationships in its early years was predicated on the assumption that the relationships themselves were superficial reflections of dispositions internal to the child. Therefore, until the longitudinal evidence mentioned later in this chapter became known, the relationships themselves were not considered very important to psychological adjustment. Once awareness of the link between relationships and life outcome was established, researchers resumed in earnest the study of the peer relationships of maladjusted individual...
