Peer Influences

General Concepts of Peer Relations

The peer influences knowledge base is part of a larger research area called peer relations, which refers to the study of children's social world of peers, how they interact and form relationships, how they change over time, and how they affect children's development. For example, peer relations research examines how children make friends, how children's friendships change over time, and how having friends affects children's development of social competence. Therefore, research on peer influences overlaps with a rather large portion of the peer relations research that examines how peers affect children's development in general. However, this entry focuses on the narrower and more recent area of peer influences [Page 769]research that examines how children's behavior changes and grows in positive and negative ways from interacting with their peers over time (e.g., how friends negatively influence one another to smoke).

Still, because it is important to understand peer influences within this larger context of social development, several general themes of children's peer relations need to be discussed. First, children's peer relations systematically change in form and function as children grow. Second, peer relations are powerful in shaping children's development. In preschool and early childhood, peer relations do exist, but they are ephemeral and smaller in size and are largely affected by adult choices (e.g., play groups, recess). From middle childhood through adolescence, children interact with their peers more frequently than before, peer groups tend to be larger with much less adult supervision, and peer interactions occur in more settings (e.g., outside home and school). Children also spend their time talking, playing organized games or sports, and “hanging out” more as they get older. Therefore, youth spend more time with their peers and are more influenced by them during this time than ever before.

Peer relations have been studied most commonly according to social configurations that are categorized within two broad types: dyads and groups. Dyads include best friends, friends, enemies, and romantic relationships. Groups include smaller peer groups of friends who hang out together (e.g., social networks, cliques, crowds, counseling groups) and larger groups such as classrooms, which typically consist of dyads and several peer groups.

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