SELECÇÃO, DESSELECÇÃO E INFLUÊNCIA DOS PROBLEMAS DE INTERNALIZAÇÃO E EXTERNALIZAÇÃO NAS RELAÇÕES DE AMIZADE EM ADOLESCENTES PORTUGUESES

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Publications

Co-evolution of friendships and antipathies: A longitudinal study of preschool peer groups

Publication . Daniel, João Rodrigo; Santos, António José; Antunes, Marta Justino Ferrúcio; Fernandes, Marília; Vaughn, Brian E.

We used stochastic actor-based models to test whether the developmental dynamics of friendships and antipathies in preschool peer groups (followed throughout three school years) were co-dependent. We combined choices from three sociometric tasks of 142 children to identify friendship and antipathy ties and used SIENA to model network dynamics. Our results show that different social processes drive the development of friendship and antipathy ties, and that they do not develop in association (i.e., friendship ties are not dependent on existing antipathies, and vice-versa). These results differ from those of older children (age range = 10-14) suggesting that the interplay of friendship and antipathy only plays a significant role in the peer group context in older children. We propose these differences to be likely related with preschool age children's inaccurate perceptions of their classmates' relationships, particularly of their antipathies, and/or with the absence of shared norms to deal with antipathetic relationships.

2016Journal article

Open access

Affiliative sructures and social competence in portuguese preschool children

Publication . Daniel, João Rodrigo; Santos, António José; Peceguina, Maria Inês Duarte; Vaughn, Brian E.

The goal of this study was to determine whether peer social competence (SC), defined as the capacity to use behavioral, cognitive, and emotional resources in the service of achieving personal goals within preschool peer groups, was related to the type of affiliative subgroups to which children belonged. Two hundred forty Portuguese preschool children (152 seen in consecutive years of data collection) from middle-class families participated. Affiliative subgroup type was assessed from observed proximity data. Social competence was assessed using observational and sociometric measures. Children in more cohesive affiliative subgroups had higher levels of SC, whereas ungrouped children had the lowest SC scores. Follow-up analyses indicated that 2 of the measured SC domains (social engagement/motivation, profiles of behavior/personality attributes) were responsible for the overall difference in SC. Further, membership in a more cohesive subgroup in 1 year contributed to increases in scores for 2 of 3 SC domains (i.e., profiles of behavior/personality attributes and peer acceptance) in the following year. Results suggest that affiliative subgroups both reflect and support individual differences in peer SC during early childhood.

2015Journal article

Restricted access

Postconflict affiliation among bystanders in a captive group of japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Publication . Daniel, João Rodrigo; Alves, Renata Lopes

Social animals benefit from group living. However, competition for limited resources may lead to agonistic conflicts. These conflicts can affect the behavior and the social relationships, not only of the individuals involved in the confrontation, but also of bystanders. The aim of this study was to describe postconflict affiliative interactions among bystanders (quadratic affiliation) in a captive group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and test whether 1) after observing a conflict bystanders tend to interact with other bystanders, 2) conflicts increase bystanders’ rates of selfdirected behaviors (SDBs), 3) postconflict rates of SDBs mediate affiliative interactions between bystanders, and 4) quadratic affiliation decreases rates of SDBs to baseline levels. We used the postconflict matched-control (PC-MC) method (5 min focal samples) to record bystanders’ behavior (156 PC-MC pairs from 15 subjects). Results show that bystanders’ rates of SDBs increased above baseline levels after conflicts. Bystanders responded to conflicts by increasing affiliation with other bystanders (mainly with close associates) but not with former combatants. After quadratic affiliation, rates of SDBs decreased to baseline levels. Together with previous findings, these results support the idea that quadratic affiliation is a tension reduction mechanism in less tolerant species.

2015Journal article

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Perception accuracy of affiliative relationships in elementary school children and young adolescents

Publication . Daniel, João Rodrigo; Silva, Rita Rocha da; Santos, António José; Cardoso, Jordana Pinto; Coelho, Leandra Marques; Freitas, Miguel da Costa Nunes de; Ribeiro, Olívia

There has been a rapid growth of studies focused on selection and socialization processes of peer groups, mostly due to the development of stochastic actor-based models to analyze longitudinal social network data. One of the core assumptions of these models is that individuals have an accurate knowledge of the dyadic relationships within their network (i.e., who is and is not connected to whom). Recent cross-sectional findings suggest that elementary school children are very inaccurate in perceiving their classmates' dyadic relationships. These findings question the validity of stochastic actor-based models to study the developmental dynamics of children and carry implications for future research as well as for the interpretation of past findings. The goal of the present study was thus to further explore the adequacy of the accuracy assumption, analysing data from three longitudinal samples of different age groups (elementary school children and adolescents). Our results support the validity of stochastic actor-based models to study the network of adolescents and suggest that the violation of the accuracy assumption for elementary school children is not as severe as previously thought.

2017Journal article

Open access

Network dynamics of affiliative ties in preschool peer groups

Publication . Daniel, João Rodrigo; Santos, Antonio José; Fernandes, Carla; Vaughn, Brian E.

This study investigated the network dynamics of affiliative ties in Portuguese preschool children, over three consecutive school years, using stochastic actor-based models. Our first goal was to test the extent to which different criteria to identify ties from observational data lead to different theoretical interpretations of model estimates. Contrary to past observational studies the data we use here takes into account the identities of children responsible for initiating social interactions. The second goal was to test the influence of two interaction effects involving reciprocity to analyze if reciprocity is constrained by the presence of transitive ties and if it constrains the creation and maintenance of new unreciprocated ties. Results showed that most effects were robust to changes in criteria to operationalize ties, supporting previous descriptions of preschool network dynamics. Also, contrary to recent findings in older samples, being embedded in a transitive triad did not make an unreciprocated dyad more likely to be maintained. Finally, results showed that the existence of reciprocal ties decreased preschool children’s tendency to create new ties.

2019Journal article

Restricted access