Citation

Chung‐Hall J, Chen X. Soc. Dev. 2010; 19(4): 659-680.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00556.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examined the effects of aggressive and prosocial contexts of peer groups on children's socioemotional and school adjustment. Data on informal peer groups, social functioning, and different aspects of adjustment were collected from multiple sources in a sample of elementary school children (149 boys, 181 girls; M age = 10 years). Multilevel analyses indicated that group aggressive and prosocial orientations made direct contributions to children's social, school, and psychological functioning. Group contexts also moderated the individual‐level relations between social behavior and self‐perceptions; prosocial behavior was associated with social or scholastic self‐perceptions more evidently in low prosocial and high aggressive groups. The results suggest that the peer group is an important context for children's performance and adjustment in various domains.