Ch: 5 Peer Groups

The Nature of Adolescent Peer Groups

Peer groups are an important feature of the social world of childhood. But even though peer groups exist well before adolescence, during the teenage years they change in significance and structure. Four specific developments stand out: In What Ways Do Peer Groups Change? First, there is a sharp increase during adolescence in the sheer amount of time individuals spend with their peers and in the relative time they spend in the company of peers versus adults. Over half of the typical American adolescent's waking hours are spent with peers, as opposed to only 15% with adults—including their parents. Indeed, during the transition into adolescence, there is a dramatic drop in the amount of time adolescents spend with parents; for boys, this is mainly replaced by time spent alone, whereas for girls, it is replaced by time alone and time with friends. Second, during adolescence, peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood, partly because adolescents are more mobile and partly because they seek, and are granted, more independence. Both supervised and unsupervised time with peers increase steadily throughout adolescence. Groups of younger children typically play in the presence of adults or in activities organized or supervised by adults (for example, organized sports), whereas adolescents are granted far more independence. Third, during adolescence, increasingly more contact with peers is between males and females (Lam et al., 2014). During childhood, peer groups are highly sex segregated. During adolescence, however, an increasingly larger proportion of an individual's significant others are peers of the other sex (Dijkstra & Veenstra, 2011; Mehta & Strough, 2009). The shift from same-sex peer groups to mixed-sex groups tends to occur around the beginning of high school (Lam et al., 2014). Finally, adolescence marks the emergence of larger collectives of peers, called crowds (Brown & Larson, 2009). These crowds typically develop their own mini-cultures, characterized by particular styles of dressing, talking, and behaving (Chen, 2012). Not until early adolescence can individuals accurately list the various crowds.

Adolescents and Their Crowds

A helpful scheme for mapping the social world of adolescence classifies crowds along two dimensions: how involved they are in the institutions controlled by adults, such as school and extracurricular activities, and how involved they are in the informal, peer culture. "Jocks" and "populars," for example, are very involved in the peer culture, but they are also very involved in the institutions valued by adults (sports and school organizations, for example). "Brains" and "nerds," in contrast, are also involved in adult-controlled organizations (in their case, academics), but they tend to be less involved in the peer culture. "Partyers" are on the opposite side of the map from "nerds": These adolescents are very involved in the peer culture but are less so in adult institutions. "Burnouts" and adolescents who are members of delinquent gangs are not involved in either the peer culture or adult institutions. Other crowds, such as "normals" or "druggies," fall somewhere between these extremes.

Involvement in Antisocial Activity

A number of studies, involving both boys and girls from different ethnic groups, indicate that antisocial, aggressive adolescents often gravitate toward each other, forming deviant peer groups. Contrary to the popular belief that antisocial adolescents do not have friends, or that they are interpersonally inept, these youngsters do have friends, but their friends tend to be antisocial as well. Although adolescents with deviant friends show some of the same emotional problems as adolescents without friends, even those with deviant friends are less lonely than their friendless peers (Brendgen, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 2000). As you might expect, adolescents with more antisocial friends are more likely to engage in antisocial activity (Criss et al., 2016), but some adolescents have inherited traits, like a proneness to sensation-seeking, that make them especially susceptible to the influence of antisocial peers. Adolescents are influenced by the antisocial behavior of their classmates, as well, even if the classmates are not actually friends. One recent study of more than 90,000 American students found that adolescents were 48% more likely to have been in a fight, 140% more likely to have pulled a weapon on someone, and 183% more likely to have badly hurt someone in the past year if a friend had engaged in the same behavior (Bond & Bushman, 2016). Peers appear even to influence the specific type of delinquency an adolescent engages in (e.g., theft versus violence) (Thomas, 2015). Although we would not necessarily want to call all of these antisocial peer groups "delinquent," since they are not always involved in criminal activity, understanding the processes through which antisocial peer groups are formed provides some insight into the development of delinquent peer groups, or gangs (Gilman, Hill, Hawkins, Howell, & Kosterman, 2014; Melde & Esbensen, 2011). Gangs are antisocial peer groups that can be identified by name (often denoting a neighborhood or part of the city) and common symbols ("colors," tattoos, hand signs, jewelry, etc.). Adolescents who belong to gangs are at greater risk for many types of problems in addition to antisocial behavior, including elevated levels of psychological distress, impulsivity, psychopathic tendencies, exposure to violence, and violent victimization. This is also true for female adolescents who hang around with male gangs, which increases their involvement in high-risk sexual behavior, drug use, and crime. Adolescents who are gang members also are more likely to have behavioral and mental health problems in adulthood.

How Cliques Structure Social Networks

A study of the structure, prevalence, and stability of cliques among 9th-graders in five different high schools within a large American school district illustrates the ways in which cliques structure adolescents' friendship networks (Ennett & Bauman, 1996). Based on interviews with students over a 1-year period, the researchers categorized adolescents as clique members (individuals who have most of their interactions with the same small group of people), liaisons (individuals who interact with two or more adolescents who are members of cliques, but who themselves are not part of a clique), and isolates (individuals who have few or no links to others in the network). Three interesting patterns emerged. First, despite the popular image of adolescents as cliquish, fewer than half the adolescents in any school were members of cliques. Second, girls were more likely than boys to be members of cliques, whereas boys were more likely than girls to be isolates. Finally, adolescents' positions in their school's social network were relatively stable over time: Adolescents who were members of cliques in the 9th grade were clique members in 10th grade; 9th-grade isolates remained, for the most part, isolates 1 year later. There is stability in adolescents' tendency to join cliques, but not in the makeup of particular groups. In another study, about 75% of 7th-graders were members of cliques and about 15% were isolates; very few were liaisons or connected to just one other adolescent in a dyad (A. M. Ryan, 2001). Not surprisingly, the more recently a student has arrived at a school, the less well connected he or she is likely to be.

Age Segregation

Although many adolescents have friends who are one school grade ahead or behind (Bowker & Spencer, 2010), age grouping in junior and senior high schools makes it unlikely that an individual will have friends who are substantially older or younger. A 10th-grader who is enrolled in 10th-grade English, 10th-grade math, 10th-grade history, and 10th-grade science simply does not have many opportunities to meet adolescents who are in different grades. Age segregation in adolescents' cliques appears to result mostly from the structure of schools. By way of comparison, adolescents' online friends are less similar in age than the friends they make in school (Mesch & Talmud, 2007).

Adolescents and Gangs

Adolescent gangs both resemble and differ from other sorts of peer groups. On the one hand, gangs look much like other types of cliques and crowds, in that they are groups of adolescents who are similar in background and orientation, share common interests and activities, and use the group to derive a sense of identity (M. Harris, 1994). One study of Latino youth in Southern California found that it was especially important to differentiate between gangs, which were organized and had long histories of involvement in serious antisocial behavior, and "crews," which also engaged in fighting, tagging, and partying, but which did not engage in serious violence (Lopez, Wishard, Gallimore, & Rivera, 2006). This distinction has important legal ramifications, because anti-gang laws that mandate tougher penalties for crimes committed by gangs may be incorrectly applied to adolescents who commit delinquent acts with their friends (or crew) but who are not members of gangs. The processes that lead adolescents to join gangs are not the same as those that lead to membership in crews and other sorts of peer groups, though. Gang members tend to be more isolated from their family, have more emotional and behavioral problems, and have poorer self-conceptions than other adolescents, including those who are involved in antisocial activity but who are not gang members. Many gang members have long histories of exposure to trauma and domestic violence, abuse and neglect, and family members who abused drugs, and many believe that joining a gang was necessary for survival in their neighborhood.

Orientation Toward the Teen Culture

Adolescents and their friends generally listen to the same type of music, dress alike, spend their leisure time in similar types of activities, and share patterns of drug use (Brown & Larson, 2009). It would be very unlikely, for example, for a "jock" and a "druggie" to be part of the same clique, because their interests and attitudes are so different. In most high schools, it is fairly easy to see the split between cliques—in how people dress, where they eat lunch, how much they participate in the school's activities, and how they spend their time outside of school. Similarity in patterns of substance use is such a strong influence that it often serves as the basis for forming cross-ethnic group friendships, which, as we noted earlier, are not common (Hamm, 2000).

Orientation Toward School

Adolescents and their friends tend to be similar in their attitudes toward school, their school achievement, and their educational plans (Flashman, 2012; Kiuru et al., 2012), although this tends to be more true among White and Asian adolescents than among Black adolescents (Hamm, 2000). Adolescents who earn high grades, study a great deal, and plan to go on to college usually have friends who share these characteristics and aspirations. One reason for this is that how much time students devote to schoolwork affects their involvement in other activities. A second is that parents who stress achievement may insist that their teens only spend time with peers who do well in school (Zhao & Gao, 2014). Yet another is that students' friendships are often drawn from the peers with whom they have classes, and if schools track students on the basis of their academic achievement, their friends will be more likely to have similar records of school performance (Crosnoe, 2002). Someone who is always studying will not have many friends who stay out late partying, because the two activities conflict. By the same token, someone who wants to spend afternoons and evenings out having fun will find it difficult to remain friends with someone who prefers to stay home and study. When adolescents' academic performance changes (for better or for worse), they tend to change their friendships in the same direction (Flashman, 2012; Smirnov & Thurner, 2017). Students also influence each other's academic performance (Gremmen, Dijkstra, Steglich, & Beenstra, 2017; Shin & Ryan, 2014). For instance, girls' decisions about whether to take advanced math classes are significantly influenced by the course-taking decisions of their friends (K. A. Frank et al., 2008). Friends exert a similar influence on GPA: Given two students with similar records of past achievement, the student whose friends do better in school is likely to get better grades than the one whose friends do worse (Véronneau & Dishion, 2011). Indeed, of all the characteristics of friends that influence adolescents' behavior, their friends' school performance has the greatest impact, not only on their own academic achievement, but also on their involvement in problem behavior and drug use (T. Cook, Deng, & Morgano, 2007).

Determinants of Popularity and Rejection

Although it is widely agreed that popular adolescents are generally more socially skilled than their unpopular peers, there is surprising variability among popular teenagers with respect to other characteristics. One reason for this is that there are two forms of popularity, and they don't always go hand in hand (Prinstein, 2017). One form, sociometric popularity, refers to how well-liked someone is. The other form, perceived popularity, refers to how much status, or prestige, someone has (Litwack, Aikins, & Cillessen, 2012). So, for example, a leader of the "preppie" crowd who is snobby might be very high in perceived popularity but not in sociometric popularity. Conversely, a member of a crowd that has less prestige who happens to be a really nice person with a good sense of humor may be high in sociometric popularity but low in perceived popularity. By the time they are 14, adolescents understand the difference between the two (van den Berg, Burk, & Cillessen, 2015). If you think back to your own high school days, you can probably remember people of each type. Whereas sociometric popularity is determined mainly by social skills, friendliness, sense of humor, and so forth, which are valued by people of all ages and backgrounds, the determinants of perceived popularity are highly variable. Because the determinants of status can easily differ between schools, or even among groups within the same school, it is hard to predict which adolescents will be popular without knowing what is valued in that adolescent's social context (Jonkmann, Trautwein, & Lüdtke, 2009; Kreager, 2007a). For example, among White and Latino teenagers, drinking is associated with status, but this is not the case among Black adolescents (Choukas-Bradley, Giletta, Neblett, & Prinstein, 2015). Although there is one main pathway to sociometric popularity (having good social skills), the determinants of perceived popularity are variable and ever changing. Having a boyfriend or girlfriend, for example, may have little to do with perceived popularity in fifth grade, but may be highly correlated with it in ninth grade. Within the very same school, some adolescents are highly regarded by their peers because they are good-looking and athletic (the conventional image of the popular teenager), whereas others are equally admired because they are rebellious, delinquent, and aggressive. Moreover, whereas many of the things that lead to popularity also make adolescents more likeable (e.g., athletic ability, physical attractiveness, social skills), some of the things that help to maintain popularity once it is established may actually make adolescents less likeable (like using gossip to control or manipulate others). In general, adolescents tend to affiliate with peers who have a similar level of popularity within their school, mainly because the more popular kids reject the less popular ones (Berger & Dikjstra, 2013). Predicting perceived popularity is further complicated by the fact that peer norms change, and socially competent adolescents are skilled at figuring them out, adjusting their behavior in response to them, and even influencing them. If smoking marijuana becomes something that is valued by the peer group, popular adolescents will start getting high more regularly. And when popular adolescents start to engage in a particular behavior, that behavior often becomes more admired. Adolescents are easily swayed by the opinions of high-status peers to behave prosocially and, as well, to endorse activities that they might otherwise reject and to run the other way from activities endorsed by low-status peers, even if they secretly enjoy them. Adolescents often behave in ways they believe popular students act, although these perceptions are not always accurate. For instance, popular kids are often thought to engage in more substance use than they actually do (Helms et al., 2014).

Popularity and Aggression

Although psychologists used to believe that aggressive and antisocial adolescents are likely to be rejected by their classmates, it turns out that some of these teenagers are quite popular, although their popularity tends to wane as adolescents get older and antisocial behavior is no longer something that teenagers admire (Young, 2014). Nor do these traits continue to have the same effects on one's social life: One study, entitled "What Ever Happened to the 'Cool' Kids?" found that adolescents whose early popularity came from impressing their peers with delinquent and "pseudomature" behavior (like precocious sex) had more interpersonal and behavioral problems as young adults. Studies have identified two distinct types of popular boys (Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl, & Van Acker, 2000). One group has characteristics typically identified in studies of popular youth: They are athletically and academically competent, friendly, and neither shy nor aggressive. A second group, however, is extremely aggressive, athletically competent, and average or below average in friendliness, academic competence, and shyness. Similarly, one study of girls found two distinctly different groups of popular adolescents: girls who were prosocial and good students, and girls who were antisocial and antiacademic, some of whom actually were even bullies (de Bruyn & Cillessen, 2006). Among both males and females, though, aggression tends to be a turn-off to potential romantic partners (Bower, Nishina, Witkow, & Bellmore, 2015). How can we explain this? Wouldn't we expect adolescents who are antisocial or aggressive toward others to be unpopular? Evidently, it is not aggression alone, but the combination of aggression and difficulty controlling emotions or a lack of social skills, that leads to problems with peers. Consistent with this, aggressive adolescents who use their aggression strategically and selectively—what is referred to as instrumental aggression—are much more popular than aggressive adolescents whose aggression is unplanned and frequent—what is referred to as reactive aggression (Ettekal & Ladd, 2015a; Prinstein & Cillessen, 2003). It's also important to distinguish between aggression, which may increase adolescents' popularity, and delinquency, which tends to diminish it (Rulison, Kreager, & Osgood, 2014). Nevertheless, some adolescents engage in antisocial or aggressive behavior because they think it will increase their popularity.

The Waxing and Waning of Crowds

As crowds become more salient influences on adolescents' view of their social world, they come to play an increasingly important role in structuring adolescents' social behavior (Brown & Larson, 2009). By 9th grade, there is nearly universal agreement among students about their school's crowd structure, and the strength of peer group influence is very high. Between 9th and 12th grades, however, the significance of the crowd structure begins to decline, and the salience of peer pressure wanes. In one study, students were presented with several scenarios asking if it was all right to exclude someone from a school activity (cheerleading, basketball, student council) because the person was a member of a certain crowd ("jock," "gothic," "preppie") (Horn, 2003). They were also asked whether it was acceptable to deny individuals resources (for example, a scholarship) on the basis of their crowd membership. Consistent with the decline in the salience of peer crowds between middle and late adolescence, 9th-graders were more likely than older students to say that excluding someone from an activity on the basis of his or her crowd was all right. Students of all ages agreed that it was less acceptable to deny students resources because of crowd membership (which virtually all students viewed as immoral) than to exclude them from an activity (which was less often seen as a moral issue). This pattern of a decline in the salience of peer crowds parallels developmental changes in adolescents' susceptibility to peer pressure (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). As crowds become less important, between middle and late adolescence, their influence over the individual's behavior weakens (Brown, 2004). Most probably, the interplay between changes in the importance of the crowd and changes in adolescent's susceptibility to peer influence is reciprocal. Just as the changes in the structure of cliques play a role in the development of intimacy, changes in the salience of crowds play an important role in adolescent identity development. Adolescence is frequently a time for experimentation with different roles and identities. During the early adolescent years, before adolescents have "found" themselves, the crowd provides an important basis for self-definition (Newman & Newman, 2001). By locating themselves within the crowd structure of their school—through clothing, language, or choice of hangouts—adolescents wear "badges" that say "This is who I am." At a time when adolescents may not actually know just who they are, associating with a crowd provides them with a rudimentary sense of identity. As adolescents become more secure in their identity as individuals, the need for affiliation with a crowd diminishes. By the time they have reached high school, older adolescents are likely to feel that remaining a part of a crowd stifles their sense of identity and self expression. The breakup of the larger peer group in late adolescence may both foreshadow and reflect the emergence of each adolescent's unique and coherent sense of self (Brown & Larson, 2009).

Adolescents and Their Cliques

Because cliques serve as a basis for adolescents' friendships and play an important role in their social development, many researchers have studied the determinants of clique composition.

Consequences of Rejection

Being unpopular has negative consequences for adolescents' mental health and psychological development—peer rejection and friendlessness are associated with subsequent depression, behavior problems, and academic difficulties (Bellmore, 2011). But studies show that the specific consequences of peer rejection may differ for rejected youth who are aggressive versus those who are withdrawn. Aggressive individuals who are rejected are at risk for conduct problems and involvement in antisocial activity as adolescents, not just as a direct result of their rejection, but because the underlying causes of their aggression (for instance, poor self-control) also contribute to later conduct problems (Laird, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 2005). In contrast, withdrawn children who are rejected are likely to feel lonely and are at risk for low self-esteem, depression, and diminished social competence—again, both as a result of being rejected and in part because the underlying causes of their timidity (for instance, high anxiety) also contribute to later emotional problems (Card & Hodges, 2008; Pedersen et al., 2007). Rejection is especially likely to lead to depression in adolescents who place a lot of importance on their standing in the peer group and who believe that they, rather than the peers who reject them, are at fault (Prinstein & Aikins, 2004). Adolescents who are both aggressive and withdrawn are at the greatest risk of all (Rubin, LeMare, & Lollis, 1990). Many psychologists believe that unpopular youngsters lack some of the social skills and social understanding necessary to be popular with peers. Unpopular aggressive children are more likely than their peers to think that other children's behavior is deliberately hostile, even when it is not. When accidentally pushed while waiting in line, for instance, many unpopular aggressive children are likely to retaliate because they believe that the person who did the pushing did it on purpose. This so-called hostile attributional bias plays a central role in the aggressive behavior of rejected adolescents (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Adolescents who are prone to make hostile attributions tend to have friends who view the world through a similar lens (Halligan & Philips, 2010). Interventions aimed at changing the way aggressive adolescents view their peers have been successful in reducing rates of aggression. What about unpopular withdrawn children? What are their social skills deficits? In general, unpopular withdrawn children are excessively anxious and uncertain around other children, often hovering around the group without knowing how to break into a conversation or activity (Rubin et al., 1990). Their hesitancy, low self-esteem, and lack of confidence make other children feel uncomfortable, and their submissiveness makes them easy targets for bullying (Olweus, 1993; Salmivalli, 1998). Many of these youngsters are especially sensitive to being rejected, and show a heightened neural response to rejection, as well as increased susceptibility to depression as a consequence. Rejection sensitivity increases in adolescence as brain regions that monitor social information become more easily aroused (Falk et al., 2014; Gunther Moor, Bos, Crone, & van der Molen, 2014; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2013; Zimmer-Gembeck, Trevaskis, Nesdale, & Downey, 2014). Some are depressed, and their depression leads them to behave in ways that make them targets of harassment (people don't like to hang around with depressed individuals) (Kochel, Ladd, & Rudolph, 2012). Unfortunately, the more these children are teased, rejected, and bullied, the more anxious and hesitant they feel, and the more they blame themselves for their victimization, which only compounds their problem—creating a cycle of victimization (see Figure 5.7) (Chen & Graham, 2012; Harper, 2012; Mathieson, Klimes-Dougan, & Crick, 2014; Siegel et al., 2009). Not all rejected students are bullied, though. Children who are victimized but who have supportive friends are less likely to be caught in this vicious cycle than those who don't

What Causes Peer Groups to Change?

Changes in peer relations have their origins in the biological, cognitive, and social transitions of adolescence (Dijkstra & Veenstra, 2011). Puberty stimulates adolescents' interest in romantic relationships and distances them from their parents, which helps to explain why adolescents' social networks increasingly include more other-sex peers and fewer adults. The cognitive changes of adolescence permit a more sophisticated understanding of social relationships, which allows the sort of abstract categorization that leads to grouping individuals into crowds. And changes in social definition may stimulate changes in peer relations as a sort of adaptive response:

Cliques and Crowds

Cliques are small groups of between 2 and 12 individuals—the average is about 5 or 6—generally of the same sex and, of course, the same age. Cliques can be defined by common activities (for example, the football players, or a group of students who study together regularly) or simply by friendship (e.g., a group of girls who have lunch together every day, or a group of boys who have grown up together). The clique provides the main social context in which adolescents interact with one another.

Crowd Membership and Adolescent Identity

Crowd membership is important not only because crowds are used by adolescents when talking about one another but also because membership in a crowd is often the basis for an adolescent's own identity (Brown & Larson, 2009). Because the adolescent's peer group plays such an important role as a reference group and a source of identity, the nature of the crowd with which an adolescent affiliates is likely to have an important influence on his or her behavior, activities, self-conceptions, and opinions about others. Although most adolescents feel pressure from their friends to behave in ways that are consistent with their crowd's values and goals, the specific pressure varies from one crowd to another. Crowd membership can also affect the way adolescents feel about themselves. Adolescents' self-esteem is higher among students who are identified with peer groups that have relatively more status in their school (Brown, Von Bank, & Steinberg, 2008). Over the course of adolescence, symptoms of psychological distress decline among the "populars" and "jocks" but increase among the "brains" (Doornwaard et al., 2012; Prinstein & La Greca, 2002). Not surprisingly, adolescents whose peers identify them as members of low-status crowds fare better psychologically when they don't see themselves this way, but the opposite is true for adolescents whose peers label them as members of high-status crowds, where denying one's affiliation with the crowd is associated with worse mental health (Brown, Von Bank, & Steinberg, 2008). Of course, the longer-term consequences of crowd membership during adolescence are not necessarily the same as their immediate impact. One study that examined the young-adult outcomes of high school crowd membership found that both "brains" and "jocks" showed the most favorable patterns of psychological adjustment over time (Barber, Eccles, & Stone, 2001). Individuals who had been members of antisocial peer groups fared the worst. Adolescents' behavior is affected by their crowd membership in several ways. First, adolescents often imitate the behavior of high-status peers—the crowd leaders. The socially popular girls, for example, may dress in a certain way, and the less popular ones (the "wannabes"), who want to be associated with them, follow suit. Popular students receive far more attention from others, especially from those who themselves are popular (Lansu, Cillessen, & Karremans, 2014). Second, crowds establish social norms—values and expectations—that members strive to follow. That is, even lower-status members of a crowd influence each other by behaving in ways that identify them as members (e.g., using certain expressions when speaking), and other adolescents who want to be accepted by them conform to these standards. In potentially risky situations, teenagers are especially likely to conform to their peers when they are not sure just how to behave (Van Hoorn, Crone, & Van Leijenhorst, 2017). Third, when crowd members behave in ways that are consistent with these norms, they are reinforced for doing so. An adolescent who dresses in a way that is consistent with a crowd's expectation may be complimented "nice shoes, Sophie" whereas one who does not may be ignored, or even made fun of "I can't believe you're wearing those!". Finally, when adolescents are reinforced for following a crowd's norms, they feel better about themselves and further incorporate their crowd membership into their identity. After being praised many times for her clothes by one of the popular crowd's members, for example, a girl will start to think of herself as a member of that crowd and begin to derive her identity in part from it.

How Adolescents Sort Into Crowds

Crowds are "reputation-based clusters of youths, whose function in part is to help solidify young people's social and personal identity". In contemporary American high schools, typical crowds include "jocks," "brains," "nerds," "populars," and "druggies." The labels for these crowds may vary from school to school ("nerds" versus "geeks," "populars" versus "preps"), but their generic presence is commonplace around the world, and you can probably recognize these different types of crowds from your own school experience (Delsing, ter Bogt, Engels, & Meeus, 2007; Sim & Yeo, 2012). Unlike cliques, crowds are not settings for adolescents' intimate interactions or friendships, but instead serve three broad purposes: to locate adolescents (to themselves and to others) within the social structure of the school, to channel adolescents toward some peers and away from others, and to provide contexts that reward certain lifestyles and disparage others (Brown & Larson, 2009). The key point is that membership in a crowd is based mainly on reputation and stereotype, rather than on actual friendship or social interaction. This is very different from membership in a clique, which, by definition, hinges on shared activity and friendship. In concrete terms, and perhaps ironically, an adolescent does not have to actually have "brains" as friends, or hang around with "brainy" students, to be one of the "brains." If he dresses like a "brain," acts like a "brain," and takes AP courses, then he is a "brain" as far as his crowd membership goes.

How Romance Changes the Peer Group

During early adolescence, adolescents' activities revolve around same-sex cliques. They are not yet involved in partying and typically spend their leisure time with a small group of friends, playing sports, talking, or simply hanging out. Somewhat later, as boys and girls become more interested in one another romantically—but before romantic relationships actually begin—boys' and girls' cliques come together. This is clearly a transitional stage. Boys and girls may go to parties or hang out, but the time they spend together mainly involves interaction with peers of the same sex. When young teenagers are still uncomfortable about dealing with members of the other sex, this context provides an opportunity in which they can learn more about peers of the other sex without having to be intimate or risk losing face. It is not unusual, for example, at young adolescents' first mixed-sex parties, for groups of boys and girls to position themselves at other sides of a room, watching each other but seldom interacting. As some adolescents become interested in romantic relationships, part of the group begins to split off into mixed-sex cliques, while other individuals remain in the group but in same-sex cliques. This shift is usually led by the clique leaders, with other clique members following along. For instance, a clique of boys whose main activity is playing basketball may discover that one of the guys they look up to has become more interested in going to mixed-sex parties Saturday nights than in hanging out and playing video games with the group. Over time, they will begin to follow his lead, and their all-male activities will become more infrequent. A study of middle school dances over the course of the academic year found that the integration of boys' and girls' peer groups increased over time, but that this occurred mainly among physically attractive adolescents (no surprise, because being good-looking contributes to status in the peer group) (Pellegrini & Long, 2007). During middle adolescence, mixed-sex and mixed-age cliques become more prevalent (Molloy, Gest, Feinberg, & Osgood, 2014), and in time, the peer group becomes composed entirely of mixed-sex cliques (Cooksey, Mott, & Neubauer, 2002). Interestingly, the transition from same-sex groups to mixed-sex groups is associated with an increase in alcohol use among males, and in both alcohol and drug use among females, most likely because the activities that draw males and females together often involve partying (Poulin, Denault, & Pedersen, 2011). Finally, during late adolescence, peer crowds begin to disintegrate. The importance of the peer group starts to wane somewhat. As students approach their senior year and feel more secure about themselves, there is a decline in the extent to which they say they want to improve their social skills and the quality of their relationships (Makara & Madjar, 2015). Pairs of adolescents who see themselves as couples begin to split off from the activities of the larger group. The larger peer group is replaced by loosely associated sets of couples. Adolescents begin to shift some of their attention away from friends and toward romantic partners (Kuttler & La Greca, 2004). Groups of couples may go out together from time to time, but the feeling of being in a crowd has disappeared. This pattern—in which the couple becomes the focus of social activity—persists into adulthood. When viewed from a structural point of view, the peer group's role in the development of intimacy is clear. Over time, the structure of the peer group changes, in keeping with adolescents' changing needs and interests. The adolescent's capacity for close relationships develops first through friendships with peers of the same sex, and only later does intimacy enter into other-sex relationships. Thus, the structure of the peer group changes during adolescence in a way that parallels the adolescent's development of intimacy: As the adolescent develops increasing facility in intimate relationships, the peer group moves from the familiarity of same-sex activities to contact with other-sex peers, but mainly in the safety of the larger group. It is only after adolescents have been slowly socialized into dating roles—primarily by modeling their higher-status peers—that the safety of numbers is no longer needed and adolescents begin pairing off.

Sex Segregation

During early and middle adolescence, cliques also tend to be composed of adolescents of the same sex. This sex segregation begins in childhood and continues through most of adolescence, although it is stronger among White students than among Black students, and it weakens later in adolescence. The causes of sex segregation in adolescents' cliques are more interesting than the causes of age segregation, because schools seldom separate boys and girls into different classes. Why, then, do adolescent males and females separate themselves into different cliques? Social scientists who study gender and development have suggested several reasons (Maccoby, 1990). First, cliques are formed largely on the basis of shared activities and interests. Preadolescent and early adolescent boys and girls are interested in different things (Mehta & Strough, 2009). Not until adolescents begin dating do boys' cliques and girls' cliques mix, presumably because dating provides a basis for common activity. Consistent with this, one study of adolescents' social networks found that the proportion of other-sex friends more than doubles between 6th and 10th grades (Poulin & Pedersen, 2007). And, in keeping with the notion that this coincides with the onset of dating, the increase is especially notable among early-maturing girls, whose networks increasingly include somewhat older boys that they know outside of school. Even so, by 10th grade, most adolescents' networks are still dominated by same-sex friends, who make up about three-quarters of the average social network. A second reason for sex segregation in adolescent peer groups concerns young adolescents' sensitivity about sex roles. Over the course of childhood, boys and girls become increasingly concerned about behaving in ways judged to be sex-appropriate. When little boys show an interest in dolls, they are often told either explicitly (by parents, friends, and teachers) or implicitly (by television, books, and other mass media), "Boys don't play with dolls—those are for girls." And when girls start wrestling or roughhousing, they are often similarly reprimanded. As a consequence of these continual reminders that there are boys' activities and girls' activities, early adolescents—who are trying to establish a sense of identity—are very concerned about acting in sex-appropriate ways, although this is more true of boys than girls (Galambos, Berenbaum, & McHale, 2009). This makes it very difficult for an adolescent boy to be a part of a girls' clique, in which activities are likely to revolve around clothing and talking about boys, or a girl to be part of a boys' clique, in which activities are likely to be dominated by athletics and other physical pursuits (Mehta & Strough, 2009). Adolescents who go against prevailing sex-role norms by forming friendships with members of the other sex may be teased about being "fags" or may be ostracized by their peers because they are "girly" (Oransky & Marecek, 2009).

Ethnic Segregation

Ethnicity is not a strong determinant of clique composition during childhood, but it becomes increasingly powerful as youngsters get older (Raabe & Beelman, 2011). By middle and late adolescence, adolescents' peer groups typically are ethnically segregated, with very few ethnically mixed cliques in most high schools (Ennett & Bauman, 1996). This appears to be the case, although somewhat less so, even within schools that have been deliberately desegregated. In fact, cross-ethnic friendships are less common in ethnically diverse schools and neighborhoods than in those where one ethnic group predominates (Munniksma, Scheepers, Stark, & Tolsma, 2017; Quillian & Campbell, 2003). Contact with adolescents from other ethnic groups during adolescence is predictive of intergroup contact in adulthood. An analysis of data from a large, nationally representative sample of adolescents found that ethnicity continues to be an enormously powerful determinant of friendship patterns. The rift between Black students and students from all other ethnic groups, especially Whites and Asians, is especially strong. Although Asian students report the highest degree of discrimination by peers, Black students' reports of being discriminated against by other students increase over time. Ethnicity is such a strong determinant of adolescents' cliques that teenagers are more likely to have friends of the same ethnicity who come from the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum than to have friends from the same social class but a different ethnic group. Studies of whether cross-ethnic friendships are more common among Asian and Hispanic adolescents who are American born than among their peers who are immigrants have found that immigrants are less likely to have cross-ethnic friendships, perhaps because of language barriers (Hamm, Brown, & Heck, 2005; Kiang, Peterson, & Thompson, 2011; Titzman, 2014). But even among ethnic minority youth whose families have been in the United States for generations, there is a strong preference for same-ethnicity friends (Quillian & Campbell, 2003). Parents appear to influence this preference, as indicated by a study of Mexican American adolescents, which found that adolescents were more likely to have non-Mexican friends when their parents were themselves more strongly oriented toward Anglo culture (Updegraff, McHale, Whiteman, Thayer, & Crouter, 2006). The social climate of the school likely matters as well: Feelings of discrimination often drive ethnic minority students into peer crowds that are defined by ethnicity (Brown, Herman, Hamm, & Heck, 2008). It is difficult to know why such strong ethnic segregation persists in adolescents' friendship selection. Ethnic segregation in adolescents' cliques is only partly due to residential segregation (Mouw & Entwisle, 2006). One possibility is that some ethnic segregation in friendship patterns is due to differential levels of academic achievement of adolescents from different ethnic groups (Graham, Munniksma, & Juvonen, 2014). On average, White and Asian adolescents get significantly higher grades in school than Black or Hispanic adolescents. As you'll read, friends usually have similar attitudes toward school, educational aspirations, and grades (Brown, 2004). Ethnic differences in school achievement therefore may lead to ethnic separation in adolescent peer groups (Hallinan & Williams, 1989). Cross-ethnic friendships are more rare in schools that frequently separate students into different academic tracks (Stearns, 2004). A second reason for ethnically segregated peer groups—according to one study of adolescents in a school that had been recently desegregated—is attitudinal. In this school, the White adolescents perceived their Black peers as aggressive, threatening, and hostile. The Black students, in turn, saw the White students as conceited, prejudiced, and unwilling to be friends with them. These perceptions, which fed on each other, made the formation of interracial peer groups unlikely. The more the White students believed that the Black students were hostile, the more the White students acted distant and kept to themselves. But the more the White students acted this way, the more likely the Black students were to feel rejected, and the more hostile they became. In general, White students are less apt to initiate contact with Black students and to select them as friends than vice versa (Quillian & Campbell, 2003). Asian students are especially unlikely to have Black friends (Chen & Graham, 2015). One way out of this cycle of misunderstanding is to bring youngsters from different backgrounds together from an early age, before they have had time to build up prejudices and lock on to stereotypes, which tend to develop prior to adolescence (Raabe & Beelman, 2011). Same-ethnic and cross-ethnic friends have different advantages: the former increase students' ethnic pride, but in ethnically diverse classrooms, the latter make students feel safer and less vulnerable (Graham et al., 2014).

Relational Aggression

Girls also act aggressively toward peers, but their aggression is often social, not physical (Crick, 1996). They often engage in relational aggression—aggression intended to harm other adolescents through deliberate manipulation of their social standing and relationships. Individuals use relational aggression to hurt others by excluding them from social activities, damaging their reputations with others, or withdrawing attention and friendship. Different types of aggression follow similar developmental trajectories during adolescence, increasing during early adolescence and then declining from mid-adolescence on, and are correlated (individuals who are highly aggressive in one way are also aggressive in others, and individuals who are frequent victims of physical aggression are also frequent victims of relational aggression). Like physical aggression, the roots of relational aggression are often found in the family: Adolescents who use a lot of relational aggression frequently have parents who are harsh or controlling.

Rejected Adolescents

Just as there are different reasons for being popular, there are also different reasons for being rejected. It's important to distinguish among three types of disliked adolescents, though (Bierman & Wargo, 1995; Coie, Terry, Lenox, Lochman, & Hyman, 1995; French, Conrad, & Turner, 1995). One set of unpopular adolescents comprises teenagers who have trouble controlling their aggression. Withdrawn adolescents make up a second unpopular set; these adolescents are shy, anxious, and inhibited, and boys of this sort are frequently victims of bullying (Coplan et al., 2013; Erath, Flanagan, & Bierman, 2007). A third group is both aggressive and withdrawn. These adolescents have problems controlling their hostility, but like other withdrawn children, they tend to be nervous about initiating friendships with other adolescents. The origins of peer rejection in adolescence can frequently be traced to earlier periods of development. Often, adolescents who are rejected by their peers were also spurned during middle childhood, and this rejection, in turn, was the consequence of behavioral and emotional difficulties apparent in early elementary school (Ettekal & Ladd, 2015; Pedersen, Vitaro, Barker, & Borge, 2007; Monahan & Booth-LaForce, 2016). Others are rejected in adolescence mainly because they've been rejected in the past (Ladd, Ettekal, Kochenderfer-Ladd, Rudolph, & Andrews, 2014). Regardless of its causes, rejection by peers is a significant source of stress for adolescents, who show greater brain activation to rejection than children do, as well as a stronger biological stress response to it (Bolling et al., 2011; Stroud et al., 2009). During adolescence there are important changes in the brain that lead individuals to become more sensitive to the emotions, expressions, and opinions of others (Van Hoorn et al., 2016). One fascinating study of adolescents' ratings of music imaged participants' brains while they were listening to songs with or without the songs' popularity revealed. Changing one's evaluation of a song after being told whether it was popular or not was correlated with brain activity in regions known to reflect anxiety, suggesting that feeling anxious about whether one's tastes in music are "correct" may lead teenagers to conform to others (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010). Along similar lines, the same reward centers as those activated by food, sex, and drugs are also activated when teenagers view Instagram photos that have received many "likes".

Crowds as Reference Groups

Knowing where an adolescent fits into the social system of the school can tell us a lot about the person's behavior and values. This is because crowds contribute to the definition of norms and standards for such things as clothing, leisure, and tastes in music. Another way of putting this is that adolescents' crowds serve as reference groups. They provide their members with an identity in the eyes of others. Adolescents judge one another on the basis of the company they keep, and they become branded on the basis of the people they hang out with. Such labels as "jocks," "brains," "populars," "druggies," and "skaters" serve as shorthand notations—accurate or inaccurate—to describe what someone is like as a person, what he or she holds as important, and how he or she spends time. Individuals who are members of more unconventional crowds (e.g., "hip hoppers," "metalheads") engage in more problem behavior, whereas those who are in more conventional ones (e.g., "normals," "jocks") report less (Doornwaard, Branje, Meeus, & ter Bogt, 2012).

Ethnicity and Crowd Membership

Many of the basic distinctions among crowds that have been found in studies of predominantly White high schools (for example, academically oriented crowds, partying crowds, deviant crowds, trendy crowds) also exist among adolescents from ethnic minority groups (Brown & Mounts, 1989). There is evidence, however, that in multiethnic high schools adolescents first divide across ethnic lines and then form into the more familiar adolescent crowds within ethnic groups. In a large multiethnic high school, there may be separate groups of Black "jocks" and White "jocks," of Hispanic "populars" and Black "populars," and so on (Hardie & Tyson, 2013). In multiethnic schools, adolescents from one ethnic group are less likely to see crowd distinctions within other ethnic groups than they are within their own group. Thus, to White students, all Asian adolescents are part of the "Asian" crowd, whereas the Asian students see themselves as divided into "brains," "populars," and other groups. The meaning associated with belonging to different crowds also may differ across ethnic and socioeconomic groups, although this varies considerably from school to school. Although it is commonly believed that high-achieving Black students are ostracized for "acting White" (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986), many studies do not find this to be typical (e.g., Horvat & Lewis, 2003; Tyson et al., 2005). In fact, in many schools, all students who are highly committed to school, regardless of their ethnicity, are teased or excluded for being "nerds" or "brains," or simply for doing well in school (Schwartz, Kelly, & Duong, 2013). Similarly, in some schools it may be admirable to be a "jock," while in others it may be frowned upon. The values we associate with being in one crowd as opposed to another aren't the same across all school contexts.

The Transformation of the Nerds

One fascinating study of the day-to-day experiences of "nerds" and their interactions with other students was based on an ethnography of the social interaction and peer culture in a high school in a small Midwestern city (Kinney, 1993). In contrast to survey or experimental research, which is typically quantitative in nature (that is, the data collected can be quantified), ethnographic research is qualitative. The researcher spends a considerable amount of time observing interactions within the setting, interviewing many adolescents, and writing up field notes, much as an anthropologist would do in studying a foreign culture. Ethnographic approaches can be extremely useful in studying social relationships, because they provide rich, descriptive data. The study found that many individuals managed to transform themselves from "nerds" into "normals" during high school. For some, this was accomplished because the high school peer structure was more differentiated and permeable. As opposed to middle school, where there were only two groups—the popular and the unpopular—in high school, there were more socially acceptable groups. For others, the transition to "normal" came about through gains in self-assurance that came with physical and social development. And for still others, the transformation was facilitated by a more sophisticated, confident view of the social hierarchy—one that permitted them to reject the premise that whatever the popular kids valued was necessarily desirable. In essence, the transformation of "nerds" to "normals" was enabled by a combination of factors both within the context (the increasing differentiation and permeability of the peer crowd system) and within the adolescent (the physical, cognitive, and social maturation of the individual) (B. Brown, 1996). This study, as well as other ethnographies of adolescent peer groups, reminds us of the potential for growth and change during the adolescent years, even for individuals who begin the period at a social disadvantage.

Cyberbullying

Rates of cyberbullying (e.g., bullying that occurs electronically) vary considerably from study to study, in part because researchers define cyberbullying in different ways (Patton et al., 2014). Physical bullying is more common (nearly 35% of students have been the victim of physical bullying, compared with about 15-20% who have been victims of electronic bullying (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014; Payne & Hutzell, 2017; Tsitsika et al., 2015). Even still, cyberbullying affects victims in ways that are similar to physical bullying (Bonanno & Hymel, 2013). Adolescents who are bullied frequently online report high levels of distress, anger, shame, and even physical symptoms, although not to the same degree as reported by those who are victims of physical bullying. Unlike physical bullying, which declines over early adolescence, cyberbullying becomes more common. In general, girls and boys use cyberbullying differently—girls use it to spread gossip and rumors, whereas boys use it to directly insult others. Many large scale studies—including a review of 55 research reports that collectively included more than 250,000 American adolescents—find that being cyberbullied is associated with both emotional and behavioral problems (Fisher, Gardella, & Teurbe-Tolon, 2016). According to a study of more than 30,000 Canadian teenagers, males and females are affected differently by being cyberbullied—girls are more likely to develop emotional problems (like depression or anxiety), whereas boys are more likely to develop behavioral ones (like fighting or delinquent activity). Either way, reading something negative about yourself online, being attacked by peers in social media, or discovering that you have been socially excluded, can be very distressing. Most adolescents who engage in traditional bullying also frequently engage in cyberbullying, and adolescents who are frequent victims of traditional bullying are also frequent victims of electronic harassment. And, as is the case with physical bullying, adolescents who are both perpetrators and victims of cyberbullying have the most problematic histories. Contrary to popular belief, most cyberbullying is not anonymous, and most victims of online bullying suspect a friend or someone else from their school. Not surprisingly, bullies who "specialize" in cyberbullying, which takes a bit of planning, tend to be less reactive in their aggression and more instrumental, often using electronic bullying to enhance their own social status, and they tend to be better adjusted than those who engage in physical bullying. They and their classmates are also less likely to view cyberbullying as wrong, and the more often teenagers witness cyberbullying the more likely they are to become more emotionally inured to it, which is important, because perpetrators of cyberbullying tend to be less empathic over time, which may make them more likely to engage in the behavior. Interestingly, whereas conventional bullying tends to make adolescents less popular, cyberbullying tends to have the opposite affect (Wegge, Vendebosch, Eggermont, & Pabian, 2014). Adolescents are more likely to engage in cyberbullying if they believe that their friends are, too (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013), if they have poor relationships with their parents (Buelga, Martinez-Ferrer, & Cava, 2017), and if their parents are unaware of their online behavior or overestimate the success of their rules regarding their child's Internet use (Barlett & Fennel, 2016). Experts suggest that parents need to familiarize themselves with social media and talk with their teenagers about their online experiences (Underwood & Ehrenreich, 2017). Teenagers whose parents monitor their Internet activity are less likely to be harassed. Monitoring appears to be more effective than the imposition of restrictions on computer use, although limiting adolescents' Internet access in their bedroom appears to help. There also is evidence that making the school environment safer and more supportive may reduce cyberbullying

The Peer Group and Psychosocial Development

Regardless of the structure or norms of a particular peer group, peers play an extremely important role in the psychological development of adolescents. Problematic peer relationships are associated with a range of serious psychological and behavior problems during adolescence and adulthood. Individuals who are unpopular or who have poor peer relationships during adolescence are more likely than their socially accepted peers to be low achievers in school, drop out of high school, show higher rates of delinquent behavior, and suffer from an array of emotional and mental health problems as adults. Although it is likely that poorly adjusted individuals have difficulty making friends, psychological problems result from—as well as cause—problems with peers. Adolescents consider the time they spend with their peers to be among the most enjoyable parts of the day (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). One reason is that activities with friends are typically organized around having a good time, in contrast to activities with parents, which are more likely to be organized around household chores or the enforcement of parental rules (Larson, 1983). Rather than being competing institutions, the family and peer group mainly provide contrasting opportunities for adolescent activities and behaviors. The family is organized around work and other tasks, and it may be important in the socialization of responsibility and achievement. The peer group provides more frequent opportunities for interaction and leisure, which contributes to the development of intimacy and enhances the adolescent's mood and psychological well-being.

Popularity, Rejection, and Bullying

The internal structure of peer groups. Within a clique or a crowd, what determines which adolescents are popular and which are not? What factors influence bullying and victimization?

Victimization

Students who are harassed by their classmates report a range of adjustment problems, including low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, sleep difficulties, and academic difficulties, as well as loneliness, problems in social skills, and difficulties in controlling negative emotions, such as anger and aggression. In some studies, these psychological problems have been shown to be the causes of victimization, rather than the consequences (Krygsman & Vaillancourt, 2017; Marsh et al., 2016), whereas in others, there is clear evidence that victimization leads to subsequent problems, some of which may persist into adulthood (McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015). Many researchers believe that both processes are at work: Victims are drawn into a downward spiral, where victimization leads to emotional problems, heightened sensitivity to rejection, and self-blame, which in turn prompt more victimization (Burke, Sticca, & Perren, 2017; Schacter & Juvonen, 2017; Zimmer-Gembeck, 2016). Attributing one's victimization to one's own deficiencies (e.g., it's something about me that I can't change) is more common in schools where victimization is less common, but attributing it to bad decision making (e.g., I shouldn't have walked there by myself) is more common in schools where there is a lot of victimization. Some adolescents who are victimized become alienated and disengaged from school, and, ultimately, form bonds with antisocial peers, which draws the previously victimized teenagers into antisocial activity (Rudolph et al., 2014; Totura, Karver, & Gesten, 2014). Some end up in friendship groups with other victimized peers, not so much because they actively choose each other as friends, but because they are avoided by other students and have few other choices (Turanovic & Young, 2016). Although being bullied has adverse consequences regardless of whether other students witness it, public victimization, especially when other students watch but don't offer any assistance, is particularly humiliating (Nishina, 2012). Sadly, the effects of being harassed in middle school are still observed in high school (Rusby, Forrester, Biglan, & Metzler, 2005) and later in adulthood (Wolke, Copeland, Angold, & Costello, 2013). Adolescents who are the victims of physical victimization are also likely to be the victims of relational victimization, suggesting that some of the characteristics that prompt one type of bullying also prompt the other (Casper & Card, 2017). One of the most pernicious effects of victimization is that it undermines academic performance, school attendance, school engagement, and feelings of academic competence, all of which has cascading effects well beyond adolescence—even after taking into account background factors, being bullied during adolescence is associated with lower educational attainment, and, as a consequence, diminished earnings in adulthood. Victimization can even harm cognitive development. Many adolescents who report having been victimized also report bullying others. These adolescents have the greatest adjustment problems, just as children who are both aggressive and withdrawn are typically the most disturbed. One reason that bullying and victimization are often seen in the same children is that some adolescents react to victimization by becoming more aggressive and bullying other children. (Victims are more likely to become bullies than the reverse) Another may be that certain elements of the broader context—the climate of the school, for instance—may increase or decrease the likelihood of aggression between classmates (Diazgranados & Selman, 2014). Teachers and principals may be able to make changes in their school's climate that will reduce aggression between students (Cornell, Shukla, & Konold, 2015; Veenstra, Lindenberg, Huitsing, & Salmivalli, 2014). Evaluations of school-based anti-bullying programs have shown small but significant effects when implemented during elementary school, but no effect whatsoever after seventh grade; in fact, during high school anti-bullying interventions may actually lead to more bullying. Whether older teenagers are just more resistant to such efforts, or whether they need different sorts of programs than those used with younger students, isn't known. In light of this evidence, states would be well advised to be cautious about mandating school-wide anti-bullying programs in high schools.

Bullies and Victims

Studies of American and European youth indicate that about one-third of students report having been physically bullied at some time during the past year, although in some studies, the percentage of students who report having been victimized has been considerably higher (Goldbach, Sterzing, & Stuart, 2018; Haynie et al., 2001; Nansel et al., 2001; Williford, Brisson, Bender, Jenson, & Forrest-Bank, 2011). One problem in coming up with accurate estimates of the prevalence of bullying or victimization is that researchers and survey respondents define them in so many different ways (Hymel & Swearer, 2015) and because rates of physical bullying and victimization vary across school grades, declining considerably as students move through middle school and into high school (Ladd, Ettekal, & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2017). For example, Hispanic and Black students are less likely than White students to report having been bullied, but they are just as likely as White students to report having been hit, robbed, stolen from, put down, and having their belongings damaged (Lai & Kao, 2018). Nevertheless, scholars differentiate bullying from other forms of aggression by its repetitive nature and by the imbalance of power that describes the bully and victim (Rodkin, Espelage, & Hanish, 2015). Rates of victimization vary considerably from country to country, although around the world, adolescents who come from less affluent families are more likely to be bullied. Although relationships between adolescents who dislike each other have not been studied extensively, such mutual antipathies are not uncommon. These relationships frequently involve bullies and victims, often with an antisocial adolescent repeatedly harassing a withdrawn classmate (Güroğlu, Haselager, van Lieshout, & Scholte, 2009). Adolescents who are bullies are also likely to assist and reinforce other bullies and, like the bullies they support, are also more likely to have conduct problems, be callous and indifferent to the problems of others, and "morally disengaged"—likely to justify unethical behavior as permissible. Bullying is something that students can be exposed to both directly (when they are the victims) or indirectly (when they witness harassment but aren't themselves victimized). These two different types of experience have both similar and dissimilar effects (Janosz et al., 2008; Nishina & Juvonen, 2005). Being victimized or witnessing the harassment of others makes students anxious, but, oddly enough, witnessing the harassment of others appears to buffer some of the harmful effects of being victimized. Adolescents who are victims of harassment but who do not see anyone else being victimized are more likely to feel humiliated and angry than those who are both victims and witnesses. Presumably, being singled out for harassment feels worse than being just one of many who are picked on (Brendgen et al., 2013). For this reason, some studies find that in ethnically diverse schools, victimized students whose ethnic group is in the minority are not as harmed psychologically as are victimized students whose ethnic group is in the majority, who are less able to attribute their victimization to their ethnicity and more likely to blame it on their own shortcomings.

Similarity Among Clique Members

The most important influence on the composition of cliques is similarity. Adolescents' cliques typically are composed of people who are of the same age, ethnicity, and—at least during early and middle adolescence—the same sex

Problems/Implications of Crowds

The fact that crowd membership is based on reputation and stereotype has important implications. It can be very difficult for adolescents, who—if they don't change their reputation early on in high school—may find themselves stuck, at least in the eyes of others, in a crowd they don't want to belong to or even see themselves as a part of (Brown, Von Bank, & Steinberg, 2008). Plus, some individuals can be members of more than one crowd simultaneously, if their reputation is such that they fit into them (Brown, 2004). According to some estimates, close to half of high school students are associated with one crowd, about one-third are associated with two or more crowds, and about one-sixth do not clearly fit into any crowd (Brown, 2004). Although an adolescent's closest friends are almost always members of the same clique, some of them may belong to a different crowd, especially when one crowd is close in lifestyle to the other. For example, a "brain" will have some friends who are also "brains" and some who are "nerds" but few, if any, who are "druggies" (Brown et al., 1994). More importantly, crowds are not simply clusters of cliques; the two different structures serve entirely different purposes. Because the clique is based on activity and friendship, it is the peer setting in which adolescents learn social skills—how to be a good friend, how to communicate effectively, how to be a leader, how to enjoy someone else's company, or how to break off a friendship that is no longer satisfying. In contrast, because crowds are based more on reputation and stereotype than on interaction, they probably contribute more to the adolescent's sense of identity and self-conception—for better and for worse—than to his or her actual social development.

The Role of Parents

The process of antisocial peer group formation in adolescence begins in the home, during childhood. Problematic parent-child relationships—ones that are coercive and hostile—lead to the development of an antisocial disposition in the child, and this disposition contributes, in elementary school, to both school failure and rejection by classmates. Rejected by the bulk of their classmates, aggressive boys "shop" for friends and are accepted only by other aggressive boys. Once these friendships are formed, the boys, like any other clique, reward each other for participating in a shared activity—in this case, antisocial behavior. Improvements in parenting during adolescence reduce teenagers' association with antisocial peers, which, in turn, reduces problem behavior. The family and peer contexts are connected through other processes as well (Brown & Bakken, 2011; Schroeder & Mowen, 2014). Parents often "manage" their adolescent's friendships by monitoring the individuals their child spends time with, guiding their child toward peers they like, prohibiting contact with peers they dislike, and supporting friendships they approve of. Parents also act as "consultants," helping their teenagers work out problems with their friends. Adolescents whose parents act as consultants in this way are less likely to be involved in drug use and delinquent activity and report more positive relationships with their friends. On the other hand, excessive attempts to control an adolescent's choice of friends may backfire; when parents forbid adolescents from associating with peers the parents disapprove of, they may inadvertently drive adolescents to become closer to those peers, perhaps in defiance of these restrictions on their independence (Keijsers et al., 2012; Tilton-Weaver, Burk, Kerr, & Stattin, 2013). Rather than viewing the family and peer contexts as separate worlds, it is important to keep in mind that what takes place in one setting often has an impact on what occurs in others. The role of the family in friendship choice has also been described in studies of crowds (Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993; C. Mason, Cauce, Gonzales, & Hiraga, 1996). One of the factors that influences the crowd an adolescent belongs to is her or his upbringing. Parents play a role in socializing certain traits in their children, and these orientations, whether toward aggression or academic achievement, predispose adolescents toward choosing certain friends or crowds with which to affiliate. Once in these cliques or crowds, adolescents are rewarded for the traits that led them there in the first place, and these traits are strengthened. One problem with accounts of adolescent development that posit the peer group as more important than the family (e.g., J. Harris, 1998) is that they fail to take into account the fact that the family has a strong effect on adolescents' choice of peers. For example, a child who is raised to value academics will perform well in school and will likely select friends who share this orientation. Over time, these friends will reinforce the youngster's academic orientation and strengthen his or her school performance. By the same token, adolescents who have poor relationships at home are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior, are drawn to other antisocial peers, and become more antisocial over time as a result (Benson & Buehler, 2012; Li, Chen, Li, & Deater-Deckard, 2015). Even when adolescents have relatively more antisocial friends, having better relationships at home and a stronger attachment to school will make them less susceptible to their friends' negative influence—even in the context of a gang (Crosnoe, Erickson, & Dornbusch, 2002; Walker-Barnes & Mason, 2004; Trudeau, Mason, Randall, Spoth, & Ralston, 2012). The finding that adolescents become more antisocial when they spend time with antisocial peers has prompted some experts to question the wisdom of group-based interventions for adolescents with conduct problems (Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999). Several studies of programs designed to reduce adolescents' delinquency or aggression, for example, have found that, instead of having the desired effect, the programs actually increase participants' problem behavior. They have what scientists call iatrogenic effects (Mahoney, Stattin, & Lord, 2004). Iatrogenic effects are the undesirable consequences of well-intentioned treatments—for example, when the side effects of a medication are worse than the problem it is intended to treat. When antisocial adolescents spend time with like-minded peers, they frequently teach each other how to be "more effective" delinquents and reward each other for misbehavior. One observational study of adolescent friends talking to each other on camera (Piehler & Dishion, 2014) found that individuals who had a history of involvement in antisocial behavior engaged in more spontaneous conversation about antisocial activities and rewarded each other in the way they responded (e.g., "We were so wasted last Friday." "Oh, yeah, that was insane!" "Remember the time we stole that vodka?" "That was so awesome!"). Several writers have described this process as "deviancy training" (e.g., Forgatch et al., 2016). Knowing that group treatments for antisocial behavior have iatrogenic effects is obviously important for the design of programs for delinquent and aggressive youth.

Changes in Crowds

There also are changes in peer crowds during this time. Many of these changes reflect the growing cognitive sophistication of the adolescent. For example, as adolescents mature intellectually, they come to define crowds more in terms of abstract, global characteristics ("preppies," "nerds," "jocks") than in terms of concrete, behavioral features ("the ballet crowd," "the Wizard 101 crowd," "the kids who play basketball on 114th Street") (Dijkstra & Veenstra, 2011). As you know, this shift from concrete to abstract is a general feature of cognitive development in adolescence. In addition, as adolescents become more cognitively capable, they become more consciously aware of the crowd structure of their school and their place in it (Brown, 2004). Over the course of adolescence, the crowd structure also becomes more differentiated, more permeable, and less hierarchical, which allows adolescents more freedom to change crowds and enhance their status (Brown, 2004; Horn, 2003). In early adolescence, a school may have only two broad crowds (e.g., "normals" and "losers"). By high school, there may be several different ways to be "normal" ("populars," "jocks," "average") and several different ways to be a "loser" ("brains," "nerds," "burnouts").

Changes in Clique and Crowd Structure Over Time

There are important changes in the structure of cliques and crowds during the adolescent years, driven in large measure by the increased importance of romantic relationships

Common Interests Among Friends

Three factors appear to be especially important in determining adolescent clique membership and friendship patterns: orientation toward school, orientation toward the teen culture, and involvement in antisocial activity

The Dynamics of Popularity

Two ethnographies of early adolescent girls provide insight into the dynamics of popularity. 1) In a classic study, the researcher spent two years in a middle school observing interactions among early adolescent girls in various extracurricular and informal settings (in the cafeteria, in the hallway, at school dances) (Eder, 1985). Although the study is more than 30 years old, many of the researcher's observations still ring true today. In this school, the cheerleaders were considered the elite crowd, and girls who made the cheerleading squad were immediately accorded social status. Other girls then attempted to befriend the cheerleaders as a means of increasing their own perceived popularity. This, in turn, increased the cheerleaders' prestige within the school, as they became the most sought-after friends. Girls who were successful in cultivating friendships with the cheerleaders became a part of this high-status group and more popular. But because even popular adolescents can only maintain a finite number of friendships, they ended up snubbing other classmates who wanted to be their friends. Ironically, this often leads to popular adolescents becoming disliked (Mayeux, Sandstrom, & Cillessen, 2008). Thus, adolescents who hang out with popular adolescents may themselves become perceived as more popular over time but they may also become less well-liked and even victimized, because they are seen as snobby status-seekers, especially by their less popular peers. 2) In another ethnography, the researcher spent time observing and interviewing a group described by teachers as the "dirty dozen" (Merten, 1997). This group of girls, "considered 'cool,' 'popular,' and 'mean,'" were "a combination of cute, talented, affluent, conceited, and powerful" . The researcher was interested in understanding "why a clique of girls that was popular and socially sophisticated was also renowned for its meanness". The answer, he discovered, was that meanness was one of the ways that the clique ensured that no one member became stuck-up as a result of her popularity in the eyes of her classmates. Thus, while it was important for clique members to maintain their popular image, if any clique member appeared to become too popular, the other members would turn on her, undermining her standing with other girls by gossiping, starting rumors, and deliberately attempting to disrupt her friendships. Although the study was conducted more than 20 years ago, the following quote, from a girl whose friends turned on her, will sound all too familiar: Ironically, then, one of the potential costs of being popular in adolescence is that if you become too popular, you face the very real possibility of being the object of other classmates' meanness. Although popularity clearly has some costs, the advantages of being popular far outweigh the disadvantages. Being popular is not the same as having close and intimate friendships, but the two often go hand in hand (Asher, Parker, & Walker, 1996). Compared with their less popular peers, popular adolescents are more likely to have close and intimate friendships, have an active social life, take part in extracurricular activities, and receive more social recognition (such as being selected as leaders of school organizations) (Franzoi, Davis, & Vasquez-Suson, 1994). Part of the overlap between popularity and friendship stems from the fact that many of the characteristics that make adolescents popular are the same ones that make them sought after as friends—chief among them, having good social skills. Actually, adolescents who describe themselves as well-liked and socially competent fare well psychologically over time, regardless of whether they are genuinely popular among their classmates (McElhaney, Antonishak, & Allen, 2008). Teenagers whose peers like them, or who merely believe that their peers like them, have higher self-esteem both as adolescents and as adults (Gruenenfelder-Steiger, Harris, & Fend, 2016). Keep in mind that some adolescents who are not especially popular in school may have a well-developed network of friends outside of school. Because most research on adolescents' peer networks has been limited to school-based friendships, we know relatively little about the nature or effects of friendships from other sources. But we do know that many adolescents have a social life outside of school—at church, in the neighborhood, in nonschool extracurricular activities—that is quite different from their life in school. Having friends outside school can buffer the harmful consequences of having few friends in school.

Bystanders

What about students who see their classmates bullied? One study of bystanders found that onlookers were more likely to intervene and defend the victim in schools in which doing so was expected—not so much by teachers but by other students (Pozzoli, Gini, & Vieno, 2012). This has important implications for intervention, because it suggests that reducing the incidence of bullying in schools should focus on all students, and not just the bullies or victims (Tu, Erath, & Flanagan, 2012). It's hard for witnesses to know just how to intervene, though. Researchers are also studying the conditions under which students who witness someone being bullied will intervene to try to stop it, as well as the characteristics of students who are more likely to intervene (Meter & Card, 2015). Bystanders who intervene when someone is bullied are themselves more likely to have supportive relationships with teachers and friends, to be more religious, and to have a strong sense of ethnic identity (Evans & Smokowski, 2015; Jungert, Piroddi, & Thornberg, 2016). It is important to note, however, that a significant amount of bullying occurs outside of school—according to one national survey, in fact, more high school students reported being victimized outside school than at school (Turner, Finkelhor, Hamby, Shattuck, & Ormrod, 2011). Adolescents' responses to being bullied vary. One study found that there were four categories of victims: those who were mainly passive (e.g., ignoring the bully or walking away), those who were mainly aggressive (e.g., fighting back, either physically or verbally), those who were support-seeking (e.g., telling a parent), and those who did a little of everything. (Support-seeking was reported by middle school students but was rarely seen in high school, perhaps because at this age, asking an adult for help in responding to a bully is seen as immature and weak, and may invite more victimization [Dirks, Cuttini, Mott, & Henry, 2017].) Interestingly, victims who used passive strategies reported fewer emotional or behavioral problems than those who fought back, sought help, or used a mixture of approaches (Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2011), although feeling supported by parents or teachers (if not directly asking for their help) seems to have a protective effect against the adverse effects of victimization (Yeung Thompson & Leadbeater, 2013). Other studies find that victims who avoid blaming themselves for having been bullied and respond by behaving proactively (avoiding the bully), rather than retaliating, fare better (Singh & Bussey, 2011). Although it is hard to persuade adolescents that these are the most effective responses, it helps to explain that bullies do what they do in order to get attention, and that when they are ignored, they are likely to seek other targets

Peer groups

groups of individuals of approximately the same age

Origins of adolescent peer groups

spread of compulsory education - free public education established an arrangement that would encourage the development of and maintenance of age-segregated peer groups