With the increasing availability of electronic devices, social media platforms are pervasive in adolescents' lives. Much of adolescents' peer interactions occur virtually--to the point that the line between online and off-line relationships has become blurred. This article aims at sharing starting points with researchers who are in the initial…

In peer relations research, interest is increasing in studying the neural underpinnings of peer experiences in order to understand how peer interactions relate to adjustment and well-being. This review provides an overview of 27 studies examining how positive and negative peer experiences with personally familiar peers relate to neural processes.…

The challenge and pleasures of studying child and adolescent peer experiences come from the complexity and the significance of these relationships for development in childhood and adolescence. In spite of the recognized strengths of the current literature on the effects of experiences with peers, research on peer experiences is often limited by an…

Over the past 50 years, a large body of work has demonstrated that during childhood and adolescence peers are strong socialization agents influencing youth development across a wide array of behavioral domains. In this report, we highlight how this long-standing research focus on peer influence may benefit from undertaking new directions that have…

Friendship is a developmentally significant relationship in childhood and adolescence that contributes to socioemotional, social-cognitive, and psychological development and well-being. It is a dyadic relationship based on mutual affection, with both friends thinking of each other as friends. Despite this definitional understanding of the dyadic…

"Social withdrawal" refers to the process whereby a child removes him/herself from opportunities for peer interaction. For the last 30 years, social withdrawal research has been predominantly influenced by Asendorpf's (1990) conceptual model characterizing subtypes of social withdrawal based on combinations of social approach and social…

Fifty-nine 6- to 9-year-old children evaluated three discipline strategies (reasoning, verbal power assertion, acknowledgment of feelings), and mothers were asked to predict their children's evaluations. Maternal knowledge scores were derived. Mothers were less accurate at predicting their children's perceptions of discipline when the misdeed in…

Components of the home environment are associated with children's academic functioning. The accumulation of risks in the home are expected to prove more detrimental to achievement than any one risk alone, but the processes accounting for this relation are unclear. Using an index of cumulative home risk (CHR) inclusive of protective factors, as…

The eight contributions to this special issue provide an informative focus on many aspects of peer-based victimization in schools. Often using sophisticated quantitative and analytic procedures, they advance our knowledge in several important domains, pointing out important contextual variables, interactions, and mediating factors in the negative…

With remarkable ease, young children acquire significant insight into mental states, their experiences, psychological processes in themselves and others, and the natural world. It is a challenge to developmental theory to understand how they do so. The contributors to this special issue highlight how children's powerfully inductive mental…

Despite their diverse themes, the various articles in this special issue all focus on the possibility that the child's view of the world is infused with premises and assumptions taken on board from other people. Demonstrating that process of transmission from parent to child is not easy. One powerful strategy would be to show that parental…

The majority of parents in the United States today must balance work and caregiving responsibilities. Workplace policies and community supports markedly influence the ability of parents to care for their children's health and education while obtaining, retaining, and advancing in their jobs. The goal of this article is to analyze the dilemmas…

In response to indicators that a decline in interest in mathematics occurs among girls--particularly those from low-income and minority groups--during middle school, the GO-GIRL (Gaining Options: Girls Investigate Real Life) program was designed to help potentially talented at-risk girls. The program aimed to build mathematical confidence, skills,…

A personal account of a program of research on homelessness and poverty spanning the past 20 years is provided, with a focus on the many methodological, practical, and ethical difficulties encountered. Interesting discoveries and enjoyable aspects of the research process are also presented. Several role conflicts that arose for the researcher in…

Basic research can inform social policy in a number of ways. First, it can draw the attention of policy makers to problems. Second, it can deflect policy makers away from focusing on issues that are not really problems. Third, it can help policy makers understand whether or not factors are causally related to problems and the processes underlying…