Mutual antipathies and their significance in middle childhood and adolescence.
Mutual antipathies (when two children or adolescents dislike one another) were studied among 2,348 school-age children and 2,768 adolescents to determine incidence, gender and age differences, and implications for social adjustment. The children were more frequently involved than were the adolescents in same-sex antipathies but not mixed-sex ones. Boys were involved more frequently than were girls in same-sex antipathies, but involvement in mixed-sex antipathies was comparable for the two genders. With peer rejection scores used as a covariate, same-sex antipathies were associated with antisocial behavior and social withdrawal among children and adolescents of both genders and, in addition, to emotionality and lack of friendship support among adolescents. Mixed-sex antipathies were related to social adjustment depending on gender: these antipathies were related to antisocial and bullying behavior in boys but not girls; and to nonaggressiveness, victimization, lesser cooperation, shyness, and depression in girls but not boys. Mutual antipathies thus appear to be concomitants of adaptational risk in both childhood and adolescence.
D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D002657:Child Development; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires