Same-gender and cross-gender peer acceptance and peer rejection and their relation to bullying and helping among preadolescents: comparing predictions from gender-homophily and goal-framing approaches.
The relation between bullying and helping and same-gender and cross-gender peer acceptance and peer rejection was examined in a sample of preadolescents aged 11 and 12 years (N=1,065). The authors tested predictions from a gender-homophily approach vs. predictions from a goal-framing approach in which acceptance and rejection are seen as being generated by approach and avoidance goals, respectively. For preadolescents, both approaches predicted a central role for gender, but the gender-homophily approach predicted symmetrical effects for acceptance and rejection, whereas the goal-framing approach predicted strong asymmetries. The data supported the goal-framing approach. The most important findings were that for preadolescents, acceptance is much more frequent and much more gendered than rejection; the absolute impact of helping on acceptance is much larger than that of bullying (and vice versa for rejection); for acceptance, there is a prototypicality effect (i.e., boys accept bullying girls better than nonbullying girls, and girls accept helping boys better than nonhelping boys); and for acceptance, there is a cross-gender ignorance effect (i.e., boys ignore helping in girls, and girls ignore bullying in boys).
Dijkstra
Jan Kornelis
JK
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen.
Lindenberg
Siegwart
S
0000-0003-0053-3651
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen.
Veenstra
René
R
0000-0001-6686-6307
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen.
D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D001519:Behavior; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010379:Peer Group; D012727:Sex Characteristics