Behavioural characteristics associated with the best friendships of shy and aggressive young adolescents

An extensive developmental literature in the field of peer relationships consistently has supported the idea that friendship play a significant role in children’s emotional and social development Rubin, Burgess, Kennedy, & Stewart, 2003). At the same time, researchers have demonstrated that children growing without friends experience difficulties in several psychological dimensions: they suffer from loneliness; are socially unskilled, and show later internalizing problems (see Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006, for a review). In this context, much attention has been paid to friendship of aggressive-rejected children. But, recently, some Authors have stressed the importance to explore friendship of those children who are shy and socially withdrawal (Rubin et al., 2006). In line of these considerations, the main purpose of the present study was to examine the behavioural characteristics (as rated by peers and teachers) of shy and aggressive children and those of their mutual best friends in order to obtain a composite picture of their social world at a dyadic relational level. According to the previous research project, we posited that both groups of children tend to have great similarities with their best friends in terms of prevalent behaviour and, compared to aggressive children, shy children and their best friend are more socially competent, as perceived by peers and teachers. The total sample was constituted by 504 adolescents (289 M; 215 F, aged from 11 to 15 years; mean = 12,7; sd = .54), attending four middle class junior school in the South of Italy (Palermo). Children were administered: the Friendship Nominations (Bukowski, Oza, &Boivin, 1994) to identify the mutual best friends of each participants; an extended version of the Revised Class Play (Burgess et al., 2003) to assess the social competence and the Teacher-Child Rating Scale (Hightower et al., 1986) to assess social and emotional functioning in the classroom. On the total sample, by a procedure combining scores on RCP shyness and aggressiveness scores, two groups were identified: shy children (46 with friends and 26 without); aggressive children (78 with friends and 30 without), and, then, the behavioural characteristics of these two subsamples were examined. Results confirm the “omophilia” hypothesis: shy and aggressive children tend to have friends with the same characteristics. Moreover, shy children’ best friends, compared to the target group, are less shy and more aggressive (rated by peers and teachers) while aggressive children’ best friends are evaluated by peers and teachers as aggressive and less competent than their mutual counterparts. Interestingly to note, the extended RCP show a new dimension “boasting”, cultural in meaning, that characterized shy children’s best friends.