Gary W. Ladd’s research while affiliated with Arizona State University and other places

This study’s aims were to identify distinct classes of youth exhibiting differing joint trajectories of anxious solitude (AS) and peer adversities from early childhood to adolescence and to examine relations between trajectory classes and the development of internalizing problems. A sample of 383 children (193 girls) was followed from kindergarten (Mage = 5.56 years) through Grade 12 (Mage = 17.89). Measures of AS, peer group rejection and victimization, loneliness, self-esteem, and depression were repeatedly administered across this epoch. Results revealed multiple joint-trajectory classes characterized by varying combinations of AS and peer adversity, and children in these classes differed in the development of internalizing problems over time. Consistent with diathesis—stress hypotheses, two types of peer adversities (stressors), peer group rejection and peer victimization, moderated the relations between children’s propensity to engage in AS (diathesis) and the development of specific internalizing problems, including loneliness, depression, and low self-esteem. These findings suggest that socially vulnerable children (i.e., those high in AS) are particularly prone to developing internalizing problems in the face of peer adversity.

Tenets of the Boivin et al. (1995) social process model were reexamined with two longitudinal samples using both the original and contemporary analytic strategies. Study goals included reconstructing (e.g., quasireplicating) Boivin et al.'s (1995) original findings and evaluating hypothesized relations across both comparable and longer developmental epochs. Samples included 491 children (245 girls, Mage = 10.0; 80.1% White;19.1% low-, 43.1% middle- or higher-income) followed from grades 4 to 12 and 272 children (148 girls, Mage = 9.61; 84.2% White; 8.2% low-, 17.1% middle-, 74.7% upper middle to higher-income) followed from grades 4 to 5. The assumption that social withdrawal instigates a cascade of within-person changes in the quality of peer relationships, sense of loneliness and social dissatisfaction, and depression was evaluated using Boivin et al.'s (1995) original regression strategy plus two variants of cross-lagged panel models (classical CLPM; Latent Curve Model with Structured Residuals [LCM-SR]). Unlike classical CLPM, LCM-SR allowed for isolating within-person changes and testing hypothesized predictors of within-person increases and decreases. Results differed by type of analysis. Regression and classical CLPM yielded greater substantiation for some of the processes stipulated by Boivin et al. (1995). LCM-SR results, however, called into question the assumption of a cascade effect of early social withdrawal and the reliance on traditional regression and CLPM analyses to test for presumed predictors of within person change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Nearly thirty years ago, we invited a consortium of esteemed researchers to contribute to a volume entitled Family–Peer Relations: Modes of Linkage that provided a state-of-the-science appraisal of theory and research within the newly emerging discipline of family–peer relations. The volume’s first chapter was titled, “Themes and Theories: Perspectives on Processes in Family–Peer Relationships”, and its primary aims were to identify the processes in the family system that were posited to have a bearing on children’s development in the peer system (and vice versa), characterize potential mechanisms of linkage, describe extant lines of investigation, appraise empirical accomplishments, and identify issues in need of further investigation. Here, nearly thirty years hence, we are pleased to have the opportunity to reappraise the theory and research on family–peer relations. In this article, we revisit the primary objectives that were addressed in our previously published “Themes and Theories” chapter but do so with the express purpose of evaluating the discipline’s progress. Likewise, we also revisit our prior roadmap and associated calls-to-action to update these entities in light of past accomplishments, current limitations, and pressing sociocultural issues and concerns.

At multiple developmental periods spanning from middle childhood through adolescence, we investigated the development of aggressive-victims. Multiple-informant data collected across four grade levels (1, 5, 8, and 11; N = 482; 50% females) was used to perform person-centered analyses including latent profile and latent transition analyses in order to examine the co-occurring development of multiple forms (i.e., physical, verbal, and relational) of aggression and peer victimization. Results indicated that there were two distinct subgroups of aggressive-victims, one of which was more relational in form (i.e., relational aggressive-victims), and children in these two subgroups were distinguishable with respect to their individual characteristics (emotion dysregulation, withdrawn behaviors, and moral disengagement) and relational experiences (peer rejection and friendships). Furthermore, the findings elucidated the mechanisms by which developmental continuity and change (i.e., transitions) among the subgroups occurred across childhood and adolescence.

This investigation’s aims were to assess normative trends in social anxiety and preference for solitude by gender from early childhood to late adolescence and examine the associations among the timing and duration of peer victimization and patterns of continuity or change in social anxiety and preference for solitude across this age period. A sample of 383 children (193 girls) was followed from kindergarten (Mage = 5.50) through grade 12 (Mage = 17.89), and measures of peer victimization, social anxiety, and preference for solitude were repeatedly administered across this epoch. Five victimization trajectory subtypes emerged, capturing individual differences in victimization frequency and continuity (i.e., high-chronic, moderate-emerging, early victims, low victims, and non-victims). Results supported the conclusion that chronic victimization, a key stressor in children’s peer environments, plays a different role in the development of social anxiety and preference for solitude. Whereas chronic victimization was associated with the maintenance of social anxiety, it accompanied gains in preference for solitude. The findings provide a more complete account of the overall prevalence, stability, and developmental course of victimized youths’ social anxiety and preference for solitude than has been reported to date.

To investigate the developmental course of aggression and peer victimization in childhood and adolescence, distinct subgroups of children were identified based on similarities and differences in their physical, verbal and relational aggression, and victimization. Developmental continuity and change were assessed by examining transitions within and between subgroups from Grades 1 to 11. This longitudinal study consisted of 482 children (50% females) and was based on peer report data on multiple forms of aggression and peer victimization. Using person-centered methods including latent profile and latent transition analyses, most of the identified subgroups were distinguishable by their frequencies (i.e., levels) of aggression and victimization, rather than forms (physical, verbal, and relational), with the exception of 1 group that appeared to be more form-specific. Across subgroups, multiple developmental patterns emerged characterized as early and late-onset, social interactional continuity, desistance, and heterotypic pathways. Collectively, these pathways support the perspective that the development of aggression and peer victimization in childhood and adolescence is characterized by heterogeneity. (PsycINFO Database Record