Childhood and Adolescence 7loneliness, depression, anxiety, and self- esteem, as well as how children cope with
peer victimization and function at school.
Loneliness
Initial research examining the association of peer relations experiences with loneli-
ness focused on differences in loneliness as a function of peer group acceptance.
These studies consistently demonstrated that children who are rejected by the peer
group report the highest loneliness, whereas popular children report the lowest
loneliness (see Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams, 1990, for a review). More
recent research has revealed that children’s friendship experiences add to the pre-
diction of loneliness, above and beyond the influence of peer group acceptance. For
example, preschoolers who are rejected by peers but have stable mutual friendships
are less lonely than their rejected peers who have no friends (Sanderson & Siegal,
1995). Similarly, elementary school students who have a friend are less lonely than
those who lack a friend, regardless of acceptance level. However, even among chil-
dren with a friend, lower quality friendship is associated with greater loneliness
(Parker & Asher, 1993).
Nangle and colleagues (2003) expanded the examination of friendship expe-
riences and loneliness by considering both quality and quantity of best and good
friends among elementary school students. Results revealed that friendship directly
predicted loneliness, but peer acceptance did not. Instead, peer acceptance predicted
loneliness only through its association with friendship, suggesting that friendship
plays a more central role than peer acceptance in determining children’s loneliness.
However, it should be noted that children who are better accepted are more likely
to have friends and to have higher quality friendships (Parker & Asher, 1993). Thus,
there appears to be a pathway in which higher peer acceptance increases children’s
likelihood of developing more friendships that are of higher quality, and this in turn
helps protect children from loneliness (Nangle et al., 2003). Notably, longitudinal
research indicates that quantity and quality of friendships in middle childhood pre-
dict loneliness in early adolescence (Zhou, Zhao, Sun, & Ding, 2006).
Depression
Many studies have found that children with lower quality friendships report more
depressive symptoms (e.g., La Greca & Harrison, 2005; Preddy & Fite, 2012).
Despite this well- established link, these variables typically have been studied
concurrently, limiting inferences regarding causal direction. Several recent inves-
tigations, however, have examined the relations of friendship experiences and
depressive symptoms using a longitudinal design, with the results suggesting that
depressive symptoms contribute to more highly negative friendship experiences.
Specifically, Rudolph, Ladd, and Dinella (2007) followed children from third to