The role of friendship quality and reciprocity in children’s aggression roles

Description

School-based aggression between peers occurs in a social context. Existing social bonds between children affect perpetration, assistance or defence against aggression whereby children tend to protect their friends, be similar to them and behave like them. In this paper we will examine friendship reciprocity and quality in relation to roles in aggression
Data comes from 286 children (age 7-11) attending four primary schools in England who completed surveys about who their friends were, the quality of the relationship with their identified best friend. A peer nomination activity for various aggression roles in their class was also conducted.
The findings indicate that children’s reciprocal friendships and friendship quality are aligned with their peer group roles. Perpetrators of aggression had friends who were often in shared or complementary roles, and defending a victim of aggression was more likely within good quality reciprocal best friendships.
Implications for of the findings for educational practice will be discussed.

Period	11 Sept 2025
Event title	British Psychological Society Psychology of Education Section Annual Conference 2025: Psychological Well-being in Education
Event type	Conference
Location	Milton Keynes, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National