When friends are not so friendly: investigating friendship quality, participant roles in bullying situations and links to well-being in primary school children

Description

Objectives: Bullying can occur within friendship groups but may be less likely to be identified as ‘bullying’. This paper reports initial findings from research examining positive and negative elements of children’s friendships, and their link to well-being. Method: Primary school children (aged 9-11 yrs) completed questionnaires assessing global self-worth, school belonging, friendship quality, and peer-nominations of Participant Roles in bullying. Results: Relationships between friendship quality, school belonging and global self-worth are reported, along with analysis of negative relationships within friendships, and bullying within the peer group. Conclusions: The complexity of children’s peer relationships, and how positive relationships, negative interactions and bullying behaviour can co-occur are highlighted. The importance of friendships for children’s well-being is also discussed.

Period	4 Sep 2014
Event title	British Psychological Society Developmental Section Annual Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Degree of Recognition	International