How Context and the Perception of Peers’ Behaviors Shape Relationships in Adolescence: A Multiplex Social Network Perspective

During adolescence, it becomes increasingly important to fit in with a group, to be accepted and well regarded by peers. Frequent contact, common activities, and intimate relationships among peers provide extensive opportunities for adolescents to learn from others as well as to obtain social support to cope with emotional stress and adjustment difficulties. In this dissertation, I advanced the peer relationships literature by incorporating the effect of the perception of other peers’ behavior and attributes on peer relationships as well as by including information about multiple types of relationships in all the chapters. Overall, this dissertation provides insights in understudied areas in the peer relationships literature investigating the role of multiplexity (the interdependence between academic relationships and friendships, dislike, and victimization), peer context (classroom ability composition, intervention in classroom norms), and status (the distinction between dyadic and reputational perceptions) in different peer relationships, including academic relationships, friendships, aggression, victimization and antipathies.This dissertation showed that classroom ability composition is differently associated with academic relationships. Moreover, high-achieving students, prosocial peers, and friends were likely to be chosen as preferred academic partners. Furthermore, adolescents avoided befriending peers whom they perceived as aggressive and befriended peers who had the reputation for being popular and prosocial. Finally, within classrooms that received an intervention fostering prosocial behavior adolescents perceived as victims or aggressors were less likely to be rejected.