An Ethological Analysis of Children's Profiles of Security in Peer Contexts

描述（由申请人提供）：应对同伴逆境是儿童时期的常见现象，它显著增加了精神病理和适应问题的风险。然而，关于儿童应对同伴困难的行为模式的个体差异的性质、前兆、相关因素和发展后遗症，人们知之甚少。为了解决这一知识缺口，本提案旨在应用情绪安全理论的行为学重新表述（EST-R; Davies & Sturge-Apple, 2007），以推进儿童在同伴关系中的社会行为研究，以实现在同伴环境中维持安全感的目标。作为对EST-R在per dynamics研究中的效用的第一次测试，本应用程序旨在解决以下具体目标：(1)确定儿童收养中个体差异的性质和发展过程（即稳定性，变化）

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Coping with peer adversity is a common occurrence in childhood that markedly increases the risk for psychopathology and adjustment problems. However, little is known about the nature, precursors, correlates, and developmental sequelae of individual differences in children's behavioral patterns of responding to peer difficulties. In addressing this knowledge gap, this proposal is designed to apply the ethological reformulation of Emotional Security Theory (EST-R; Davies & Sturge-Apple, 2007) to advance the study of children's social behavior within agonic peer relationships in relation to the goal of maintaining sense of security in peer contexts. As a first test of the utility of the EST-R for the study of per dynamics, this application seeks to address the following specific aims: (1) identify the nature and developmental course (i.e., stability, change) of individual differences in children's adoption of five security profiles of defending against peer threat, (2) explicate interrelationships betwee the security profiles and the proximal characteristics of the peer ecology, and (4) examine hypothesized specificity in the mental health and social adjustment sequelae of the security profiles over the course of one year. To address these objectives, this application proposes to utilize a rich existing data set that followed a high risk sample of over 238 6- to 11-year-old children through two summer camps spaced one year apart. As a supplement to the project, a novel measurement approach will be implemented to rigorously examine children's patterns of behavioral responding to threatening peer events in naturalistic peer settings using an innovative ethologically-based coding scheme. Within the context of careful observations and a broader multi-method, multi-informant design, the sophisticated multi-level structural equation modeling and pattern-based analyses are designed to offer rigorous tests of the novel, theoretically guided hypotheses. Consequently, the study has the potential to significantly advance knowledge on the developmental nature, precursors, and sequelae of discordant peer relationships with direct implications for improving targeted identification of children at risk an guiding studies that identify distinct causal processes and target mechanisms for change in intervention initiatives. .