IIE 366, Developmental Psychology Summer 2008 Professor: Gregory Francis Applying Child-Development Research (due 5 August 2008) Worth 35 points; minimum length = 1.5 pages; maximum = 2 pages. In this assignment you apply your knowledge of child-development research by writing a letter to a friend who is confronting a problem concerning children. In your letter, provide your friend with information from an assigned reading that will help the friend understand the problem. In preparing your letter, use an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science listed below that summarizes relevant research. Choose from one of these two problems: (a) Your friend Terri believes that her 8-year-old son is lonely and she wonders why he feels that way. In your letter, tell Terri about some of the factors that contribute to a child’s feelings of loneliness. Article: Asher & Paquette (2003). Loneliness and peer relations in childhood. Vol. 12, pages 75-78. (b) Jenny is pregnant; her 5-year-old son, Seth, is excited and looking forward to being someone’s “big brother.” In your letter, describe to Jenny the ways in which Seth may influence his sibling’s development. And explain to Jenny what she can do to help Seth and his new sib get along better. Article: Brody (2004). Siblings’ direct and indirect contributions to child development. Vol. 13, pages 124-126. Format: Each assignment has an explicit minimum and maximum length. The paper must be double-spaced in Times New Roman 12 point font on A4 paper, with left and right margins of 3 centimeters and top and bottom margins of 2.5 centimeters inch. Papers must conform to this format so that we can quickly verify that your paper is an acceptable length. (Note.—Minimum and maximum lengths do not include the title page.) Papers that are too short or too long or that do not conform to the stated format are unacceptable. Submitting your paper: Do not submit the paper electronically. Submit it directly to the professor at the start of class on August 5. Penalty for late papers: When papers are submitted after the start of class on the due date, 2 points will be deducted for each day or part of a day (including Saturdays and Sundays) that the paper is late (e.g., 4 points for 2 days late). Note: this means that you immediately lose 2 points if you hand in your paper after the lecture for the day has started. Grading: The grade on the paper will reflect two components: the quality of the information presented and the quality of the writing per se. Excellent papers will present all relevant information in a coherent, well-organized manner and will be free of spelling and grammatical errors.Copyright © 2003 American Psychological SocietyCURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 75 friends and still feel lonely. Like-wise, it is possible to be poorly ac-cepted by the peer group or to lackfriends and yet to not feel lonely.Loneliness is an internal emotionalstate that can be strongly influ-enced by features of one’s social life,but it is not to be confused with anyparticular external condition.It is also important to note thatloneliness in itself is not pathologi-cal. Loneliness is actually quitenormative in that most people feellonely at some point during theirlives. As social animals who partic-ipate extensively in social relation-ships, humans open themselves upto the possibility of loneliness. Thiscan occur not only when peoplelack ongoing relationships with oth-ers, but even when they have mean-ingful relationships that take nega-tive turns. For example, lonelinesscan be a response to separations,such as when a friend is unavailableto play or moves away. These situa-tional or short-term experiences ofloneliness are typically not causesfor concern. Chronic loneliness,however, is associated with variousindices of maladjustment in adoles-cents and adults, such as droppingout of school, depression, alcohol-ism, and medical problems. Atleast 10% of elementary school-aged children report feeling lonelyeither always or most of the time(Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984),which suggests a level of lonelinessthat places children at risk for pooroutcomes.Systematic research on chil-dren’s loneliness partially grew outof an earlier line of research on theeffects of teaching social-relation-ship skills to children who werehighly rejected by their peers. Thequestion that emerged was whetherthe children who were the focus ofthese intensive intervention effortswere themselves unhappy withtheir situation in school. The re-search was also inspired by veryinteresting work on adults’ loneli-ness. The study of loneliness in Loneliness and Peer Relationsin Childhood Steven R. Asher 1 and Julie A. Paquette Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina Abstract Although loneliness is anormative experience, there isreason to be concerned aboutchildren who are chronicallylonely in school. Research indi-cates that children have a fun-damental understanding ofwhat it means to be lonely, andthat loneliness can be reliablymeasured in children. Most ofthe research on loneliness inchildren has focused on the con-tributions of children’s peer re-lations to their feelings of well-being at school. Loneliness inchildren is influenced by howwell accepted they are by peers,whether they are overtly victim-ized, whether they have friends,and the durability and qualityof their best friendships. Find-ings from this emerging areaof research provide a differenti-ated picture of how children’speer experiences come to influ-ence their emotional well-being. Keywords loneliness; peer acceptance;friendshipThe study of children’s peer-rela-tionship difficulties has become amajor focus of contemporary devel-opmental and child-clinical psychol-ogy (see Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker,1998). As part of this focus, increas-ing attention is being given to theinternal, subjective, and emotionalsides of children’s social lives. Hu-man beings have fundamental needsfor inclusion in group life and forclose relationships (e.g., Baumeister& Leary, 1995), so it is fitting to ex-amine what happens when socialneeds go unmet. It is clear that avariety of strong affective conse-quences can result. In this article,we focus on one such emotional re-action, loneliness, and we describewhat has been learned about theassociation between loneliness andvarious indicators of the quality ofchildren’s social lives with peers. PERSPECTIVES ON LONELINESS