Reciprocal Peer Dislike and Psychosocial Adjustment in Childhood

Reciprocal peer dislike was examined as a predictor of school adjustment and social relationship quality. One hundred and fifty-one [69 male and 74 female, mean (M)(age) = 9.53, standard deviation (SD)(age) = .63 years] children completed measures of school liking, loneliness, and friendship quality twice over three months. From ratings of the amount of time participants liked to spend with individual classmates, social network analyses were used to determine reciprocal peer dislike. Curvilinear regression analyses revealed that reciprocal peer dislike at Time 1 predicted changes in the children's loneliness and friendship quality assessed as help, security, and closeness over three months. The findings support the conclusion that reciprocal peer dislike predicts aspects of school adjustment and social relationship qualities.