Psychiatric Enlightenment
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This is how I often feel and I decided to do a research on the types of children at school and how they are treated by their peers/friends. Enjoy <3 Aya
For years, psychologists treated peer rejection and social network isolation as somewhat interchangeable in early teenage years; it was believed that if children fell into one of those two groups, they also fell into the other. A recent study found little similarity between the groups, and socially isolated children face different risks.
Kate Norwalk, who led the study and works as an assistant professor of psychology explains that in early teenage years, there are generally two kinds of groups that are pushed to the sidelines socially. One group includes kids who are not liked by their peers(ME), and the other group consists of kids who don't have a circle of friends(but they only pretend to like me). These two groups are often categorized as one, even tho they are different.
"What I wanted to explore with this study is whether these two groups are actually different from each other, and what that means for the well-being of these kids. We know a lot about rejected kids—there's decades of research on them. But we really haven't paid any attention to isolated kids. And, as it turns out, they are very different."
In this study by Kate, students were surveyed twice a year for two years & peer rejection was measured by asking the students who they "liked least" in their class. Social network isolation was measured by asking kids to describe who in their class "hangs out together;" kids who were not named were considered isolated, because they were not identified as being part of any peer group. Students were also asked which students in their classes exhibited a range of specific behaviours. Lastly, students were asked whether they thought peers would help them if they were being bullied.
Simply put, the researchers found that there were clear difference between kids who were rejected and kids who were isolated.
In fact, one of the only things the two groups had in common was that being in either the rejected group or the isolated group was associated with an increased risk of victimization—meaning that students in either group were more likely than other kids to be picked on or bullied.
But while each group was also associated with other behavioural challenges, the nature of those challenges varied significantly.
Students in the rejected group were more likely than other kids to have aggressive behaviour, such as bullying and disturbing class. They were also less likely to have a social behaviour, such as being kind and doing well in the classroom.
Students in the isolated group behaved differently compared to others. They tended to show behaviours like being shy and keeping to themselves. Additionally, these students were the ones who usually felt they wouldn't get help from their friends if they were bullied.
But children grappling with social isolation clearly need support. The behaviours we see from isolated children are often early symptoms of mental health challenges.
I love y'all and I hope that each single one of you will get to have your own circle of friends who support you through thick and thin and do not isolate you.
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