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Coping with Childhood Peer Rejection

  • Chapter
Handbook of Children’s Coping

Part of the book series: Issues in Clinical Child Psychology ((ICCP))

Abstract

Childhood peer rejection has received a great deal of attention in developmental psychopathology and intervention research over the past 10 years. Interest in this phenomenon stems from evidence that childhood peer rejection is related to a variety of negative outcomes in adolescence and adulthood (Kupersmidt, Coie, & Dodge, 1990; Parker & Asher, 1987). Although we have a good understanding of both the outcomes of childhood peer rejection as well as the behaviors that lead children to be rejected by their peers (Coie, Dodge, & Kupersmidt, 1990), much less attention has been focused on the experience of childhood peer rejection and how children cope with being rejected by their peers. We know that rejected children in general are subjected to more aversive interpersonal interactions in school than nonrejected children (Boivin, Cote, & Dion, 1991; Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1989), and we know that at least some rejected children report experiencing significant amounts of distress with regard to their low peer status (Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984; Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams, 1990; Asher & Wheeler, 1985; Parkhurst & Asher, 1992). Thus, the experience of peer rejection appears to be a stressful one; however, there are currently no studies in the literature that conceptualize peer rejection in a stress and coping framework. There are probably several reasons for this.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. E. P. Bradley Hospital, Brown University School of Medicine, East Providence, Rhode Island, 02916, USA

    Audrey Zakriski

  2. Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 27708, USA

    Marlene Jacobs & John Coie

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  1. Audrey Zakriski
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  2. Marlene Jacobs
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  3. John Coie
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  1. Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Sharlene A. Wolchik  & Irwin N. Sandler  & 

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Zakriski, A., Jacobs, M., Coie, J. (1997). Coping with Childhood Peer Rejection. In: Wolchik, S.A., Sandler, I.N. (eds) Handbook of Children’s Coping. Issues in Clinical Child Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2677-0_15

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