Children’s Narrative Representations of Peer Experiences in Cultural Contexts: The Relations to Psychological Adjustment

This study examined children’s narrative representations of peer experiences in cultural contexts and its concurrent and long-term relations to psychological adjustment. Thirty-four European American and 30 Chinese immigrant 9-10 years old children completed a narrative task to tell stories based on two scenario stems. Children’s peer-related self-views, loneliness, and social anxiety were assessed and again a year later. Peer interaction themes in children’s completed stories, particularly conflict resolution, were associated with European American children’s positive self-views and lower loneliness at both time points, as well as lower social anxiety at time 2. In contrast, conflictual themes exhibited significant association only with Chinese immigrant children’s engaging self-views at time 1. The associations of peer interaction themes to children’s positive self-views emerged to be significant for Chinese immigrant children only at time 2. Furthermore, peer interaction themes did not correlate with Chinese immigrant children’s loneliness and social anxiety at either time point. The results suggested the culture-dependent role of narrative representations of peer experiences in children’s psychological adjustment.