Abstract
Satisfying peer contact is a fundamental factor for children's development. Children who are
rejected by the majority of their peers not only often display negative social behavior and
show serious deficits in social cognition, but they are also at risk to suffer from adjustment
problems in later life. Being rejected by the majority of one’s peers does not necessarily mean
to be completely friendless, though. Thus, the support of a single close friendship may compensate -
for at least some of the disadvantages that result from peer rejection. Therefore, based
on a study sample of 746 children (second to fifth graders), the major aim of this study was to
investigate the quality of rejected children's friendships as compared to those of accepted
children. However, because there are two partners in a dyadic friendship, there are also two
subjective views of the relationship that may not correspond completely. The degree of perceptual -
concordance children show with their friends regarding the quality of their relationships -
was therefore studied as another aspect of friendship quality. It was important to consider, -
though, that some aspects are more objectively perceivable and therefore facilitate
agreement of perceptions, while others refer to a more subjective reality. Consequently, a
model of friendship perception was proposed and tested, that not only includes both friends'
views, but also differentiates between (a) objectively perceivable aspects of friendship that are
part of a shared social reality (i.e., in the present study, Play Encounters and Visits), and (b)
other aspects that belong to a more subjective, non-shared reality (i.e., in this case, Closeness,
Fun, and Conflict). When tenable, this model was supposed to serve as the basis for examining -
the relation between peer rejection and friendship quality. Mean and Covariance Structure
Modeling Techniques were used for all analyses, so that comparisons could be made on the
latent (i.e., non-measured) level.
The results strongly support the assumption, that, irrespective of the characteristics of the persons -
involved, perceptual agreement among friends is high on the objectively perceived aspects. -
In contrast, the degree of agreement on the subjectively perceived aspects is only moderate. -
Moreover, it seems to be influenced by the characteristics of the persons involved, especially -
by the level of interpersonal understanding reached by the two partners. Thus, comparisons -
among children of different grade levels showed that in second grade, the friends'
