1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The goal of the present study was to document the extent to which preference for solitude, rather than social wariness, predicts later peer difficulties across childhood, that is, over an extended period of time from ages 6 (kindergarten) to 10 years (Grade 4).» (p. 411)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«Participants were from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study and were initially recruited at birth in the greater Montreal area, Canada, between April 1995 and December 1998 […]. At recruitment, the Quebec Bureau of Statistics gave accessibility to birth records of families with newborn twins. The 662 families who agreed to participate initially were comparable to the population in the greater Montreal area in terms of sociodemographic characteristics in the mid-1990s. […] The participants were assessed on various social, behavioral, and family characteristics in infancy and early childhood. The present study relied on the following waves once children formerly started school. Peer and teacher evaluations were collected prospectively at age 6 (kindergarten), 7 (Grade 1), and 10 years (Grade 4). The longitudinal models included a total of 1,014 children, using a full information maximum likelihood estimator.» (p. 412)

Instruments :
Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

The «findings revealed that preference for solitude, rather than social wariness, increased the risk for peer difficulties in terms of both peer victimization and rejection. In fact, the only association not affected by shared familial and genetic factors was between preference for solitude and rejection. [More specifically], preference for solitude was related to both peer victimization and peer rejection, two related but distinct forms of peer difficulties. [Moreover], the wide-ranging nature of the association between preference for solitude and peer difficulties was also revealed in the growing association between preference for solitude and peer victimization over time, found at both the between- and within-family level. This consistency in results across the between- and within-family levels suggests that change in environmental factors shared by cotwins, such as family status and socioeconomic status, harsh parenting behaviors, or even school climate and norms regarding social behaviors (most cotwins attended the same schools), may not be responsible for the increasing association between preference for solitude and peer victimization. […] Most interestingly, when genetic sources of variance were further taken into account (in MZ [monozygotic] twin within-family analyses), the increasing association between preference for solitude and victimization simply vanished. This suggests that genetic factors may account for this increasing association, thereby reflecting a gene-environment correlation that consolidates over time.» (p. 417)