Behavioral Profiles of Anxious Solitary Children: Predicting Peer Relations Trajectories from Third Through Fifth Grades

Consistent with a holistic perspective emphasizing the integration of multiple individual characteristics within child systems, it was hypothesized that subgroups of anxious solitary (AS) children differentiated by agreeable, normal, attention-seeking, and externalizing behaviors would demonstrate enduring heterogeneity in peer relations over the last three years of elementary school, a period of relative ecological stability. Subgroup analyses were conducted with 661 children (mean age in third grade = 8.66 years, 51.6% female) who participated in peer sociometrics in the fall and spring of the third through fifth grades. Recess observations were conducted for a subset of these children (n = 227) once in the third and fourth grades and twice in fifth grade. About half of children retained the same subgroup classification from third through fourth and fifth grades–a significant pattern of stability. Results revealed some normative patterns of change (particularly for recess observations) and group-specific patterns of change in peer relations over time. However, the overarching pattern was stability and the preservation of initial between-group differences in peer relations over time. Taken together, results revealed that Agreeable AS children demonstrated significantly superior relational adaptation relative to other AS children, whereas Normative, Attention-seeking, and Externalizing AS children demonstrated successively worse relational adversity. Attention-seeking AS children engaged in particularly high rates of solitary directed behavior and were most ignored by peers. Both Attention-seeking AS and Externalizing AS children were most often victimized by peers.