Abstract
Although social preference promotes adolescents’ defending behaviors, its potential mechanisms across gender cliques remain unclear from the group dynamic perspective. This study investigated 2470 Chinese early adolescents (49% girls, Mage = 14.40, SD = 0.58) to explore how social preference and clique hierarchy are associated with defending behaviors and whether these associations differ across gender-specific cliques. The results revealed that social preference was positively related to defending behaviors in boys’ cliques, but negatively in girls’ cliques. Furthermore, the association was strengthened by hierarchization in boys’ cliques but was weakened in girls’ cliques, while the status structure strengthened the association in boys’ but not girls’ cliques. These findings hold crucial implications for understanding and promoting defending behaviors among adolescents.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are full of gratitude to those adolescents who participated and to the research assistants who have contributed to the data collection. The authors are deeply indebted to the reviewers and editors for their suggestions to revise the paper. In addition, the authors thank Dr. Qin and Dr. Zhao for their big support on writing.
Authors’ Contributions
W.L. conceived of the study, participated in the design and coordination of the study, performed the statistical analyses, interpreted results, drafted and revised the manuscript; Y.Y. conceived of the study, participated in the design and coordination of the study, interpreted results, drafted and revised the manuscript; Y.Z. coordinated, conceived, and designed the study, interpreted results, and participated in drafting and revising the manuscript; L.Z. participated in the design of the study, performed the statistical analyses, interpreted results, and revised the manuscript; C.W. participated in the design of the study, interpreted results, and helped in revising the manuscript; J.C. conceived of the study, and helped in the design of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This study is funded by General Project of the National Social Science Fund of China, Grant/Award Number: 21BSH104.
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Data are available on reasonable request and on signature of a confidentiality agreement from correspondence author Y.Z.
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Liang, W., Yang, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Clique Hierarchy Moderates the Association between Social Preference and Defending Behaviors in Early Adolescence: The Role of Gender Differences. J. Youth Adolescence 52, 2285–2299 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01825-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01825-3