Adolescents\u27 same-sex and opposite-sex peer relations: Sex differences in popularity, social skills, and perceived social competence

Theorists have suggested that adolescents\u27 popularity, social skill, and perceived competence in same-sex peer relations are related to their popularity, social skill, and perceived competence in opposite-sex peer relations. To test this hypothesis, tenth graders (n = 112) were asked to complete a sociometric questionnaire and Harter\u27s Adolescent Self-Perception Profile. They also completed a questionnaire designed to measure social cognitive skill, including empathic perspective taking, risk taking, flexibility, and idiosyncratic strategy use. The results indicated that in general there was a correlation between same-sex and opposite-sex measures, but there were some sex and target differences. Specifically, popularity with the same sex was related to popularity with the opposite sex among boys but not girls. Compared with boys, girls used more empathic perspective taking in their same-sex peer relations, while boys and girls used similar amounts of empathic perspective taking in opposite-sex peer relations. Boys took more risks in their opposite-sex peer relations than girls, while boys and girls did not differ in their risk taking in same-sex peer relations. Boys also tended to be more idiosyncratic than girls in their perceptions of the effectiveness of social strategies. Boys reported a greater repertoire of strategies to use in their opposite-sex peer relations than in their same-sex peer relations, while there was no target difference for girls. Both boys and girls perceived themselves as more competent in their same-sex peer relations than in their opposite-sex peer relations. Girls appeared to monitor others\u27 assessment, in particular boys\u27 assessments, of themselves and used that information to assess their self competence, while boys did not. Two implications are suggested by this study. First, the methods for measuring popularity should distinguish between popularity with same-sex peers and popularity with opposite-sex peers. Second, in future study contrasting same-sex and opposite-sex peer relationships would be particularly fruitful since some adolescents may view the two relationships as similar while others view them as quite different. The perceptions of both types of relationships may vary for boys and girls, suggesting that sex differences and theories of gender roles to explain these sex differences should be included in the exploration of opposite-sex relationships during adolescence