# The importance of the peer group



## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

In his work with Rhesus monkeys, University of Wisconsin researcher Harry Harlow found that animals deprived of play amid a peer group while growing up became, upon reaching maturity, totally incapable of reproducing on their own. In fact, this was found to be true even for animals that had not been deprived of mother love. 

Peer group deprived female monkeys refused to permit even very socially successful males to mount them. These sexually disinterested females had to be impregnated by artificial insemination. Upon giving birth they tended
to treat their young as though it were feces. They stomped on it, threw
it against the cage wall, ignored it, and in some cases actually started
eating it. The male monkeys that had been deprived of a peer group while growing up tended to sit in a corner and simply stare at the females. Harlow placed deprived males into enclosures with a large number of normally sexually receptive females. Yet in spite of the favorable
gender-ratio and lack of sexual competition, these males refused to
make any efforts towards sexual mounting behavior. In fact, in most
cases they didn't even make an effort to play with the females. In most
cases they simply sat on the sidelines watching and staring.

As Harlow was able to demonstrate in his work with monkeys,
play and the multitudinous play-related experiences of childhood constitute
a crucial and indispensable preparation for adult roles. And so
it is with human children. To the extent that a person had been deprived
of a childhood incorporating a great deal of happy, carefree play with
other children, to that extent he could be expected to come of age inadequately prepared to competently fulfill adult family and employment
roles.

W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, in their book THE POLISH PEASANT IN AMERICA, cite many cases of boys who had been severely mistreated by their parents. Most of these impoverished Polish-American boys responded to such insensitive treatment by developing and maintaining a strong sense of solidarity with their male peers. Those who remained well integrated members of peer networks became effective, well adjusted adults, quite in spite of their past history of abuse at home.
The few who lacked a friendship group to turn to in times of severe
stress and unfair treatment, tended to become isolated and very poorly
functioning adults.

Thomas and Znaniecki's conclusions regarding human children are
very similar to those arrived at by Harlow in his work with Rhesus
monkeys. In essence, Harlow found that young monkeys could almost
always be expected to survive ineffective mothering very well indeed if
they had had the benefit of a regular peer group life with fellow young
monkeys.

As scores of social scientists have been able to demonstrate, children
who do not experience a childhood become very poorly adjusted
adults. A person's social adjustment as an adult is directly related to his
having been actively involved in social play as a child. Child's play is
important, especially to the extent that it involves cooperative, friendly
interaction with a network of age-mate peers.


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Correct. I think you would really like Bowlbys attachment theroy and the work that has been done on the required stages of healthy psychological development. The peer group is one of the important later stages that builds on the earlier ones. Failure at any of these points is carried forward and can impact the next, and equally later failures can be damaging as well. If the earliest stages are incomplete, especially the one between 0-1 with parent / child bonding, then the likelihood of serious mental disturbance is very high. Incidence of abuse also will have causal effects, and later life trauma, causing PTSD or cPTSD (identified often as a result of long term bullying) type sytmpoms which are similar to anxiety.

There is vulnerability all throughout life but the more stages you 'miss' the harder it will be to change. Failures at multiple junctures are often identified within personality disorders, biploar illness and so on. PTSD has been associated with AvPD and agoraphobia. There is a lot of overlap and a lot of need for good psychiatric skill in diagnosis, which so commonly seems to be absent.

Great info Pinzel


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## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

I never even thought I would get interested in psychology and things related but all this stuff is rather intersting opcorn


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