ABSTRACT
Psychological theory has presented successive accounts of why peer relations are important. Peer groups have been discussed as the arenas where much social learning takes place, within the models, rewards and sanctions that the group provides. Looking at children's lives with their peers involves multiple interwoven levels. When with a familiar peer they behave differently from how they behave with an unfamiliar one. They act reciprocally, including consistent positive interactions involving recollection of previous interactions and perhaps anticipation of future ones, which might be considered to amount to 'friendships'. Once peers are identified as 'friends', children show preference for them as playmates, and give and get more positive and supportive behaviour; where there is more prosocial behaviour, relationships become more stable. Peer relationships include more verbal and relational aggression but less physical aggression, as strategies for asserting oneself and doing down the opponent become more socialised and more verbal, and there is more sense of the relationship lasting over time.
