Capitalizing on Academic Success: Students’ Interactions With Friends as Predictors of School Adjustment

Abstract

Although friends often share successes with one another, very little attention has been paid to these interactions. The current study examines the nature of middle school students’ interactions with friends following academic successes and the consequences of these interactions for students’ school adjustment. Participants were 293 fifth- through eighth-grade students. Grade-level differences emerged in students’ reports of their motives for sharing, friends’ responses to sharing, and students’ motives for not sharing. Sharing successes predicted tradeoffs for children’s school adjustment such that sharing predicted more positive school attitudes, but more negative perceptions of peer relationships over time. Children’s reports of their motives for sharing and friends’ responses to sharing also predicted changes in school adjustment over time. Implications of these findings for helping middle school students capitalize on academic successes via their interactions with friends are discussed.