Using positive peer reporting to improve the social interactions and acceptance of socially isolated adolescents in residential care: a systematic replication.

Lancioni et al. (2000) worked with several teens living in a group home who ate alone and rarely talked to peers. The team used a group plan called positive peer reporting. Any youth could earn points by standing up at dinner and telling the group one nice thing a quiet peer had done that day. Points bought snacks and weekend outings. The researchers tracked how often the isolated teens talked or sat with others across many days using a multiple-baseline design.

When peers started earning points for public praise, the ignored teens began starting conversations, sharing food, and joining games. Staff and youths both rated the once-isolated students as more likable. The gains held for weeks with no extra coaching.

This study is a direct follow-up to Bauman et al. (1996), who first tested the idea with one lonely girl. E et al. added more students and stricter timing rules to show the effect was real. The result lines up with older work by Raslear et al. (1992), who also used a multiple-baseline design in a residential center but trained adult peers as tutors instead of using student praise. It also extends the peer-help line shown by Barthelemy et al. (1989) and Christopher et al. (1991), who taught two or three classmates to prompt play at recess. Those studies worked for younger kids in regular schools; E et al. prove the same social lift can happen with teens in care who have tougher reputations.

You can run this at lunch or dismissal with almost no materials. Pick one or two withdrawn students, tell the group they earn points for spotting those students’ friendly acts, and let the points trade for simple rewards. Within a week you should see more talking, sitting together, and smiles—no extra social skills lessons needed.