Isolates is a term used in developmental psychology

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...

 and family studies, to describe members of a study group, usually child through young adult, who do not actively participate in clique

Clique

A clique is an exclusive group of people who share common interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity. A clique as a reference group can be either normative or comparative. Membership in a clique is typically exclusive, and qualifications for membership may be social or...

s or friendship

Friendship

Friendship is a form of interpersonal relationship generally considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association are often thought of as spanning across the same continuum...

 groups

Group dynamics

Group dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes that occur within a social group , or between social groups...

. Isolates are one of four types of participants in friendship networks, the other three being dyads

Dyad (sociology)

A dyad in sociology is a noun used to describe a group of two people. "Dyadic" is an adjective used to describe this type of communication/interaction. A dyad is the smallest possible social group....

, liaisons and cliques.

Isolates may have friendly relations with members of cliques and friendship groups, but they do not associate their identity

Identity (social science)

Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...

 with any particular group. Isolates can be voluntarily or involuntarily isolated from peer group

Peer group

A peer group is a social group consisting of humans. Peer groups are an informal primary group of people who share a similar or equal status and who are usually of roughly the same age, tended to travel around and interact within the social aggregate Members of a particular peer group often have...

s, cliques or friendship groups. Isolates, overall, may experience higher levels of depression

Clinical depression

Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 than same-age peers. Studies by Ennett and Bauman (1993), found that Isolates are were more prone to smoke than members of friendship groups. A study by Henrich et al. (2000), shows isolates, male and female, have more internalizing problems than non-isolates. The study also show female Isolates have significantly lower GPAs

Grade (education)

Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...

than member of cliques.