Suchergebnisse

Abstract Controlling one's public image in front of different audiences is an important element of social behaviour, but little is known about the way in which primary school children develop this skill. In three experiments, children's judgements about appropriate self‐descriptions in front of different audiences were examined. In Experiment 1, 74 children aged between 6 and 11 were given pairs of self‐descriptive statements in the domains of academic skills, physical/athletic skills, and interpersonal skills. They were asked to decide which one of each pair would be better for a story character to say when getting acquainted with either an unfamiliar peer or an unfamiliar adult, assuming all self‐descriptive options were true. Results showed clear differentiation between the two audiences only in the oldest children. In Experiment 2, 72 children from the same age range completed a similar task, but specific information was given in advance about the audiences' preferences (e.g., for clever people vs. sporty people). It was found that children from across the age range were able to regulate their choices of self‐descriptions in accordance with the audience preferences. However, the extent of audience differentiation increased significantly with age. In Experiment 3, 68 children from the same age range completed the task from the previous experiment, but additionally provided sociometric nominations of classmates with whom they played. As hypothesised, correlational analysis showed that the variability in audience differentiation was associated significantly with the variability in the proportion of nominations that were reciprocated. Results are discussed in the light of theoretical connections between children's social experience and their developing appreciation of self‐presentational concerns.

AbstractUnderstanding what social goals are associated with bullying and victimization behaviours, even after allowing for biases in interpretation of and affective responses to social events, is critical for understanding the socio‐behavioural profile of bullies and victims. In the present study, 181 nine‐ to ten‐year‐olds' affective responses, attribution of intent, and social goals were assessed in the context of a series of ambiguous and overtly hostile provocation vignettes. Results showed that even after allowing for other social information processing biases, social goals were meaningfully associated with bullying and victimization scores. Bullying was inversely associated with relationship‐building goals, and positively associated with goals to be assertive over the provocateur when provocation was overtly hostile. Being victimized was associated with having submissive goals even when provocation was ambiguous and after accounting for attribution of hostile intent. Findings are discussed in light of theoretical and practical implications.

AbstractPrevious research has demonstrated that 10‐year‐olds can provide interpersonal explanations for certain self‐presentational tactics, but detailed information about the development of their understanding of these tactics is lacking. This research investigated children's understanding of the processes involved in ingratiation (used to indicate likeability) and self‐promotion (used to indicate competence). In the first study, with a sample of 60 children aged six to 11 years, children saw ingratiation as leading to more positive social evaluation than self‐promotion, which was seen as having a more concrete, instrumental function. Additionally, children's differentiation between ingratiation and self‐promotion was correlated with their level of peer preference, as determined through sociometric nominations, particularly for boys. In a second study, with a sample of 63 children aged six to 11 years, it was found that audience type (peer vs. adult) was related to children's understanding of the self‐presentational tactics: children offered more social evaluation justifications for a self‐promotion tactic when the audience was a peer rather than an adult. Results are discussed with reference to emerging insights into the links between peer relations and social cognition.

The present study addresses the social cognition of socially anxious children, with particular emphasis on their ability to understand others' mental states in interpersonal situations. The heterogeneous sample used in this preliminary investigation consisted of 63 primary school children in England and the USA. The English children were from a mainstream classroom of 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds, while the children from the USA ranged in age from 6 to 11 years and had been selected by school district officials for a variety of social interaction difficulties. All children completed measures of social anxiety, shy negative affect, and various social‐cognitive abilities, and teacher ratings of social skills were additionally available for the USA subgroup. Results showed that feelings of social anxiety are not associated with any basic deficit in the understanding of recursive mental states which concern facts about the physical world. However, there was evidence that socially anxious children—particularly those with high levels of shy negative affect—do experience specific social‐cognitive difficulties in understanding the links between emotions, intentions, and beliefs in social situations. Providing further support for this link, socially anxious children were rated by their teachers as poorer than non‐anxious children only on social skills that require insight into others' mental states. Directions for further examination of this complex interplay between cognitive and emotional factors in the development of social anxiety are discussed.

Previous research has demonstrated that young children hold strong gender stereotypes for activities and toy preferences. Some researchers have argued that this rigid gender‐typing displayed by young children is associated with peer reinforcement for stereotypical behaviour and punishment of counterstereotypical behaviour. The present study tests the hypothesis that the gender‐typing displayed by young children is at least in part an active self presentational effort to win positive evaluation from peers. Sixty‐four children aged between 4 and 9 years described themselves in terms of their activity and toy preferences, once when alone and once when in front of a group of same‐sex peers. They also completed a task measuring the rigidity of their gender stereotypes. It was found using both group‐based and individual‐based analyses that the children with the most rigid stereotypes—young boys—were more likely to present themselves as sex‐typed in front of the peer audience than when alone. The older boys and the girls in all age groups tended to have less rigid stereotypes and their self‐descriptions were in general not influenced by the presence of an audience. These results show that self‐presentational concerns do influence children's gender‐typed behaviour, and that these concerns may vary with age and gender.

AbstractRecent research has shown that individual differences in theory of mind (ToM) during middle childhood are linked with individual differences in children's peer relationships. The present longitudinal study investigated this association more deeply, exploring the potential mediating role played by children's social anxiety. We tested a group of 66 children (11.5 years old at Time 1) three times over one year after their transition to secondary school. Over and above language, SES and stability in individual differences, ToM performance shortly after starting secondary school (Time 1) predicted higher peer acceptance, as well as lower peer rejection, one year later (Time 3) via lower levels of social anxiety over time (Time 2). This study extends our knowledge about the links between social understanding and interpersonal relations in middle childhood. The results suggest that ToM may play an important role in children's adjustment when confronting new social contexts.

AbstractSociocultural differences in children's use and understanding of emotional display rules have been under‐researched. In the present study, 56 Dutch and 56 Iranian children aged 10–11 years took part in a structured interview about their experiences of using emotional display rules. In comparison with the Dutch children, the Iranian sample was more likely to report having actually used emotional display rules themselves, more likely to identify family audiences for display rules, and less likely to identify peer audiences. In addition, they were more likely than the Dutch children to identify both prosocial and self‐protective motives for concealing emotion from family audiences, and less likely to identify self‐protective motives for concealing emotion from peers. Results are interpreted in the light of socialization processes involved in the development of emotion regulation.

AbstractTwo studies compared popular and rejected children's reasoning regarding social interactions involving negative emotions. The first study, with 23 rejected and 23 popular 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds, involved hypothetical social scenarios where a classmate 'victim' was likely to experience a negative emotion. Although popular and rejected children both recognized negative emotions and were equally likely to suggest helping behaviour to aid the victim, there were gender effects on the type of helping behaviour suggested. Specifically, popular girls were significantly more likely to offer comforting behaviour than advice whereas popular boys offered advice more than comfort; no such preferences were exhibited by the rejected children. Furthermore, popular girls were significantly more likely than other children to refer to emotional states when justifying their helping response. In the second study, 30 popular and 30 rejected eight‐ to 10‐year‐olds identified the motives behind story characters' efforts to mask negative emotions. Popular girls were more likely to identify the target motives than rejected girls, but no such difference was apparent for the boys. The results are discussed in the light of evidence regarding gender differences in peer interaction patterns.