Early Adolescents' Social Achievement Goals and Perceived Relational Support: Their Additive and Interactive Effects on Social Behavior.

Huiyoung Shin

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767599

Abstract

The current study examined the additive and interactive effects of early adolescents’ social achievement goals and perceived relational support from teachers and peers on their social behavior. Adolescents’ social achievement goals (i.e., social development, social demonstration-approach, and social demonstration-avoidance), perceived relational support from teachers and peers, and social behavior (i.e., overt and relational aggression, prosocial behavior, and anxious solitary behavior) were assessed in a sample of fifth and sixth graders (Mage = 12.5; N = 677) nested within 26 classrooms. Multilevel modeling results indicated that social goals and relational support from teachers and peers made additive contributions to adolescents’ social behavior. Results also indicated the evidence of interactive effects, such that relational support from teachers was negatively associated with overt and relational aggression primarily among adolescents who had high social demonstration-approach goals. Findings underscore the need to consider adolescents’ social goals in conjunction with their perceived relational support for educators and practitioners.

Highlights

Research on social goals has received much attention in recent decades of research
The linkages between social goals and social behavior have been extensively examined, scant attention has been paid to the role of social relatedness as a possible moderator
Excluding the nonsignificant intraclass correlation for anxious solitary behavior, overt aggression exhibited the lowest variability between classrooms (3%) followed by prosocial behavior (4%) and relational aggression (9%)

Summary

Introduction

Research on social goals has received much attention in recent decades of research. Scholars have drawn attention to more than a dozen different types of social goals that youth pursue with peers (Jarvinen and Nicholls, 1996; Rose and Asher, 1999; Wentzel, 2001) and have highlighted the importance of youth’s social goals in their peer relations and social adjustment (Ojanen et al, 2012; Shin and Ryan, 2012; Kiefer and Shim, 2016). Whether youth are development or demonstration (or agency or communion) oriented in their social relationships is an important distinction that has shown different linkages with their social behavior (Ojanen et al, 2005; Ryan and Shim, 2006). The linkages between social goals and social behavior have been extensively examined, scant attention has been paid to the role of social relatedness as a possible moderator. It remains mostly unclear if the role of social goals on adolescents’ social behavior is contextualized by relational support from teachers and peers, which are major social relatedness features for early adolescents. Youth’s relationships with teachers and peers have been found to make additive or contingent contributions to youth’s social adjustment outcomes such as aggression, behavioral misconduct, and prosocial behavior (e.g., Wentzel et al, 2016; Shin et al, 2019)

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