The School Child’s Choice of Companions

Abstract

A school child's closest companion is usually one of his class mates. Selection of companions from among a group of as sociates is a part of every school child's life, but there is meager experimental evidence as to the basis of his selection and the characteristics that he and his companions have in common. This report deals with the question of whether children who are close friends are similar or dissimilar in certain specific and measurable characteristics. The characteristics compared were chronological age, mental age, intelligence quotient, achievement in scholarship, extrovertive tendencies, height, and physical achievement. The study was made under ordinary school con ditions in the Lincoln School of Teachers College, Columbia University. The children, sixty-three boys and fifty girls, were in the junior high school and were distributed about equally throughout the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. The group was somewhat selected from several standpoints, and the find ings are to be considered only suggestive in regard to what might be found in other groups under different circumstances.