Sociometric Ratings Research Articles

The Development of Social Networks in Preschool Children

Behavioral observations and sociometric ratings were assessed in separate 3- and 4-year-old child care classes across a two year period. A cross sequential design included three cohorts. Cohort A was observed at age 4, Cohort B at ages 3 and 4 and Cohort C was observed at age 3 yielding two separate cross sectional comparisons and a longitudinal comparison across ages 3 and 4. Social network analyses were used to determine the relation between behavioral measures of social interactions and sociometric ratings, developmental changes in the degree of organization of the social networks in each class, and the degree to which gender was an organizing principle in the social structure of both age groups. In general, correspondence between the behavioral observations and sociometric ratings increased with age and the social structure showed greater cohesion in the 4-year-old class. Gender was an organizing principle in the social structure of the 4-year-old class and became more apparent across time in the 3-year-old class. Implications of the findings for the assessment of sociometric status and for intervention are discussed.

Subtypes of Social Withdrawal in Early Childhood: Sociometric Status and Social-Cognitive Differences across Four Years

From a sample of 567 kindergartners observed during free play, 150 children were classified as socially withdrawn and followed over 4 years. A cluster analysis involving teacher ratings was used to identify subtypes of withdrawn children. Four clusters were identified, 3 fitting profiles found in the literature and labeled unsociable (n = 96), passive-anxious (n = 23), and active-isolate (n = 19), and 1 typically not discussed, labeled sad/depressed (n = 12). Sociometric ratings indicated that unsociable children had elevated rates of sociometric neglect, active-isolates had higher than expected levels of rejection, and sad/depressed children had elevated rates of both neglect and rejection. Subtypes also differed in social information-processing patterns, with active-isolate children displaying the least component skills. The findings that some experience more difficulty than others might account for the ambiguity in extant studies regarding whether or not social withdrawal is a risk factor in psychosocial development, because withdrawal has most often been treated as a unitary construct in the past.

Children's Social Acceptance and Academic Achievement in Zimbabwean Multicultural School Settings

Children's social acceptance as measured by sociometric ratings was examined in relation to their grade point averages. The sample consisted of 376 upper-middle-class, 12- to 13-year-old Zimbabwe Black and White school children and their teachers (N = 13). Multiple regression analysis indicated that, taking into account ethnicity, sex, family size, and number of languages spoken, social acceptance measures accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in the children's academic achievement. Within social acceptance measures, the children's actual rather than perceived social acceptance explained a greater proportion of the variance in their academic achievement.

Playmate Preferences and Perceptions of Individual Differences Among Typically Developing Preschoolers

The purpose of this study was to describe preschoolers’ playmate preferences and perceptions of classmates with and without disabilities using a peer rating task and a corresponding teacher rating scale. Participants consisted of 34 typically developing preschoolers ranging in age from 42 to 69 months and 5 classroom teachers. Although preschoolers with disabilities received lower sociometric ratings than their typically developing peers, the reasons children cited for selecting or rejecting their peers with disabilities were essentially the same as those given for nondisabled children. In dyads In which one child had disabilities and the other did not, teachers reported that approximately 50% preferred not to play with each other, whereas reciprocal nonpreference was reported to occur in only 21 % of dyads in which both partners were typically developing. The proportions of mutual playmate preferences in the two types of dyads were roughly equivalent, suggesting that children with disabilities are capable of forming mutual friendships, but may be at increased risk for developing negative peer relationships.

Strategies for the Study of Individual Development within Naturally‐Existing Peer Groups*

AbstractThe investigation of peer influences on children's development in natural settings rests squarely on appropriate methods to identify those individuals who are influential for a given child. Traditional methods of sociometric ratings or assessments of friendship choices are not intended to identify reciprocal influences in children's peer groups of social interrelationships. In the study of networks within sociology, researchers have focused on the structural properties of children's networks, instead of the psychologically meaningful characteristics of the children who comprise a target child's network. To complement these strategies, a method is presented that can reliably identify those individuals who constitute children's natural peer groups in a setting. This information is used to form composite maps that represent the psychological peer context of a given child. Strategies are outlined for analyzing processes of group selection and socialization among developing individuals and their changing peer contexts.

Social Skill Assessment of Inner City Asian, African, and European American Students

A multimethod, multidimensional approach, consisting of teacher ratings, self-ratings, sociometric ratings, direct observations, and semistructured interview, was used to assess the social skills o...

The Peer Relations of Preschool Children with Communication Disorders

The peer-related social interactions of preschool-age children with communication disorders were compared to those of normally developing chronological age-mates. All children were previously unacquainted with one another and participated in a series of short-term play groups. Differences between the 2 groups emerged primarily in terms of overall social activity, as children with communication disorders engaged in fewer positive social interactions and conversed with peers less often during non-play activities. Children with communication disorders also were less successful in their social bids and appeared to be less directive with their peers. However, both groups of children exhibited similar patterns of socially competent interactions including the ability to sustain play (group play), to minimize conflict, to join others in ongoing activities, and to respond appropriately to the social bids of others. Based on peer sociometric ratings, both groups of children were equally accepted. These general patterns of similarities and differences were found in settings in which play groups consisted of all children with communication disorders (specialized settings) as well as in settings in which the play groups included both children with communication disorders and normally developing children (mainstreamed settings). However, even during the relatively brief acquaintanceship process, an analysis of peer preference patterns revealed that children with communication disorders in mainstreamed settings were less socially integrated in the play groups than normally developing children. The potential for additional difficulties in peer interactions for children with communication disorders when children become more familiar with one another and play becomes more intricate was discussed in light of interaction patterns formed during the short-term play groups.

Children's Self-Discrepancies and Peer Relationships

Children in grades 4 through 6 received an individual assessment of self-discrepancies modeled after the procedures of Higgins (1987) with adults. These self-discrepancies were compared to evaluations of peer relationships from all children in the classrooms: sociometric ratings, sociometric nominations, and peer nominations for social behaviors. In addition, Harter's (1985) multidimensional assessment of self-competence was used. Actual/Ideal and Actual/Ought self-discrepancies were positively correlated as with adults, and related to very similar patterns of peer evaluations. Self-discrepancies as measured by Higgins, and self-competence as measured by Harter, were not correlated with each other, and produced significant interactions in their associations to peer assessments. Generally, children low in both self-discrepancy and self-competence received more peer nominations for negative, social isolation behaviors than other children. Results for more positive peer evaluations were influenced by sex of child. Females with low self-competence and males, regardless of level of self-competence, who expressed high self-discrepancies, received more sociometric and sociability/leadership nominations; this pattern was reversed for high self-competence females. It appeared that self-discrepancies and self-competence represent different aspects of children's self-evaluations, with self-discrepancies having a very strong motivational component.

Peer interaction in Andalusia and Holland: A comparative study

The relative scarcity of studies of cultural variations in peer interaction served as impetus for the present study. In this investigation, differences in peer interaction (child age: about 5 years) in Andalusia and Holland were examined both in an urban and a rural settings. Observational data were analysed with special interest on the collectivism-individualism dimension. Results showed that Andalusian children displayed a stronger tendency than Dutch children to function as part of a social group. However, this tendency was more clearly present in the Andalusian rural than in the urban setting. No cultural differences were found with respect to sociometric ratings. Results were discussed in terms of ecological factors in cross-cultural research.

Peer Assessment of Early Adolescents Solicited to Participate in Drug Trafficking: A Longitudinal Analysis1

This study examined differences in peer‐ascribed sociometric ratings of preadolescent and adolescent students who were, versus who were not, solicited to help someone sell crack cocaine 1 year later. The sample consisted of 3, 838 predominantly Black, urban public‐school students in 6th/7th grade. In the first year, students rated their classmates on 16 psychosocial descriptors; in the next year, students self‐reported their involvement in cocaine trafficking. Discriminant analyses performed separately for males and females indicated that solicited and unsolicited students differed significantly on the 16 sociometric items. Solicited students were more likely to be rated as not friendly, not shy, restless, untrustworthy, disliked by teachers, and not liking school. In addition, solicited male students were judged to be good at sports, liked by classmates, and were not picked on by others. The salience of particular items differed between genders. A longitudinal prediction model correctly predicted 61.88% and 64.30% of male and female students, respectively. However, sensitivity for solicited students was less for females (55.28%) than males (61.20%).

Children's awareness of which peers like them and which peers dislike them

AbstractThe present research examined children's awareness of the specific same‐sex peers who like or dislike them. Awareness was evaluated in relation to children's peer sociometric status. All children in grades one through six provided same‐sex peer sociometric nominations and same‐sex peer sociometric ratings to determine their sociometric status. In addition, each child indicated the nominations and ratings they believed they received from same‐sex peers. Children's sociometric status was associated with their awareness of liking and disliking from peers. Rejected status children were the least accurate in their judgments of who like them and popular status children were the least accurate in their judgments of who disliked them. These findings support and extend prior research documenting that rejected status children a) demonstrate a lack of awareness of their social competence, yet b) report more loneliness than children in other status groups.

Changing Social Dynamics in Early Childhood Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to analyze how social dynamics in early childhood classrooms change from fall to spring and from early to late preschool. The subjects were 92 preschoolers in age-stratified (3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old) classrooms. Their sociometric ratings and peer contact patterns were recorded during the fall and spring. From early to late preschool, children's sociometric ratings became increasingly negative, especially toward cross-sex peers. Their contact patterns showed an analogous decrease in cross-sex contacts, although the changes were not as linear as those in the sociometric ratings. The analysis of group sizes showed that the 4-year-olds spent more time in larger groups than both their younger and older peers did. Group sociometric ratings and contact patterns changed from fall to spring, but individual children showed considerable stability in the sociometric ratings that they gave their peers and in the size and gender composition of their play groups.

Masculine traits and reports of social functioning: Evidence for a positivity bias

Previous reviews have concluded that there is a significant positive relation between masculine traits and measures of adjustment, including social adjustment. It is suggested that this relation be viewed with caution because it is based on studies that have relied on only one type of personality data—self-reports of one's own behavior, feelings, and personality characteristics. The recent study by Aube et al. (1994) suggests that the inclusion of other kinds of data, such as peer reports or behavioral observation, may yield different results. Two experiments (participants were predominately white) were conducted to examine the relation of self-reported masculine traits to subjective vs. objective indicators of social functioning. Study 1 found that masculine traits were significantly positively associated with self-reported popularity of teenagers, but that these same traits were unrelated to sociometric ratings made by classmates. Study 2 found that masculine traits were significantly associated with reporting better social-expressive skills among college students, but that these traits were unrelated to actual performance on a test of nonverbal encoding skills. Both studies found significant relations between masculine traits and discrepancy scores calculated between the subjective and objective indicators of social functioning. Together, these studies suggest that the relation between masculine traits and better adjustment may be more perceived than real.

Predicting social adjustment in middle childhood: the role of preschool attachment security and maternal style

AbstractChildren's social and emotional adjustment at age 8 were examined in relation to attachment security, parenting style, setting conditions, and social and emotional adjustment at age 4. Seventy‐nine children participated in videotaped interaction sessions with their mothers and with unfamiliar peers at the two ages. Data were derived from videotape coding, mother questionnaires, and child sociometric ratings. Results indicted that internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and social engagement were related at the two ages. After removing the variance due to the relationship between child behaviors at the two ages, a comparison of mother‐child relationship predictors indicated that attachment security at age 4 was the strongest predictor of internalizing problems and social engagement/acceptance at age 8, while maternal style was the strongest predictor of externalizing difficulties. Results point to the importance of both aspects of the mother‐child relationship, and indicate that the nature of family and peer links may vary depending upon the specific social domain assessed.

The form and function of speech act exchanges in children's dyadic interactions

The present study evaluated form/function distinctions in the speech act exchanges between dyad partners. Based on sociometric nominations and ratings, second‐ and sixth‐grade girls were paired in three dyad types: mutual friends, unilateral friends, or acquaintances. Each dyad was videotaped for 20 min while performing two tasks: a question‐asking task and a puzzle task. Five speech act exchange forms (which involved an initiation by one child and a response by the other) were coded. Two of the exchange forms (question followed by response to question, nonverbal acknowledgments) served a single communicative function, and their use was influenced by the demands of the task (question and puzzle, respectively). The remaining three exchange forms served multiple communicative functions and their use was influenced by a combination of factors (grade, social relationship, task). As the number of communicative functions served by an exchange form increased, the number of variables that affected its use also in...

Characteristics of Aggressive-Rejected, Aggressive (Nonrejected), and Rejected (Nonaggressive) Boys

95 boys at 3 developmental levels (ages 6-8, 8-10, 10-12) were selected on the basis of sociometric and aggression ratings to represent 4 groups: (1) aggressive and rejected, (2) aggressive (not rejected), (3) rejected (not aggressive), or (4) neither aggressive nor rejected. Behavioral observations, teacher ratings, peer ratings, and open-ended peer interviews were collected to characterize the behaviors of these boys in 3 social domains (conduct problems, sociability/withdrawal, and adaptability/responsivity to peer expectations). Distinct problem profiles emerged. Aggressive-rejected boys exhibited more diverse and severe conduct problems that did aggressive boys, along with greater deficiencies in the domain of adaptability. Nonaggressive rejected children were considered by teachers and peers to be shy and passive, deficient in prosocial behaviors, atypical, and socially insensitive. Grade-level decreases in physical aggression and increases in peer-reported atypical/insensitive behaviors corresponded to developmental differences in group characteristics.

Multimethod comparison of similarity in school adjustment of siblings and unrelated children.

We examined similarities among 45 sibling pairs in Grades 2 to 5 in their social and academic adaptation to the school setting. Measures included teacher ratings and rankings of academic skills, social behavior, and peer acceptance; peer sociometric ratings; and direct observations on the playground with peers and in the classroom with teachers and peers. Comparisons were made with randomly selected, unrelated subject pairs matched on sex, grade, and classroom. Significant correlations were found only among sibling pairs on peer ratings of social preference, teachers' judgments of academic competence, popularity, social behavior and school adjustment, positive behavior with peers on the playground, and teachers'disapproving behavior in the classroom

The effects of a positive behavioral context on the social impact of aggressive behavior.

The hypothesis is experimentally examined that a positive behavioral repertoire can ameliorate the negative social impact of aggressive behavior. Sixty-six fourth- through sixth-grade girls viewed and rated a series of videotaped interactions between two female confederates. The proportion of positive to aggressive behavior viewed by each subject was manipulated across six experimental conditions by varying the number of positive behaviors exhibited by one of the confederates (target) while the number of aggressive behaviors displayed by her remained constant (i.e., 0%, 20%, 43%, 60%, 80%, and 100% positive). Each subject provided sociometric ratings of the target and selected trait descriptors that best described her from a checklist. The results indicated that positive behavior exhibited in high rates (80% or more, compared to aggressive behavior) offset the negative effects of aggression on both sociometric ratings and positive and negative descriptors.

Correlates of Peer Acceptance in a Chinese Sample of Six-Year-Olds

The relations between children's peer acceptance and social problem solving skills, school performance and family-ecological conditions in Chinese culture were examined. The participants included 61 kindergarten children in Shanghai, China. A sociometric rating scale and a measure of social problem solving skills were administered to each child to assess peer acceptance and social competence. Data concerning the child's school performance and family background were also collected. The results showed that, compared to a Canadian sample, the Chinese children were less accepting of each other, less prosocial, and more agonistic and authority-oriented in social problem solving. However, they used more relevant strategies in social problem solving. Nevertheless, the pattern of correlations between peer acceptance and both the quantitative features of social problem solving repertoires, such as the total number of alternatives suggested in solving social problems, and the qualitative features of social problem solving repertoires, such as the prosocial and agonistic strategies suggested, was in agreement with the results found in the Canadian sample. The study also showed that there existed meaningful relations between children's peer acceptance and school achievement and family factors, such as parent's occupational level and the quality of parental relationship.

Sex typing in play and popularity in middle childhood

Sex differences in play behavior across the early elementary school years as well as the relation between sex-typed play and peer acceptance were examined. It was hypothesized that children who were more sex-typed in their play behaviors would be more accepted by their peers. The participants included 86 grade two children and 81 grade four children. Popularity was assessed using a rating scale sociometric measure. Sex-typed behaviors were measured by observing the children at free play. Results indicated significant age and gender differences in children's play behavior. Specifically, boys engaged in more aggressive and rough and tumble play as well as more functional, solitary-dramatic and exploratory play and tended to be involved more in group play, whereas girls produced more parallel and constructive play as well as more peer conversations. In grade 4, these differences were maximized such that boys produced more games-with-rules and girls exhibited more parallel-constructive activity. Second, results indicated that sociometric ratings and observed degree of sex-typing were not significantly related except in the case of fourth grade males. At the fourth grade level, a positive relation was observed between boys' acceptance by male peers and “masculine” or male-preferred play behavior as well as between boys' acceptance by female peers and “feminine” or female-preferred play.