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The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgnt20
Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior a
Jacquelyn Mize & Rebecca A. Cox
a
a
Department of Family and Child Development , Auburn University , USA Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Jacquelyn Mize & Rebecca A. Cox (1990) Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior, The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 151:1, 117-127, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.1990.9914648 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1990.9914648
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The Journal of Generic Psychology, IS!( 1). 117-127
Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior JACQUELYN MIZE REBECCA A. COX Department of Family and Child Development Auburn University
ABSTRACT.The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of two different measures of preschool children’s social strategy knowledge to predict classroom behavior with peers. Thirty-two 4- and 5-year-old children attending a university sponsored preschool were administered the Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving Tests (PIPS)and an enactive assessment of strategy knowledge. Observational and teacher-rating measures of children’s positive and aggressive peer behavior were also obtained. Significant correlations were obtained between (a) the number of strategies produced in the enactive measure and cooperative play ratings by teachers, (b) the number of strategies produced in the PIPS and observations of positive peer behavior, and (c) ratings of friendliness in the PIPS and teacher-rated cooperative play and aggression and observations of aggression. Results are discussed in terms of implications for social skill training.
ACCUMULATING EVIDENCE regarding the importance of positive peer relationships during childhood for concurrent and later adjustment (for a review, see Parker & Asher, 1987) has prompted research on the origins and development of children’s social skill. A growing body of this work focuses on identifying the underlying cognitive, behavioral, and perceptual competencies that provide the basis for socially skilled peer interaction. Among these underlying competencies are knowledge of appropriate social strategies
We wish to thank the teachers, children, and parents of the Auburn University Child Study Center and to thank Rosie Lawler, Lisa Ellis, and Kim Woodward, who assisted with data collection and coding. Requests for reprints should be sent to Jacquelyn Mize, Department of Family and Child Development, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849. I17
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for achieving social goals, the ability to translate strategies into behavior. and the ability to monitor, interpret, and evaluate social cues (e.g., Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Dodge, 1985; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986; Ladd & Mize, 1983; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). The importance of one of these components, social strategy knowledge, has received considerable empirical attention. Numerous studies have demonstrated, for instance, that when interviewed regarding ways of handling social situations, children who are socially skilled and well-liked by peers tend to suggest ideas that are prosocial, friendly, and normative. Their less skilled and less popular counterparts, in contrast, are more likely to suggest ideas that are aggressive, vague, or nonnormative (Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Gottman, Gonso, & Rasmussen, 1975; Gouze, 1987; Ladd & Oden, 1979; Mize & Ladd, 1988). Furthermore, knowledge of appropriate social strategies plays an important role in several models of children’s peer competence (e.g., Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Dodge et al., 1986; Ladd & Mize, 1983; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). At least two models of how social strategy knowledge mediates behavior can be identified. One of these models (Spivack & Shure, 1974; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976) emphasizes the child’s ability to reflect upon a social problem and to generate and select from multiple strategies or solutions. According to this model, the more relevant strategies a child can generate, and thus the more choices available, the more likely the child is to select an appropriate or positive strategy. Work done from this perspective, therefore, often focuses on the range or number of different strategies children can produce in response to hypothetical social situations (Rubin & Krasnor, 1985), and further suggests that the range of strategies should be positively related to measures of peer competence. Perhaps the most frequently used assessment of the range of strategies preschool children possess for hypothetical situations is the Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving Test (PIPS). In this procedure, children are asked to generate alternative strategies for dealing with a peer-oriented dilemma (in which a child seeks to obtain a toy that is in the possession of another child) and an adult-oriented dilemma (in which a child seeks to avoid his mother’s anger after damaging her property). Scores on this test are based on the number of different relevant solutions a child is able to suggest to the problem. In some research, PIPS performance has been significantly related to measures of social competence (e.g., Spivack & Shure, 1974), but other research has found no significant relationship (e.g., Gouze, 1987; for a review, see Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). The concept of scripts (Abelson, 1981; Nelson, 1981) provides a second model for thinking about young children’s social strategy knowledge (Mize & Ladd, 1988; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). A script may be thought of as a cognitive representation of familiar experience that is called into play to guide
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behavior given an appropriate context (Nelson). Scripts are often “acted out” without conscious reflection, but they are more than mere habits. They are knowledge structures that children can act on without conscious reflection but that can also be reflected upon and described verbally (Abelson). By allowing children to act out their knowledge using small dolls and toys, researchers have found that even very young children possess detailed scripts for such routine events as visiting McDonald’s and eating lunch at day care (Nelson). If young children’s routine social interactions are often guided by the semi-automatic activation of scripted social knowledge (cf. Butler & Meichenbaum, 1981), then it is the quality (e.g., friendliness)of the first response that a child suggests to an interpersonaldilemma, not the number of responses the child can generate, that should be of greatest interest. It is the first response that is probably most typical of how the child approaches peers; it should, therefore, be of most use in predicting behavior (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Moreover, based on a script model of social problem solving, an assessment technique in which children are allowed to actually act out their responses to social dilemmas may elicit strategies that more accurately reflect real-life interaction patterns than do strategies generated verbally (cf. Nelson, 1981). In fact, recent research indicates that the friendliness of children’s first enactive responses to a series of social dilemmas were more predictive of their peer interaction as measured by observations and teacher ratings than were their verbal responses to the same situations (Mize & Ladd, 1988).
The validity of these two models of how social knowledge mediates social behavior has implications for programs designed to alleviate children’s peer interaction difficulties. If children’s ability to generate numerous solutions to a situation is predictive of behavioral competence and positive peer interaction, then social skill interventions should focus on helping children learn a variety of solutions to problems (cf. Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976). If, on the other hand, peer competence is more closely related to the quality of the first strategy a child generates to a social problem, then it would seem important for social skill programs to focus on identifying strategies that children routinely access and to supplant children’s inappropriate approaches with more effective or skilled ones (Mize & Ladd, in press). To date, however, no research has compared the ability of social knowledge assessments based on the models described above to predict children’s peer competence. The purpose of this research was to compare, in terms of their ability to predict positive and negative social behavior with peers, the range or number of strategies children can report verbally in response to a social dilemma with the quality of the first enactive strategy children produce. Specifically, both the PIPS and an enactive assessment of children’s social strategy knowledge
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were administered to a group of preschool children. The friendliness of the child’s initial response to the enactive assessment, as well as the number of relevant strategies produced in the peer situation of the PIPS, was of interest. Both of these measures of social knowledge were correlated with teacher ratings and observational measures of children’s positive and aggressive behavior with peers. In addition, to partially assess variance that might be associated with differences in method of administration, we determined the friendliness of children’s first response to the PIPS and the number of relevant strategies they could generate to the enactive assessment and correlated them with measures of the children’s behavior.
Method Subjecrs
Informed consent letters were sent to the parents of the fifty-two 4- and 5year-old children attending a university sponsored preschool. The parents of 32 children (62%; 16 boys and 16 girls) gave consent, and these children served as subjects. The average age of the participants was 56.47 months (SD = 8.57), and all the children came from middle-class or student families. Procedure
Children in the sample responded to an enactive assessment of social knowledge (Mize & Ladd, 1988) and the PIPS (Spivack & Shure, 1974) on different occasions separated by a 2- to 3-day interval. Assessments were individually administered by two trained undergraduates. Half of the children received the enactive interview first, and half received the PIPS test first. Trained undergraduate students observed children’s behavioral styles with peers, and teachers rated the children’s behavioral styles at the same time the children were being assessed. Enactive assessment. In the enactive interview, the examiner used hand puppets and small toys to present a series of six social situations in counterbalanced order (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Themes for these stories reflect peer situations that children are likely to encounter in preschool (see Table 1). The examiner gave the child a puppet “to pretend to be you today” and, using one or two puppets and small toys, described and enacted the story situation with the child. If no spontaneous response was offered by the child, the interviewer prompted a response by asking, “What would you do then?”. The child’s response constituted his first strategy. The child was then asked to suggest or
TABLE 1 Descriptions of Hypothetical Situations Used in the Enactive Assessment story number
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1
2
3 4
5
6
Description
The subject is playing with a peer when a third child approaches and pushes the playmate, saying to the subject, “I want to play with you now.” The subject and a peer are playing in a sandbox when the peer says to the subject, “I’m tired of playing in the sand; I’m going to play with the blocks.” The subject is building a tower with blocks. A peer approaches and says, “I was playing with those before and you can’t play with them,” and knocks down the subject’s tower. The subject is building a tower with blocks. Nearby a peer is teasing a third child. The third child is crying. The subject approaches two peers who are playing with two farm animals. Blocks, a truck, and a small doll lie, unused, nearby. The peers say, “You can’t play because we only have two farm animals.” The subject is unoccupied and observes two peers playing nearby with blocks. Other toys lie nearby, unused.
enact as many other strategies as possible. To record all aspects of the child’s response on a hidden audiotape, the interviewer restated all of the child’s verbalizations in the child’s exact words and described in detail all of the child’s actions. Procedures previously developed to score transcripts of the audiotapes were used (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Specifically, children’s strategy responses were transcribed from the audiotaped records and coded into strategy idea units by a trained undergraduate. An idea unit is an action or statement that describes a single response or event (Renshaw, 1981). Idea units were then sorted into descriptive categories by two judges. In previous research (Mize & Ladd, 1988) high interjudge agreement was obtained in sorting strategies into categories (Cohen’s kappa ranged from .84 to .90 for individual stories). After children’s responses were sorted into categories, children were assigned friendliness scores ranging from a high of 10 (i.e., prosocial or likely to result in positive outcomes for a peer) to 1 (i.e.. hostile, or likely to result in negative outcomes for a peer) for their first response to each story. The friendliness ratings for each strategy category had been reliably determined in previous research (interjudge agreement = .90) (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Further, this research had demonstrated adequate test-retest stability ( r = .77) and internal consistency (alpha = .64)for friendliness ratings obtained by using the enactive assessment (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Thus, a composite friendliness score was created by summing the ratings subjects received on this dimension across all six stories. In addition, the
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number of strategies children were able to generate was calculated for each story and summed across the stories to form a composite score.
PIPS Test. In the PIPS, two life-related types of problems are presented to the children. One concerns ways for a child to obtain a toy from another, and the other concerns ways to avert a mother’s anger resulting from damage to property. Because children’s peer interaction skill was of interest in this study, only information regarding the peer situation will be presented here. The standard administration and scoring procedure for the PIPS was followed (Shure & Spivack, 1974), and only a brief description of the procedure will be presented here. The subject is shown pictures of two children and a toy and told that one child has been playing with a toy truck (for boys) or doll (for girls) for a long time and is asked to suggest as many ways as possible for the second child to obtain possession of the toy. The number of different, relevant solutions (e.g., ask or beg for it, trade or bribe for it) offered to this problem constituted the child’s number of PIPS strategies score. In addition to the standard PIPS scoringjust described, the friendliness of the child’s first PIPS strategy was determined by using the same 10-point Likert-type scale used to score the enactive strategies. Teacher ratings. Teachers were asked to rate children’s classroom behavior on the following dimensions: physical aggression toward peers (e.g., pushing, kicking, hitting), verbal aggression toward peers (e.g., yelling, threatening, teasing peers), social conversation with peers (e.g., face-to-face talk in a positive or neutral tone), cooperative play with peers (e.g., joint activity), nonsocial play (engaged in play or work alone, away from other children), and teacher-oriented behavior (standing near, talking to, or clinging to the teacher). Two teachers from each participating classroom (the head teacher and the graduate assistant) rated each child on the frequency (often, sometimes, seldom) with which he or she engaged in each of these types of behaviors. Moderate levels of agreement were obtained between teachers on each of the. rating items (r = .40 to . 5 5 ) , except for social conversation (r = .25). Social conversation ratings were deleted from further analysis, and ratings from the two teachers on the other dimensions were summed to produce a single teacher rating. Teacher ratings for verbal and physical aggression were moderately correlated (r = .68) and were summed to form a single teacher aggression item. Because the purpose of this research was to determine the relationship between social knowledge and positive and negative peer behavior, only analyses of teacher ratings of cooperative play and aggression will be discussed in subsequent sections. Behavior observations. A time-sampling observational scheme was used to record children’s positive social behaviors (making positive suggestions to
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peers, asking positive questions of peers, providing support to peers, making positive comments to peers, performing other positive social behaviors) and their aggressive social behaviors (acts of physical or verbal aggression directed toward a peer). Other behaviors, such as parallel play, teacher-oriented behavior, and solitary play were coded in a nonsocial category. Each subject was observed during indoor free play for fifteen 5-s intervals by one of two trained undergraduate students who stood in the classroom and recorded the child’s behavior onto a coding sheet. ’henty-five percent of the observations were coded jointly by the observers; interobserver agreement between the two students was adequate (kappa = .86). Only analyses of positive and aggressive peer behavior will be discussed in subsequent sections.
Results Means and standard deviations for social knowledge variables are presented in Table 2. Because the sample included both boys and girls, r tests were conducted to determine whether there were significant sex differences on any variables. Boys received higher teacher ratings of aggression (boys M = 6.31, SD = 2.12; girlsM = 4.94, SD = 1.81), t(30) = 3 . 2 2 , ~= .03, and were observed more frequently in positive peer interaction (boys M = 4.25, SD = 2.14; girls M = 4.06, SD = 3.66), t(30) = 2.29, p < .05, than girls. Boys and girls did not differ significantly on any other variable. To determine the relationship between measures of peer behavior and children’s social strategy knowledge, we conducted a series of Pearson product-moment correlations. As Table 3 shows, the friendliness of the first strategy children suggested to the PIPS demonstrated a significant positive correlation with teacher ratings of cooperative peer play and was negatively related to teacher-rated aggression. The number of strategies children suggested in the PIPS interview was positively correlated with observations of positive peer behavior. The number of strategies children suggested in the enactive interview was positively related to teacher ratings of cooperative peer PlaySeparate correlational analyses were conducted for boys and girls and were compared by using a z test for the significance of difference between two independent correlations (Ferguson, 1971). No correlation between the dependent and independent variables differed as a function of sex. T tests for the significance of the difference between two correlation coefficients for correlated samples (Ferguson, 1971) were computed to determine whether, for each dependent variable, the independent variables differed significantly in predictive power. As Table 3 shows, within an assessment procedure (i.e., within the PIPS or the enactive procedure), no one type of measure (friendliness or number of strategies) was a significantly better predictor of the dependent variable than the other type of predictor.
TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations of Behavioral and Social Knowledge Measures
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Measun: Behavioral Teacher ratings Aggression Cooperation Observational measures Aggression Positive interaction Social Knowledge PIPS Number of strategies Friendliness ratings Enactive Number of strategies Friendliness ratingsa
M
SD
5.63 5.34
1.83 .87
.I9 4.16
.54 2.96
7.44 8.59
4.27 2.54
7.35 35.71
2.68 6.54
”Mean friendliness ratings represent the sum of friendliness scores for all six stories.
Discussion The purpose of this study was to determine whether the number of strategies preschool children produce in response to hypothetical social dilemmas or the quality of the first strategy they produce is a better predictor of their peer interaction styles. To answer this question, a frequently used verbal assessment of the number of strategies, the PIPS, and an enactive measure designed to assess the quality (friendliness) of the child’s initial response to a hypotheticill situation were administered to a group of preschool children. To partially control for the fact that the PIPS relies on verbal responses whereas the enactive measure is based on children’s verbal and acted-out responses, we also assessed the friendliness of the first strategy given in the PIPS interview and the quantity of strategies produced in the enactive procedure. Measures of children’s positive and aggressive peer-directed behavior were obtained from teacher ratings and classroom observations. Both the friendliness of the first strategy children produced and the number of strategies they suggested in response to the hypothetical dilemmas were significantly related to some measures of social behavior with peers. Contrary to our expectations, however, the friendliness of strategies did not show a clearly stronger pattern of correlation with behavior than did the number of strategies. Furthermore, children’s responses to the PIPS appeared to be better predictors of their behavior than were responses to the enactive assessment.
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TABLE 3 Pearson Product-Moment Correlations Between Children’s Social Knowledge Measures and Behavioral Measures Teacher ratings Cooperative Aggressive
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~
Observations Positive Aggressive
_____
PIPS Number of strategies Friendliness Enactive Number of strategies Friendliness
.ma
.39* .21 .45,** .21
-.I4
- .40: .17, .18, .17,
.34:
-.11,
.22 .ll
- .03
.I1
- .03
- .MI,
.27,
Nore. Within a column, correlation coefficients having different subscripts are significantly different from each other at p < .05. *p < .05. **p < .01.
Few sex differences emerged in the data. Boys were observed to engage in more positive interaction with peers and were perceived by teachers to be more aggressive. This picture is not inconsistent with existing data; preschool boys are often more active and engage in more peer aggression than do girls (Hartup, 1983). The fact that these data are not consistent with results obtained in previous research in which children’s enactive responses to the six social dilemmas described here were more highly predictive of their behavior than were their verbal responses to the same situations (Mize & Ladd, 1988) may be attributable to several factors. It is possible that problems associated with measuring the dependent variables (i.e., observations and teacher ratings) may have resulted in the unexpected pattern of results, especially the unimpressive predictive power of the enactive measures. This seems an unlikely explanation, however, given the strong pattern of correlation between the dependent variables and the PIPS measures. Perhaps a more likely explanation for the unexpected pattern of results has to do with characteristics of the present sample. Children in the Mize and Ladd (1988) study attended a federally subsidized daycare center and were primarily from low-income families. In contrast, parents of the children in the current sample were primarily middle-income professionals. Middle-class children often have better verbal skills than do their lower income peers (Krasnor & Rubin, 1981). Thus, assessments requiring verbal descriptions of behavior may be more valid and sensitive indicators of actual behavioral differences in groups of verbally skilled, middle-income children. It is even possible that these sample differences reflect real differences in how middleincome and low-income children approach social problems. That is, it is
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possible that children from low-income families approach social situations somewhat impulsively (i.e., acting on the first strategy), whereas middleclass children are more likely to reflect on a solution (i.e., come up with several ideas before acting.) This model of how children approach peer interaction situations is speculative but may be deserving of further research. Additional research with larger samples would allow for use of more powerful analytic tools and might help answer these questions. These data have implications for interventions designed to improve children’s peer relations. Many models of how social knowledge guides children’s peer interaction focus either on the number of strategies the child is able to conceive or on the quality of the first strategy the child reports. Social skill training approaches, in turn, reflect these different models. These data suggest that a theory or model combining the two concepts might best explain how children’s reactions to social situations are determined. Thus, it might be that social skill interventions would do well to teach children both a more positive dominant strategy and a wider range of strategies to use in peer interaction. REFERENCES Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36(7), 715-729. Asher. S. R., & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children without friends: Social knowledge and social skill training. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children’sfriendships (pp. 273-296). New York: Cambridge University Press. Butler, L., & Meichenbaum, D. (1981). The assessment of interpersonal problemsolving skills. In P. C. Kendall & S. D. Hollon (Eds.), Assessment strategies for cognitive-behavioral interventions (pp. 197-225). New York: Academic Press. Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., McClaskey, C. L., & Brown, M. M. (1986). Social competence in children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51(2, Serial No. 213). Ferguson, G. A. (1971). Statistical analysis in psychology and education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Gottman, J. M., Gonso, J., & Rasmussen, B. (1975). Social interaction, social competence, and friendship in children. Child Development, 46, 709-718. Gouzz, K. R. (1987). Attention and social problem solving as correlates of aggression in preschool males. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15, 181-197. Hartup, W. W. (1983). Peer relations. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol 4. Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 103-196). New York: Wiley. Krasnor, L., & Rubin, K. H. (1981). Assessment of social problem-solving in young children. In T. Merluzzi, C. Glass, & M. Genest (Eds.), Cognitive assessment (pp. 452-478). New York: Guilford Press. Ladd, G.W., & Mize, J. (1983). A cognitive-social learning model of social skill training. Psychological Review, 90, 127-157. Ladd, G. W., & Oden, S. L. (1979). The relationship between peer acceptance and children’s ideas about helpfulness. Child Development, 50, 402-408.
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Mize, J., & Ladd, G. W. (1988). Predicting preschoolers’ peer behavior and status from their interpersonal strategies: A comparison of hypothetical-reflective and enactive assessments. Developmental Psychology, 782-788. Mize, J., & Ladd, G. W. (in press). Toward the development of successful social skill training for preschool children. In S. R. Asher & J. D. Coie (Eds), Peer rejection in childhood. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, K. (1981). Social cognition in a script framework. In J. H. Flavell & L. Ross (Eds.), Social-cognitive development (pp. 97-1 18). New York: Cambridge University Press. Parker, J. G., & Asher, S. R. (1987). Peer relations and later personal adjustment: Are low-accepted children at risk? Psychological Bulletin, 102, 357-389. Rubin, K. H., & Krasnor, L. R. (1986). Sociakognitive and social behavioral perspectives on problem solving. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), The Minnesota symposia on childpsychology (Vol. 18, pp. 1-68). Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum. Shure, M. B., & Spivack, G. (1974). Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving (PIPS) test: Manual. Pittsburgh: Hahnemann Community Mental Health Center. Spivack, G., Platt, J., & Shure, M. (1976). The problem-solving approach to adjustment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Spivack, G., & Shure, M. (1974). Social adjustment of young children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Received February 1 , 1989
The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgnt20
Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior a
Jacquelyn Mize & Rebecca A. Cox
a
a
Department of Family and Child Development , Auburn University , USA Published online: 06 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Jacquelyn Mize & Rebecca A. Cox (1990) Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior, The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 151:1, 117-127, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.1990.9914648 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1990.9914648
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
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The Journal of Generic Psychology, IS!( 1). 117-127
Social Knowledge and Social Competence: Number and Quality of Strategies as Predictors of Peer Behavior JACQUELYN MIZE REBECCA A. COX Department of Family and Child Development Auburn University
ABSTRACT.The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of two different measures of preschool children’s social strategy knowledge to predict classroom behavior with peers. Thirty-two 4- and 5-year-old children attending a university sponsored preschool were administered the Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving Tests (PIPS)and an enactive assessment of strategy knowledge. Observational and teacher-rating measures of children’s positive and aggressive peer behavior were also obtained. Significant correlations were obtained between (a) the number of strategies produced in the enactive measure and cooperative play ratings by teachers, (b) the number of strategies produced in the PIPS and observations of positive peer behavior, and (c) ratings of friendliness in the PIPS and teacher-rated cooperative play and aggression and observations of aggression. Results are discussed in terms of implications for social skill training.
ACCUMULATING EVIDENCE regarding the importance of positive peer relationships during childhood for concurrent and later adjustment (for a review, see Parker & Asher, 1987) has prompted research on the origins and development of children’s social skill. A growing body of this work focuses on identifying the underlying cognitive, behavioral, and perceptual competencies that provide the basis for socially skilled peer interaction. Among these underlying competencies are knowledge of appropriate social strategies
We wish to thank the teachers, children, and parents of the Auburn University Child Study Center and to thank Rosie Lawler, Lisa Ellis, and Kim Woodward, who assisted with data collection and coding. Requests for reprints should be sent to Jacquelyn Mize, Department of Family and Child Development, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849. I17
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for achieving social goals, the ability to translate strategies into behavior. and the ability to monitor, interpret, and evaluate social cues (e.g., Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Dodge, 1985; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986; Ladd & Mize, 1983; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). The importance of one of these components, social strategy knowledge, has received considerable empirical attention. Numerous studies have demonstrated, for instance, that when interviewed regarding ways of handling social situations, children who are socially skilled and well-liked by peers tend to suggest ideas that are prosocial, friendly, and normative. Their less skilled and less popular counterparts, in contrast, are more likely to suggest ideas that are aggressive, vague, or nonnormative (Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Gottman, Gonso, & Rasmussen, 1975; Gouze, 1987; Ladd & Oden, 1979; Mize & Ladd, 1988). Furthermore, knowledge of appropriate social strategies plays an important role in several models of children’s peer competence (e.g., Asher & Renshaw, 1981; Dodge et al., 1986; Ladd & Mize, 1983; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). At least two models of how social strategy knowledge mediates behavior can be identified. One of these models (Spivack & Shure, 1974; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976) emphasizes the child’s ability to reflect upon a social problem and to generate and select from multiple strategies or solutions. According to this model, the more relevant strategies a child can generate, and thus the more choices available, the more likely the child is to select an appropriate or positive strategy. Work done from this perspective, therefore, often focuses on the range or number of different strategies children can produce in response to hypothetical social situations (Rubin & Krasnor, 1985), and further suggests that the range of strategies should be positively related to measures of peer competence. Perhaps the most frequently used assessment of the range of strategies preschool children possess for hypothetical situations is the Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving Test (PIPS). In this procedure, children are asked to generate alternative strategies for dealing with a peer-oriented dilemma (in which a child seeks to obtain a toy that is in the possession of another child) and an adult-oriented dilemma (in which a child seeks to avoid his mother’s anger after damaging her property). Scores on this test are based on the number of different relevant solutions a child is able to suggest to the problem. In some research, PIPS performance has been significantly related to measures of social competence (e.g., Spivack & Shure, 1974), but other research has found no significant relationship (e.g., Gouze, 1987; for a review, see Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). The concept of scripts (Abelson, 1981; Nelson, 1981) provides a second model for thinking about young children’s social strategy knowledge (Mize & Ladd, 1988; Rubin & Krasnor, 1986). A script may be thought of as a cognitive representation of familiar experience that is called into play to guide
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behavior given an appropriate context (Nelson). Scripts are often “acted out” without conscious reflection, but they are more than mere habits. They are knowledge structures that children can act on without conscious reflection but that can also be reflected upon and described verbally (Abelson). By allowing children to act out their knowledge using small dolls and toys, researchers have found that even very young children possess detailed scripts for such routine events as visiting McDonald’s and eating lunch at day care (Nelson). If young children’s routine social interactions are often guided by the semi-automatic activation of scripted social knowledge (cf. Butler & Meichenbaum, 1981), then it is the quality (e.g., friendliness)of the first response that a child suggests to an interpersonaldilemma, not the number of responses the child can generate, that should be of greatest interest. It is the first response that is probably most typical of how the child approaches peers; it should, therefore, be of most use in predicting behavior (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Moreover, based on a script model of social problem solving, an assessment technique in which children are allowed to actually act out their responses to social dilemmas may elicit strategies that more accurately reflect real-life interaction patterns than do strategies generated verbally (cf. Nelson, 1981). In fact, recent research indicates that the friendliness of children’s first enactive responses to a series of social dilemmas were more predictive of their peer interaction as measured by observations and teacher ratings than were their verbal responses to the same situations (Mize & Ladd, 1988).
The validity of these two models of how social knowledge mediates social behavior has implications for programs designed to alleviate children’s peer interaction difficulties. If children’s ability to generate numerous solutions to a situation is predictive of behavioral competence and positive peer interaction, then social skill interventions should focus on helping children learn a variety of solutions to problems (cf. Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976). If, on the other hand, peer competence is more closely related to the quality of the first strategy a child generates to a social problem, then it would seem important for social skill programs to focus on identifying strategies that children routinely access and to supplant children’s inappropriate approaches with more effective or skilled ones (Mize & Ladd, in press). To date, however, no research has compared the ability of social knowledge assessments based on the models described above to predict children’s peer competence. The purpose of this research was to compare, in terms of their ability to predict positive and negative social behavior with peers, the range or number of strategies children can report verbally in response to a social dilemma with the quality of the first enactive strategy children produce. Specifically, both the PIPS and an enactive assessment of children’s social strategy knowledge
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were administered to a group of preschool children. The friendliness of the child’s initial response to the enactive assessment, as well as the number of relevant strategies produced in the peer situation of the PIPS, was of interest. Both of these measures of social knowledge were correlated with teacher ratings and observational measures of children’s positive and aggressive behavior with peers. In addition, to partially assess variance that might be associated with differences in method of administration, we determined the friendliness of children’s first response to the PIPS and the number of relevant strategies they could generate to the enactive assessment and correlated them with measures of the children’s behavior.
Method Subjecrs
Informed consent letters were sent to the parents of the fifty-two 4- and 5year-old children attending a university sponsored preschool. The parents of 32 children (62%; 16 boys and 16 girls) gave consent, and these children served as subjects. The average age of the participants was 56.47 months (SD = 8.57), and all the children came from middle-class or student families. Procedure
Children in the sample responded to an enactive assessment of social knowledge (Mize & Ladd, 1988) and the PIPS (Spivack & Shure, 1974) on different occasions separated by a 2- to 3-day interval. Assessments were individually administered by two trained undergraduates. Half of the children received the enactive interview first, and half received the PIPS test first. Trained undergraduate students observed children’s behavioral styles with peers, and teachers rated the children’s behavioral styles at the same time the children were being assessed. Enactive assessment. In the enactive interview, the examiner used hand puppets and small toys to present a series of six social situations in counterbalanced order (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Themes for these stories reflect peer situations that children are likely to encounter in preschool (see Table 1). The examiner gave the child a puppet “to pretend to be you today” and, using one or two puppets and small toys, described and enacted the story situation with the child. If no spontaneous response was offered by the child, the interviewer prompted a response by asking, “What would you do then?”. The child’s response constituted his first strategy. The child was then asked to suggest or
TABLE 1 Descriptions of Hypothetical Situations Used in the Enactive Assessment story number
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1
2
3 4
5
6
Description
The subject is playing with a peer when a third child approaches and pushes the playmate, saying to the subject, “I want to play with you now.” The subject and a peer are playing in a sandbox when the peer says to the subject, “I’m tired of playing in the sand; I’m going to play with the blocks.” The subject is building a tower with blocks. A peer approaches and says, “I was playing with those before and you can’t play with them,” and knocks down the subject’s tower. The subject is building a tower with blocks. Nearby a peer is teasing a third child. The third child is crying. The subject approaches two peers who are playing with two farm animals. Blocks, a truck, and a small doll lie, unused, nearby. The peers say, “You can’t play because we only have two farm animals.” The subject is unoccupied and observes two peers playing nearby with blocks. Other toys lie nearby, unused.
enact as many other strategies as possible. To record all aspects of the child’s response on a hidden audiotape, the interviewer restated all of the child’s verbalizations in the child’s exact words and described in detail all of the child’s actions. Procedures previously developed to score transcripts of the audiotapes were used (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Specifically, children’s strategy responses were transcribed from the audiotaped records and coded into strategy idea units by a trained undergraduate. An idea unit is an action or statement that describes a single response or event (Renshaw, 1981). Idea units were then sorted into descriptive categories by two judges. In previous research (Mize & Ladd, 1988) high interjudge agreement was obtained in sorting strategies into categories (Cohen’s kappa ranged from .84 to .90 for individual stories). After children’s responses were sorted into categories, children were assigned friendliness scores ranging from a high of 10 (i.e., prosocial or likely to result in positive outcomes for a peer) to 1 (i.e.. hostile, or likely to result in negative outcomes for a peer) for their first response to each story. The friendliness ratings for each strategy category had been reliably determined in previous research (interjudge agreement = .90) (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Further, this research had demonstrated adequate test-retest stability ( r = .77) and internal consistency (alpha = .64)for friendliness ratings obtained by using the enactive assessment (Mize & Ladd, 1988). Thus, a composite friendliness score was created by summing the ratings subjects received on this dimension across all six stories. In addition, the
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number of strategies children were able to generate was calculated for each story and summed across the stories to form a composite score.
PIPS Test. In the PIPS, two life-related types of problems are presented to the children. One concerns ways for a child to obtain a toy from another, and the other concerns ways to avert a mother’s anger resulting from damage to property. Because children’s peer interaction skill was of interest in this study, only information regarding the peer situation will be presented here. The standard administration and scoring procedure for the PIPS was followed (Shure & Spivack, 1974), and only a brief description of the procedure will be presented here. The subject is shown pictures of two children and a toy and told that one child has been playing with a toy truck (for boys) or doll (for girls) for a long time and is asked to suggest as many ways as possible for the second child to obtain possession of the toy. The number of different, relevant solutions (e.g., ask or beg for it, trade or bribe for it) offered to this problem constituted the child’s number of PIPS strategies score. In addition to the standard PIPS scoringjust described, the friendliness of the child’s first PIPS strategy was determined by using the same 10-point Likert-type scale used to score the enactive strategies. Teacher ratings. Teachers were asked to rate children’s classroom behavior on the following dimensions: physical aggression toward peers (e.g., pushing, kicking, hitting), verbal aggression toward peers (e.g., yelling, threatening, teasing peers), social conversation with peers (e.g., face-to-face talk in a positive or neutral tone), cooperative play with peers (e.g., joint activity), nonsocial play (engaged in play or work alone, away from other children), and teacher-oriented behavior (standing near, talking to, or clinging to the teacher). Two teachers from each participating classroom (the head teacher and the graduate assistant) rated each child on the frequency (often, sometimes, seldom) with which he or she engaged in each of these types of behaviors. Moderate levels of agreement were obtained between teachers on each of the. rating items (r = .40 to . 5 5 ) , except for social conversation (r = .25). Social conversation ratings were deleted from further analysis, and ratings from the two teachers on the other dimensions were summed to produce a single teacher rating. Teacher ratings for verbal and physical aggression were moderately correlated (r = .68) and were summed to form a single teacher aggression item. Because the purpose of this research was to determine the relationship between social knowledge and positive and negative peer behavior, only analyses of teacher ratings of cooperative play and aggression will be discussed in subsequent sections. Behavior observations. A time-sampling observational scheme was used to record children’s positive social behaviors (making positive suggestions to
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peers, asking positive questions of peers, providing support to peers, making positive comments to peers, performing other positive social behaviors) and their aggressive social behaviors (acts of physical or verbal aggression directed toward a peer). Other behaviors, such as parallel play, teacher-oriented behavior, and solitary play were coded in a nonsocial category. Each subject was observed during indoor free play for fifteen 5-s intervals by one of two trained undergraduate students who stood in the classroom and recorded the child’s behavior onto a coding sheet. ’henty-five percent of the observations were coded jointly by the observers; interobserver agreement between the two students was adequate (kappa = .86). Only analyses of positive and aggressive peer behavior will be discussed in subsequent sections.
Results Means and standard deviations for social knowledge variables are presented in Table 2. Because the sample included both boys and girls, r tests were conducted to determine whether there were significant sex differences on any variables. Boys received higher teacher ratings of aggression (boys M = 6.31, SD = 2.12; girlsM = 4.94, SD = 1.81), t(30) = 3 . 2 2 , ~= .03, and were observed more frequently in positive peer interaction (boys M = 4.25, SD = 2.14; girls M = 4.06, SD = 3.66), t(30) = 2.29, p < .05, than girls. Boys and girls did not differ significantly on any other variable. To determine the relationship between measures of peer behavior and children’s social strategy knowledge, we conducted a series of Pearson product-moment correlations. As Table 3 shows, the friendliness of the first strategy children suggested to the PIPS demonstrated a significant positive correlation with teacher ratings of cooperative peer play and was negatively related to teacher-rated aggression. The number of strategies children suggested in the PIPS interview was positively correlated with observations of positive peer behavior. The number of strategies children suggested in the enactive interview was positively related to teacher ratings of cooperative peer PlaySeparate correlational analyses were conducted for boys and girls and were compared by using a z test for the significance of difference between two independent correlations (Ferguson, 1971). No correlation between the dependent and independent variables differed as a function of sex. T tests for the significance of the difference between two correlation coefficients for correlated samples (Ferguson, 1971) were computed to determine whether, for each dependent variable, the independent variables differed significantly in predictive power. As Table 3 shows, within an assessment procedure (i.e., within the PIPS or the enactive procedure), no one type of measure (friendliness or number of strategies) was a significantly better predictor of the dependent variable than the other type of predictor.
TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations of Behavioral and Social Knowledge Measures
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Measun: Behavioral Teacher ratings Aggression Cooperation Observational measures Aggression Positive interaction Social Knowledge PIPS Number of strategies Friendliness ratings Enactive Number of strategies Friendliness ratingsa
M
SD
5.63 5.34
1.83 .87
.I9 4.16
.54 2.96
7.44 8.59
4.27 2.54
7.35 35.71
2.68 6.54
”Mean friendliness ratings represent the sum of friendliness scores for all six stories.
Discussion The purpose of this study was to determine whether the number of strategies preschool children produce in response to hypothetical social dilemmas or the quality of the first strategy they produce is a better predictor of their peer interaction styles. To answer this question, a frequently used verbal assessment of the number of strategies, the PIPS, and an enactive measure designed to assess the quality (friendliness) of the child’s initial response to a hypotheticill situation were administered to a group of preschool children. To partially control for the fact that the PIPS relies on verbal responses whereas the enactive measure is based on children’s verbal and acted-out responses, we also assessed the friendliness of the first strategy given in the PIPS interview and the quantity of strategies produced in the enactive procedure. Measures of children’s positive and aggressive peer-directed behavior were obtained from teacher ratings and classroom observations. Both the friendliness of the first strategy children produced and the number of strategies they suggested in response to the hypothetical dilemmas were significantly related to some measures of social behavior with peers. Contrary to our expectations, however, the friendliness of strategies did not show a clearly stronger pattern of correlation with behavior than did the number of strategies. Furthermore, children’s responses to the PIPS appeared to be better predictors of their behavior than were responses to the enactive assessment.
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TABLE 3 Pearson Product-Moment Correlations Between Children’s Social Knowledge Measures and Behavioral Measures Teacher ratings Cooperative Aggressive
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~
Observations Positive Aggressive
_____
PIPS Number of strategies Friendliness Enactive Number of strategies Friendliness
.ma
.39* .21 .45,** .21
-.I4
- .40: .17, .18, .17,
.34:
-.11,
.22 .ll
- .03
.I1
- .03
- .MI,
.27,
Nore. Within a column, correlation coefficients having different subscripts are significantly different from each other at p < .05. *p < .05. **p < .01.
Few sex differences emerged in the data. Boys were observed to engage in more positive interaction with peers and were perceived by teachers to be more aggressive. This picture is not inconsistent with existing data; preschool boys are often more active and engage in more peer aggression than do girls (Hartup, 1983). The fact that these data are not consistent with results obtained in previous research in which children’s enactive responses to the six social dilemmas described here were more highly predictive of their behavior than were their verbal responses to the same situations (Mize & Ladd, 1988) may be attributable to several factors. It is possible that problems associated with measuring the dependent variables (i.e., observations and teacher ratings) may have resulted in the unexpected pattern of results, especially the unimpressive predictive power of the enactive measures. This seems an unlikely explanation, however, given the strong pattern of correlation between the dependent variables and the PIPS measures. Perhaps a more likely explanation for the unexpected pattern of results has to do with characteristics of the present sample. Children in the Mize and Ladd (1988) study attended a federally subsidized daycare center and were primarily from low-income families. In contrast, parents of the children in the current sample were primarily middle-income professionals. Middle-class children often have better verbal skills than do their lower income peers (Krasnor & Rubin, 1981). Thus, assessments requiring verbal descriptions of behavior may be more valid and sensitive indicators of actual behavioral differences in groups of verbally skilled, middle-income children. It is even possible that these sample differences reflect real differences in how middleincome and low-income children approach social problems. That is, it is
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possible that children from low-income families approach social situations somewhat impulsively (i.e., acting on the first strategy), whereas middleclass children are more likely to reflect on a solution (i.e., come up with several ideas before acting.) This model of how children approach peer interaction situations is speculative but may be deserving of further research. Additional research with larger samples would allow for use of more powerful analytic tools and might help answer these questions. These data have implications for interventions designed to improve children’s peer relations. Many models of how social knowledge guides children’s peer interaction focus either on the number of strategies the child is able to conceive or on the quality of the first strategy the child reports. Social skill training approaches, in turn, reflect these different models. These data suggest that a theory or model combining the two concepts might best explain how children’s reactions to social situations are determined. Thus, it might be that social skill interventions would do well to teach children both a more positive dominant strategy and a wider range of strategies to use in peer interaction. REFERENCES Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36(7), 715-729. Asher. S. R., & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children without friends: Social knowledge and social skill training. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children’sfriendships (pp. 273-296). New York: Cambridge University Press. Butler, L., & Meichenbaum, D. (1981). The assessment of interpersonal problemsolving skills. In P. C. Kendall & S. D. Hollon (Eds.), Assessment strategies for cognitive-behavioral interventions (pp. 197-225). New York: Academic Press. Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., McClaskey, C. L., & Brown, M. M. (1986). Social competence in children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51(2, Serial No. 213). Ferguson, G. A. (1971). Statistical analysis in psychology and education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Gottman, J. M., Gonso, J., & Rasmussen, B. (1975). Social interaction, social competence, and friendship in children. Child Development, 46, 709-718. Gouzz, K. R. (1987). Attention and social problem solving as correlates of aggression in preschool males. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15, 181-197. Hartup, W. W. (1983). Peer relations. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol 4. Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 103-196). New York: Wiley. Krasnor, L., & Rubin, K. H. (1981). Assessment of social problem-solving in young children. In T. Merluzzi, C. Glass, & M. Genest (Eds.), Cognitive assessment (pp. 452-478). New York: Guilford Press. Ladd, G.W., & Mize, J. (1983). A cognitive-social learning model of social skill training. Psychological Review, 90, 127-157. Ladd, G. W., & Oden, S. L. (1979). The relationship between peer acceptance and children’s ideas about helpfulness. Child Development, 50, 402-408.
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Mize, J., & Ladd, G. W. (1988). Predicting preschoolers’ peer behavior and status from their interpersonal strategies: A comparison of hypothetical-reflective and enactive assessments. Developmental Psychology, 782-788. Mize, J., & Ladd, G. W. (in press). Toward the development of successful social skill training for preschool children. In S. R. Asher & J. D. Coie (Eds), Peer rejection in childhood. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, K. (1981). Social cognition in a script framework. In J. H. Flavell & L. Ross (Eds.), Social-cognitive development (pp. 97-1 18). New York: Cambridge University Press. Parker, J. G., & Asher, S. R. (1987). Peer relations and later personal adjustment: Are low-accepted children at risk? Psychological Bulletin, 102, 357-389. Rubin, K. H., & Krasnor, L. R. (1986). Sociakognitive and social behavioral perspectives on problem solving. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), The Minnesota symposia on childpsychology (Vol. 18, pp. 1-68). Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum. Shure, M. B., & Spivack, G. (1974). Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving (PIPS) test: Manual. Pittsburgh: Hahnemann Community Mental Health Center. Spivack, G., Platt, J., & Shure, M. (1976). The problem-solving approach to adjustment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Spivack, G., & Shure, M. (1974). Social adjustment of young children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Received February 1 , 1989
