Peer Acceptance: The Role of Affective Dispositions in Successfully Joining Peer Activities

A University of Melbourne APA Lab Report Assignment

Under the 3rd-Year Sociology subject "Social & Emotional Development"

Passed with High Distinction (H1)

============ ============ ============

By Benjamin L., written during Semester 1, 2013

Abstract

This study investigated the association between children’s attempts to join peer activities, their patterns of affect, and peer responses to them. It was hypothesised that (a) children with positive patterns of affect who attempted to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer acceptance, not exclusion. Conversely, (b) children with negative patterns of affect who attempted to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer exclusion, not acceptance. Free play was observed in 82 participants aged between 1.98 to 2.56 years-old and coded with the Peer Interaction Observational System. Results did not support either hypothesis. This was attributed to an undeveloped theory of mind in this young sample and does not necessarily falsify previous research findings.

Tutor's Comments (D. Peters):

Done a good job. You could have taken variables that had a higher frequency in the sample. Nonetheless well done.

[Despite the grades, I hated this assignment. The lecturer gave us a terrible observational measure and a pathetic data set, then told us to create an 'appropriate' research question for it.]

Peer Acceptance: The Role of Affective Dispositions in Successfully Joining Peer Activities

            Are cheerful children better accepted by peers than sullen ones when attempting to join them during free play? Peer acceptance is essential for a healthy developmental trajectory, and peer rejection often predicts later social, academic, and mental health problems (Rubin, 1982; Emslie & Mesle, 2009). One key influence on whether peers accept or reject a child is his/her temperament, defined as a set of stable, early-emerging dispositional traits that are manifested in a general pattern of behaviour (Sterry et al., 2010). Temperament is rooted in endogenous biology rather than exogenous life experiences, and its resulting behaviour has a pervasive effect on the nature and frequency of social relations (Szewczyk-Sokolowski, Bost, & Wainwright, 2005). This is especially true in childcare centres or early preschool where children encounter cohesive peer groups for the first time but have yet to learn the specific behaviours used for peer interaction (Tay-Lim & Gan, 2013). Their relative lack of social experience suggests that their success in forming peer relationships is largely due to endogenous temperament rather than exogenous factors or learned social routines (Walker, Berthelsen, & Irving, 2001).

            The dimension of temperament most associated with peer acceptance is the child’s quality and intensity of mood. Children’s mood influences peer evaluations of social competence and the child’s ability to successfully interact with others (Ashiabi, 2007). One key aspect of emotional regulation is the child’s ability to regulate his/her emotions appropriately: for example, pretend-play with peers requires children to take on different roles even if it is not their favourite one, and the general positivity or negativity of a child’s emotions during the process of role negotiation and play will determine whether peers see them as a desirable playmate.

            The extant literature generally supports this link between emotion and peer acceptance. Easy temperaments with predominantly positive patterns of affect have been associated with peer acceptance and positive relationships (Walker et al., 2001) because such children are more likely to behave in a prosocial manner with peers (Walker, 2009). Likewise, difficult temperaments with predominantly neutral or negative patterns of affect have been associated with peer rejection (Sterry et al., 2010) because these children are less likely to regulate their emotions in appropriate ways and so respond inappropriately during peer interaction (Szewczyk-Sokolowski et al., 2005).

            However, the studies above were conducted with samples aged between three to five years old. This means that their participants were in late preschool, where a fair amount of social learning may have already occurred and diminished the effect of temperament and manifested affect on peer acceptance. In addition, some studies (eg. Walker, 2009) use sociometric questionnaires that presume a certain level of linguistic competence and are not suitable for research on very young children with insubstantial linguistic abilities.

            To address these issues, the present study uses a purely observational method to reassess the relationship between manifested patterns of affect and peer acceptance in a sample of childcare-aged children. The direct nature of observational methods provides would be more age-appropriate for a young childcare sample than questionnaire-based methods. Also, these participants would also be relatively new to environments with peers and the influence of temperament is less likely to be diminished by learnt social experiences. In accordance with previous studies, it is hypothesised that (a) children with positive patterns of affect who attempt to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer acceptance, but not exclusion. Conversely, (b) children with negative patterns of affect who attempt to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer exclusion, but not acceptance.

Method

Participants

            A community sample of 82 participants (43 female and 39 male) was drawn from childcare centres in the United States of America. They were aged between 1.98 and 2.56 years old with a mean age of 2.07 years. Participants were selected based on their age and attendance at child care centres where free play could be observed in environments filled with peers.

Measures

            Free play was observed and coded with Gazelle’s (2008) Peer Interaction Observational System (PIOS). Both the target child’s behaviour and peers’ responses to that behaviour were recorded on a coding sheet. If more than one behaviour/response was observed during the interval, the one with the longest duration was coded unless other codes with a special status took precedence. The data collected is based on previous work (Gazelle, 2008) with acceptable interrater reliability in a middle childhood sample. For the present study, the relevant PIOS observational categories are:

Positive Affect: The child is displaying positive affect, such as smiling, eagerness, and glee.

Negative Affect: The child is displaying negative affect, such as frowning, shouting, or weeping.

Join In: The target child attempts to join peers’ activities through mimicry, participation, or verbal means, such as asking for permission, without attempting to alter the activity. The child should not have shared the group’s focus or activity prior to joining in.

Accept Active: Peers engage the child in a joint activity with verbal or gestural interaction, joint attention, positive teasing, or occasionally attending to each other.

Active Exclusion: Peers overtly exclude the child from their activities and vicinity. This can be verbally or physically manifested, such as by pushing or moving away from the target child.

The active variants of acceptance and exclusion were selected because they involved an overt response. This avoids confounding a tacit acceptance or ‘ignore’ response with a situation where the request to join in went unnoticed. Total code values reflected the frequency of a code’s occurrence. The number of times a code occurred was divided by the total number of time intervals that the child was observed for. For affect, the positive, negative, and neutral codes were collapsed into a single mean frequency score ranging from -1 to +1.

Procedure

            Trained coders watched the target child for 30 seconds before recording to familiarise themselves with the child’s contextual and behavioural cues. The age of the other children were noted and the teacher was consulted if this was unclear. The target child was then observed for a 10-second interval, after which the child’s behaviour and peers’ responses were recorded on a code sheet before proceeding to the next interval. Child-initiated interactions with adults were also coded in all sections except for those regarding the peer number and gender.

            Target children were observed on-site for seven to thirty minutes each with a mean of 28.62 minutes. No more than ten minutes of a child’s behaviour was recorded per day. Only free play was coded, and observation was suspended if the child noticed the coder, was engaged in teacher-led activities led by teachers, or if there was reason to suspect that it was not representative of his/her usual behaviour. Coders were not told about the specific behaviours that this study would focus on.

Results

            Table 1 below summarises the mean, standard deviation, and correlations between measures among participants with predominantly Positive Affect.

Table 1. 

Means, standard deviations, and Spearman correlations between measures among children with predominantly Positive Affect.

	Mean	SD	1.	2.
1. Join In	0.03	.02
2. Accept Active	0.22	.10	.22
3. Active Exclusion	<.01	<.01	.43**	.04

Two-tailed; *p < .05, **p < .01

            Among these children, table 1 shows a non-significant positive correlation between ‘Join In’ and ‘Accept Active’ (r = .22, df = 58, p > .05), along with a significant positive correlation between ‘Join In’ and ‘Active Exclusion’ (r = .43, df = 58, p < .01).

            Table 2 below summarises the mean, standard deviation, and correlations between measures among participants with predominantly Negative Affect.

Table 2. 

Means, standard deviations, and Spearman correlations between measures among children with predominantly Negative Affect.

	Mean	SD	1.	2.
1. Join In	0.03	.02
2. Accept Active	0.23	.11	.04
3. Active Exclusion	<.01	<.01	.17	.25

           

Two-tailed; *p < .05, **p < .01

            Among these children, table 2 shows a non-significant positive correlation between ‘Join In’ and ‘Active Exclusion’ (r = .17, df = 9, p > .05), while the correlation between ‘Join In’ and ‘Accept Active’ was also positive but non-significant (r = .04, df = 9, p > . 05).

Discussion

            This study hypothesisted that (a) children with positive patterns of affect who attempted to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer acceptance, not exclusion, and (b) children with negative patterns of affect who attempted to join peers’ activities would be positively correlated with peer exclusion, not acceptance. Results did not support either hypothesis. This is not consistent with previous research, which found positive associations between children with predominantly positive patterns of affect and peer acceptance (Walker et al., 2001). It also contradicts other studies that found positive associations between children with predominantly negative patterns of affect and peers’ rejection of them (Sterry et al., 2010).

            These negative results could be due to the absence of a theory of mind in our sample. Previous research suggests that peer acceptance is associated with positive affect because affect functions as an indicator of prosocial behaviour (Walker, 2009). Likewise, sullenness is only associated with rejection because negative mood functions as an indicator of inappropriate social behaviour during interaction (Szewczyk-Sokolowski et al., 2005). Both associations involve a relationship between affect, appropriate social behaviour, and peer acceptance: the validity of the relationship between affect and peer acceptance/rejection depends on the child’s ability to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate social behaviour.

            This ability requires the child to interpret an overt behaviour and discern the mental states behind it. For example, one child can toss a toy block at another who is building a tower of blocks, but some interpretation is required to discern if that toss is a well-intentioned offering for the tower or an act of aggression. This ability requires a theory of mind, which allows children to interpret others’ behaviour in terms of intentions, desires, emotions, and other mental states (Peterson, 2000). A theory of mind is thought to develop between three to five years of age (McAlister & Peterson, 2007) and is a modest predictor of peer acceptance (Slaughter, Dennis, & Pritchard, 2002). This age range is similar to those used in previous studies that investigated the link between affect and peer acceptance (Szewczyk-Sokolowski et al., 2005; Walker, 2009; Walker et al., 2001).

            However, our sample is younger than three years old and suggests that they have not yet acquired a theory of mind. It follows that these children may not be able to discern the mental states underlying overt behaviours, and are thus unable to judge whether these behaviours are socially appropriate. Since the association between patterns of affect and peer acceptance or rejection rests on the ability to judge the appropriateness of social behaviours, the absence of this ability in our sample could explain why a significant association was not found between peer acceptance and attempts to join their activities by cheerful children, nor between peer exclusion and attempts by sullen children to do the same.

Limitations & Future Research

            This study has two main methodological limitations. Firstly, its sample size was relatively small (n = 82) and effectively shrank further when cases were selected based on the presence of ‘Join In’ attempts and subdivided into two groups based on affect. This is especially true for the group with negative patterns of affect (n = 11), and the resulting correlational analysis could be considerably biased. Secondly, this study examined the affective dimension of temperament, but temperament also has non-affective dimensions that could influence social interactions (Sterry et al., 2010).

            Future research could investigate how various temperamental dimensions contribute to a child’s social success in conjunction with a theory of mind. Previous studies have examined them separately, but it appears that their combined or comparative influence has not been scrutinised. Understanding these developmental factors in unison could foster a more holistic theoretical understanding of early social development and lead to better intervention strategies for children rejected by peers, minimising the detrimental outcomes that rejection predicts.

References

Ashiabi, G.S. (2007). Play in the preschool classroom: Its socioemotional significance and the teacher’s role in play. Early Childhood Education Journal, 35 (2), 199-207.

Emslie, A. & Mesle, C.R. (2009). Play: The use of play in early childhood education. Gyanodaya: The Journal of Progessive Education, 2 (2), 1-26.

Gazelle, H. (2008). Behavioral profiles of anxious solitary children and heterogeneity in peer relations. Developmental Psychology, 44 (6), 1604-1624

McAlister, A., & Peterson, C. (2007). A longitudinal study of child siblings and theory of mind development. Cognitive Development, 22, 258-270.

Peterson, C.C. (2000). Kindred spirits influences of siblings’ perspectives on theory of mind. Cognitive Development, 15, 435-455.

Rubin, K.H. (1982). Nonsocial play in preschoolers: Necessary Evil? Child Development, 53, 651-657.

Slaughter, V., Dennis, M.J., & Pritchard, M. (2002). Theory of mind and peer acceptance in preschool children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 545-564.

Sterry, T.W., Reiter-Purtill, J., Gartstein, M.A., Gerhardt, C.A., Vannatta, K., & Noll, R.B. (2010). Temperament and peer acceptance: The mediating role of social behaviour. Merrill-Palmer Quaterly, 56 (2), 189-219.

Szewczyk-Sokolowski, M., Bost, K.K., & Wainwright, A.B. (2005). Attachment, temperament, and preschool children’s peer acceptance. Social Development, 14 (3), 379-397.

Tay-Lim, J. & Gan, L. (2013). Peer rejection in preschool: Foregrounding children’s voices. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 11 (1), 45-62.

Walker, S. (2009). Sociometric stability and the behavioural correlates of peer acceptance in early childhood. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 170 (4), 339-358.

Walker, S., Berthelsen, D., & Irving, K. (2001). Temperament and peer acceptance in early childhood: Sex and social statues differences. Child Study Journal, 31 (3), 177-192.