The Description of Peers and the Perception of Intentions by Popular and Unpopular Children

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the relations between the perceptual tendencies of children and their social success with peers. Firstly, we compared the cognitive categories which popular and unpopular children employ in perceiving their peers. Secondly, we analysed the directions of the causal and intentional attributions popular and unpopular children make concerning the actions of others in ambiguous situations. Three primary school classes with mean ages of 8.2, 9.5 and 10.4 participated in the study. Popular and unpopular children were identified by using a sociometric test. The cognitive categories which popular and unpopular children employ in perceiving their peers were determined by analysing the contents of the free descriptions provided by them. The children were interviewed individually and required to describe three peers they liked and three peers they disliked. The descriptions obtained in this way were analysed at two stages. In the first stage, the descriptions were divided into their component ideas and each idea was classified into one of the following three categories: (a) dispositional ideas, (b) objective ideas and (c) ideas referring to personal involvement. This classification was made on the basis of the previous findings that children's developing ability for interpersonal relations is accompanied by a developmental shift in their perception from external characteristics of others to their dispositional qualities and by their decreasing tendency to involve themselves in their descriptions of their peers. The results indicated that popular children tended to emphasise dispositional qualities of their peers when describing them, while unpopular children made more use of objective ideas in their descriptions. However, no significant difference was found between the two groups in their use of the ideas referring to personal involvement. The relationship between a tendency to emphasise dispositional qualities and popularity with peers was interpreted in terms of the importance of dispositional qualities for predictions concerning the actions of others in different situations. The results also indicated some age and sex differences in the type of categories used to describe liked and disliked peers. In the second stage, a set of subcategories was developed to cover varieties of the dispositional, objective and personal involvement ideas found in the descriptions given by the subjects. Popular and unpopular children were compared as to their use of these subcategories. The results indicated a consistent relationship between popularity and the use of only some of the dispositional subcategories. These subcategories generally contained the ideas which have high predictive and descriptive potential when applied to the behaviour of others. No objective subcategory was found to be consistently related to unpopularity. The directions of intentional and causal attributions made by popular and unpopular children in ambiguous situations were examined using some pictures in which the motivation of the characters and the causes of the outcomes were ambiguous. The subjects were presented with the pictures and required to make up stories about them. In addition, they were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning descriptions. However, no significant difference was found between the two groups in their use of the ideas referring to personal involvement. The relationship between a tendency to emphasise dispositional qualities and popularity with peers was interpreted in terms of the importance of dispositional qualities for predictions concerning the actions of others in different situations. The results also indicated some age and sex differences in the type of categories used to describe liked and disliked peers. In the second stage, a set of subcategories was developed to cover varieties of the dispositional, objective and personal involvement ideas found in the descriptions given by the subjects. Popular and unpopular children were compared as to their use of these subcategories. The results indicated a consistent relationship between popularity and the use of only some of the dispositional subcategories. These subcategories generally contained the ideas which have high predictive and descriptive potential when applied to the behaviour of others. No objective subcategory was found to be consistently related to unpopularity. The directions of intentional and causal attributions made by popular and unpopular children in ambiguous situations were examined using some pictures in which the motivation of the characters and the causes of the outcomes were ambiguous. The subjects were presented with the pictures and required to make up stories about them. In addition, they were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning these pictures. The questionnaire contained directive questions and a number of possible answers to each question. The analysis of the stories and the questionnaires showed that popular children were more inclined to assign positive intentions to the uncompleted actions of others and to see undesirable effects of the actions as unintentionally produced. The relationship between such tendencies and children's popularity with their peers was discussed in terms of attribution theory. The results also indicated a possible developmental shift from a tendency to make positive attributions to a tendency to make negative attributions. On the basis of these results, it was concluded that popularity in children's groups is closely related to a tendency to perceive those qualities of peers which have predictive and descriptive potential when applied to their behaviour and to interpret the perceived actions and the action outcomes in a positive direction. Finally, the results were summarized and the implications for further research were considered.