Administered questionnaire and Revised Class Play to school-age children. Found evidence for the structural and functional divergence of two dimensions of social isolation: withdrawal (voluntary withdrawal from peers) and isolation (active isolation by peers). The two dimensions also differed in their predictive outcomes, with isolation being a…

Examined whether children's goals in peer conflict situations were related to the strategies they proposed for resolving conflicts, and how these strategies were related to acceptance by peers. Subjects were 142 fourth through sixth graders. Found that peer acceptance was negatively related to hostile/coercive strategies for girls, and negatively…

Examined relations between children's and their friends' perceptions of friendship features as a function of children's sociometric status. Found rejected children's perceptions showed considerably lower correlations with friends' perceptions than did average and popular children's perceptions; rejected children's friends perceived their…

Two studies examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between adolescents' aggression, victimization, and high status. Findings indicated that both provocateurs and targets of reputational aggression had high levels of peer-perceived popularity. Proactive aggression was also associated with high popularity, while reactive aggression was…

Examined stability and behavioral correlates of peer acceptance from kindergarten through second grade. Found that social acceptance and peer competence were relatively stable. Stably rejected children showed poorer peer and teacher ratings of social behavior than others; transiently rejected children were rated moderate in social skill. Changes…

Examined the relationship between three behaviors (physical aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behaviors) and three social outcomes (peer rejection, acceptance, and reciprocal friendships) in 131 third-graders and 135 sixth-graders. Found that among girls, but not boys, relational aggression explained variance in rejection beyond…

In a study of 25 preschoolers, relations between peer acceptance and communication behaviors that contribute to cohesive discourse were examined. Results revealed that children's use of nondirected initiations and noncontingent responses may result from social acceptance. (GLR)

Examined cross-informant concordance, temporal stability, and reliability of sociometrics in 84 preschoolers. Found that parallel forms of teacher and peer sociometrics measured overlapping and unique aspects of popularity. Teacher-measured popularity was highly stable over 8 weeks; peer-measured popularity showed lower stability. Both teacher and…

Asserts that effective children and adolescents can engage in socially undesirable behavior to attain personal goals at relatively little personal or interpersonal cost, implying that relations between adjustment and aggression may not be optimally described by standard linear models. Suggests that if researchers recognize that some aggression…

Assessed fourth-graders' peer clique characteristics as a function of socioeconomic status, gender, and aggressiveness. Found that rejected youth were less central group members than average-status peers; aggressive preadolescents were no less involved than nonaggressive peers; rejected preadolescents belonged to smaller cliques and cliques…

Examined association between parents' recollections of childhood parental acceptance and their children's socioemotional functioning. Assessed children's peer functioning through observers' ratings, mothers' reports, and children's self-perceptions. Children of mothers who recalled greater parental acceptance perceived themselves as more accepted…

Examined whether generalization about prosocial style of well-accepted children applies to conflicts involving rights infraction. Interviewed fourth- and fifth-graders about strategies for handling situations in which a peer infringes on their rights. Found that well-accepted children were neither aggressive nor particularly prosocial in conflict…

Examined whether peer-rejected preadolescents differ from nonrejected groups (average, popular, neglected) in their explanations for peer-social events and their perceived control of outcomes. Found that rejected children were inclined to forego credit for acceptance, to ascribe rejection to persistent factors, and to perceive lower control of…

Studied peer acceptance, social status, and social reputation in children attending mixed-age programs. Found that younger children were less well-accepted and more likely to be nominated by peers as shy, while gender (but not age) affected aggressiveness. Also found that at the primary level, girls were more likely to be nominated as shy. (EV)

Examined the relationship between the strategies used by parents during family conflicts in the child's early life and the child's social standing among peers in kindergarten. Parental and spousal conflict strategies, and particularly aggression, predicted children's social standing among kindergarten peers. (BB)