Sociometric Status and Parent Reports of Temperament in Preschool Children

Summary

A newly developed sociometric questionnaire was administered to 196 preschool boys and girls in 10 different classes. Parents of target children who represented extreme examples of four different sociometric categories (popular, amiable, isolated, rejected) responded to a temperament questionnaire about their children (from the New York Longitudinal Study), assessing nine different temperamental factors. One way ANOVAs of each temperamental factor by sociometric category failed to yield a single significant main effect. These children did differ in empathy skills, proxemic behavior, play preferences, and classroom behavior. Behavioral observations were in the opposite direction of parent reports. The validity of the temperament questionnaire is therefore questioned.