Children's Judgement of Socially Skilled Versus Socially Deficient Female Peers

Abstract

The present study explored the relationship between third graders' social skill behaviors and peer judgments of interpersonal skills and likability. Thirty-seven children between 8 and 10 years of age viewed short, videotaped vignettes in which female peers exhibited skills or deficits in negative assertion, empathy, poitive reinforcement, helpfulness, and effective conversation skills. Subjects completed a 10-item questionnaire assessing their judgments of the models' social skillfulleness. Results showed that socially skilled models received significantly higher ratings than socially deficient models on all 10 questionnaire items. However, on the majority of the items, the assertive model's ratings were significantly lower than those for the other four soically skilled models. No sex differences were obtained on the majority of the items and sex of subject did not interact with overall social skillfulness or with type of behavior. Results were discussed with regard to the effects of verbal and nonverbal social skill behaviors on children's interpersonal reactions to peers. These findings provide support for a causal relationship between children's social skill behaviors and peer acceptance.