Social encounters among young children: Assertiveness, aggression and prosocial behavior

Silva, Judite Maria Brito

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/1685

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Authors

Silva, Judite Maria Brito

Abstract(s)

Psychological literature on the social development of children is extensive and many experimental and naturalistic investigations have been carried out. The picture of the young child as egocentric and having limited social competence has been replaced by one of an agent who understands and actively manipulates his social world to achieve goals and establish relationships necessary to his adaptation to a variety of settings. The literature review which forms the first part of the dissertation is structured around four principal topics: studies which demonstrate the origins and development of social interaction in infants and young children; delineation of the field of study and definition of key variables in aggression, assertion, prosocial behaviour, empathy and self-control; theories of aggression and prosocial behaviour; and a review of the main trends in young children"*. social encounters. Although the literature is extensive, comparatively few studies have attempted to integrate the main trends and have, instead, isolated one two types of behaviour for examination. Following the critical review of the literature some of the major issues raised are discussed and research questions and predictions are identified. A naturalistic study of a group of children in a nursery school attached to an English university was designed following pilot work in two similar groups involving 82 childrens and 20 hours of observation. The main study was of observations made on three mornings each week over a period of five months. Focal sampling of target. children in the group of 17 aged between three and four years, was adopted and the majority observed for a total of 120 minutes each, that is for 24 periods of five minutes. The sample unit was one minute during which operationalized variables in aggressive, assertive and prosocial categories and subcategories were recorded, Tests of empathy were also administered and ratings of self-control made limited background data (age, sex, birth order) were also obtained. Reliability of all variables and observations was examined. Construct validity was also studied through the use of convergent and divergent correlations. The main body of the quantitative analysis concerned the relationships among the behaviours categorized to test the predictions and examine the research questions which had been set up. Differences in behaviour were related to the background variables employed and a qualitative analysis, involving over 600 observational units, was carried out to identify the antecedents and consequences of each category of behaviour and the contexts, social interaction and materials with which they were associated. Relationships between interaction style and empathy and self-control were also examined. The final chapter discusses some of the limitations of the study and the findings are interpreted in the light of the dominant and controversial trends in the literature.