How Children's Justifications of the "Best Thing to Do" in Peer Conflicts Relate to Their Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Early Elementary School

Abstract

In this three-year longitudinal study, children were asked to choose the "best" strategy for dealing with hypothetical peer provocations and to justify "why" that was their choice at the end of first, second, and third grades. Teachers and parents also rated children's emotional and behavioral problems. Children's justifications were subjected to qualitative analyses to identify distinct content categories. These included getting others into trouble or avoiding it, dichotomous reasoning about good (kind) versus bad (mean) strategies, appeals to authorities for help, situation-specific solutions that anticipated consequences of actions, or general rules or solutions that could or should be used in similar conflicts to effect positive outcomes. These justification categories were related to the children's grade levels. Older children were more likely to use more story-specific justifications and to refer to the perspectives of others and to future consequences in their justification responses. Children who used justifications that involved getting others into trouble or avoiding it had higher levels of teacher ratings of concurrent emotional and behavioral problems at second and third grades and to parent ratings of emotional problems at third grade.

Social‐cognitive Competence, Peer Rejection and Neglect, and Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Middle Childhood

“…Similarly, the social capacity to disentangle one's own perspective from that of another in interpersonal interactions also matures in middle childhood (Selman, 1980). These cognitive and interpersonal components of social‐cognitive competence have both been linked negatively to peer rejection and neglect and also to behavioral and emotional problems in some studies (Badeness et al., 2000; Dunn & Cutting, 1999; Hoglund & Leadbeater, 2007; Hughes & Dunn, 1998; Leadbeater et al., 2006; Watson, Nixon, Wilson, & Capage, 1999), but not in others (Bosacki & Astington, 1999; Kauklainen et al., 1999; Slaughter, Dennis, & Pritchard, 2002; Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999). These inconsistent findings may be in part because research concerning these distinct social‐cognitive components has been conducted independently, even though they overlap theoretically (Raver & Leadbeater, 1993).…”

“…Consistent with this, more advanced interpersonal perspective co‐ordination may enable rejected or neglected children to limit retaliatory aggression because they anticipate peer responses and focus on future‐oriented collaborative solutions that can maintain or enhance their relationships. Similarly, these children may show fewer emotional problems because they proactively manage problematic interactions and limit preoccupation with short‐term peer problems (Hoglund & Leadbeater, 2007; Leadbeater et al., 2006; Yeates et al., 1991). Alternatively, more skillful perspective co‐ordination may increase poorly accepted children's risks for maladjustment because their ability to gauge peers' emotions and motives in social interactions increases their hypervigilance for future negative interactions (Cutting & Dunn, 2002)…”

“…For instance, greater perspective co‐ordination, assessed from responses to questionnaires and vignettes, has been linked to lower levels of aggression in kindergarten to grade 4 (Fitzgerald & White, 2003) and to less aggression and depression in grades 6 and 7 (Hoglund & Leadbeater, 2007). Perspective co‐ordination also related positively to co‐operative play with peers in preschool (Dunn & Cutting, 1999) and to social adjustment in grades 1–3 (Leadbeater et al., 2006) and in grades 4, 6, 8, and 12 (Schultz, Selman, & LaRusso, 2004).…”

“…Social‐cognitive competence develops over time, in part through social experiences with peers, and prepares children for challenging social interactions because it enables them to forecast and understand how others might interpret and react to social events (Piaget, 1965; Selman, 2003). Accordingly, children who show a greater awareness of peers' emotional and mental states may be better able to resolve conflicts in ways that foster long‐term relationships, relative to children who show poorer social‐cognitive competence (Leadbeater, Ohan, & Hoglund, 2006; Yeates, Schultz, & Selman, 1991). Similarly, individual differences in the social‐cognitive competence of children who are rejected or neglected by peers may affect their levels of behavioral and emotional problems.…”

Aggression and prosocial behaviors in social conflicts mediating the influence of cold social intelligence and affective empathy on children's social preference

“…Socio‐cognitive abilities have been associated with social adjustment (Leadbeater, Ohan & Hoglund, ) and more concretely with likeability (Newcomb, Bukowski & Pattee, ). In the socio‐cognitive domain, social intelligence and empathy have been recognized as critical elements for children's relationships with their peers (Björkqvist, Österman & Kaukiainen, ; Kaukiainen, Salmivalli, Lagerspetz et al ., ).…”