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Article Excerpt
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.
Problems resolving conflicts with peers have been linked to a host of negative outcomes for young children, including rejection and victimization by peers, loneliness, and aggression (e.g., DuRant, Barkin, & Krowchuk, 2001; Hoglund & Leadbeater, 2004; Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003). However, reviews of this literature suggest that the social-cognitive processes that are linked to the development of more positive developmental outcomes and the avoidance of negative ones need to be better understood (Boivin, Hymel, & Hodges, 2001; Rudolph & Asher, 2000; Rudolph & Clark, 2001). In this longitudinal study, we use qualitative analyses of children's justifications of the "best" way to handle hypothetical provocations in conflicts to illuminate differences in their reasoning at the end of first, second, and third grades. We also examine whether these justifications relate concurrently and across time to parent and teacher ratings of children's emotional and behavioral problems.
What Strategies Do Children Use to Negotiate Peer Conflicts?
Children show a variety of strategies for handling peer conflicts, including seeking out someone in authority to help, withdrawing, avoiding, ignoring, assertively stating a point of view, talking out the problem, compromising, or using verbal or physical threats of aggression (e.g., Newman, Murray, & Lussier, 2001; Rose & Asher, 1999; Selman, 1980; Smith, Shu, & Madsen, 2001; Stevahn, Johnson, Johnson, Oberle, & Wahl, 2000). For example, Stevahn et al. (2000) asked kindergarten children what they would do in response to a peer conflict over the use of a valued resource (a computer). These children reported that they would appeal to norms such as fairness (38%), tell the teacher (29%), withdraw from the conflict (e.g., ignore, walk away; 25%), or verbally command or threaten the peer (6%). Although this research illuminates the variability in what children do when faced with a peer conflict, we know less about why they make these strategy choices, the nature and stability of their justifications for them, or their impact on emotional and behavioral adjustment over time.
Children's reasons for their strategy choices may vary widely: children who seek the help of an adult when provoked by an aggressive peer may be trying to get the perpetrator into trouble, or they could be seeking assistance to resolve a conflict that they could not resolve themselves. Moreover, if children's justifications motivate their behavior in daily peer interactions and, in turn, affect their peers' responses to them, then these justifications may influence the development or avoidance of emotional and behavioral problems. For instance, a child who believes that conflicts are best resolved by seeking help to get peers into trouble may be rejected by peers and suffer from social isolation and loneliness, or they may gain a reputation for tattling and be picked on in retaliation. On the other hand, a child who believes that seeking help is best because it will prevent future problems may be perceived as a safe and fair playmate and be sought out by peers.
How Do Children Reason about Conflict Negotiation Strategies?
Following Werner's (1957) orthogenetic and comparative developmental theory, Selman and his colleagues have demonstrated that the development of children's interpersonal negotiation strategies reflects changes in their social cognition (Selman, 1980, 1981; Selman & Schultz, 1990). This theory classifies children's negotiation strategies into four levels: impulsive, unilateral (or self-serving), reciprocal, or mutual. The increasing complexity and sophistication of children's interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS) reflect their increasing competence in (1) differentiating and coordinating the social perspectives and interests of themselves and others (i.e., perspective-taking can reflect a self-interested or self-serving first-person perspective; a more reciprocal, second-person perspective; or, in older children, a more generalizable or third-person perspective), and (2) considering solutions that not only address immediate consequences of a strategy but are also temporally oriented toward longer-term effects and consequences (e.g., an orientation that preserves friendships or prevents problems from escalating). Following this theoretical perspective, we expect that children's justifications of their choices of the "best" way to handle a provocation will reflect differences in the developmental sophistication of their perspective-taking and orientation toward the future. Children who justify their choice of a negotiation strategy for resolving peer conflicts on the basis of personal and immediate gains may differ from children who focus on interpersonal exchanges that can be reciprocated in stable relationships over the long term.
Does Social-Cognitive Reasoning Relate to Behavior?
Selman and his colleagues have argued that while thought does not determine action, more advanced reasoning is a "necessary condition and motivating force for consistent social action" (Schultz & Selman, 1989, p. 135). The mechanisms that connect children's reasoning and actions (and peer or adult responses to them) may be indirect or unarticulated. However, children's justifications may be evident in their consistent withdrawal from social interactions or in the tone of their verbal and nonverbal strategies (as in an angry threat such as "I'm getting the teacher"). Over time, children's justifications may also be encoded in children's reputations with peers and adults.
Empirical research demonstrates that children's INS levels are related to features of individuals (e.g., age, cognitive competence) and contexts (e.g., peer versus adult, proactive versus reactive aggression) in children and adolescents (Adalbjarnardottir, 1995; Adalbjarnardottir & Selman, 1989; Leadbeater, Hellner, Allen, & Aber, 1989; Selman et al., 1986; Yeates, Schultz, & Selman, 1991). In addition, children's INS levels have been related to their general social competence, behavior problems, and methods of dealing with peer conflict in the classroom in several studies (Adalbjarnardottir, 1995; Leadbeater et al., 1989). For instance, Yeates et al. (1991) asked children in third through seventh grades to choose how the peer conflict would "best" be solved and why. Children's choices and justifications (coded for levels of INS) correlated positively with teachers' ratings of the child's competence in dealing with provocations concurrently and four months later (for a subsample of children).
In addition, the social goals that older elementary school students select to justify their choice of strategies in hypothetical peer conflicts (e.g., provocations, instrumental conflicts, and rebuffs by peers engaged in group activities) are associated with interpersonal and behavioral adjustment (e.g., Delveaux & Daniels, 2000; Erdley & Asher, 1996; Hopmeyer & Asher, 1997). Typically, to assess social goals (defined as objectives pursued or avoided), children are asked to imagine that they are involved in hypothetical peer conflicts and to select what they would say or do from a list of five or six strategies. Next, children are asked such questions as "What would your goal be?" (Rose & Asher, 1999) or "Why are you going to do or say this?" (Chung & Asher, 1996) and are asked to select a goal from the several options presented.
Using this strategy, Erdley and Asher (1996) examined the relation between children's social goals in hypothetical peer conflicts and teacher ratings of their styles for handling ambiguous provocations (aggressive, withdrawn, or problem-solvers) in fourth and fifth grades. Aggressive children endorsed more vengeful and self-defensive goals, withdrawn children and problem-solvers chose more prosocial and peaceful goals, and withdrawn children also selected more avoidance goals. Rose and Asher (1999) also reported that fourth- and fifth-grade children's goals and strategies were predictive of their real-life friendship adjustments (number of best friends and quality of their friendships) and that children who endorsed revenge goals had more friendship difficulties. Similarly, Chung and Asher (1996) asked sixth-grade children to choose from several strategy options (hostile, assertive, passive, adult-seeking, or prosocial) what they would say or do in a variety of hypothetical peer conflicts (instrumental and interpersonal). They also chose social goals from several options (maintaining relationships, controlling activities and possessions, pursing self-interests, or avoidance of trouble). Children who chose more prosocial and passive strategies (and fewer hostile ones) endorsed more relationship goals. Children who chose more hostile strategies (and fewer passive, prosocial, or adult-seeking ones) endorsed more control goals. Finally, children who chose more prosocial, passive, and adult-seeking strategies and fewer hostile ones endorsed more avoidance goals. Children's strategy choices were related to their peer acceptance and behavioral style (aggressive, prosocial, or avoidant), but relations with goal choices were not reported.
Although theses studies have contributed to our understanding of older elementary school children's choices of strategies and social goals in peer conflicts, asking children to choose from predetermined options both suggests possible responses that they might not have thought of and also limits available choices. The latter may not reflect younger children's reasoning about why one strategy for resolving a conflict might be preferred over others. It is possible, for example, that rather than pursing or avoiding a social objective, young children believe they are following norms about "good behavior" or fairness or are merely adhering to what they believe are the school rules when they deal with peer conflicts, as Piaget (1965) observed in the Moral Judgment of the Child. In addition, the reading, memory, and role-playing demands involved in comparing and contrasting several items in order to choose a preferred strategy and social goal also limit the application of this methodology with very young children. Hence, although it is possible that children's justifications for strategies used in peer conflicts reflect social goals or purposeful objectives, they may also include more automatic, rule-based, or impulsive beliefs about the "best" way to handle a conflict. Little is known about young elementary school children's justifications of peer conflict resolution strategies or about the stability in these justifications. Finally, although older children's social goals appear to be related to concurrent emotional and behavioral adjustment and peer relations, these relationships have not been examined longitudinally.
To illuminate the variability in young children's reasoning, we asked them to choose the "best" way to handle common playground provocations by peers. After choosing one of four simple behaviors (seek help, ignore, shout, or hit), children were asked, "Why is that the best way to handle the problem?" We focus on the "best" way to handle the provocation in order to elicit children's most competent justifications and to reduce potential variation in their reasoning driven by efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations (Erdley & Asher, 1999). Given that these qualitative data are time and labor intensive to collect and analyze for a large sample, we limit our analyses to one type of conflict situation (provocations) but examine differences in children's responses to provocation by both a younger and an older peer. Conflicts involving younger peers could evoke more self-directed and altruistic justification reasoning compared to conflicts involving threats from older aggressors, whereas conflicts with older aggressors could be more likely to justify telling an adult in order to get help or to get a perpetrator into trouble.
Sex Differences
There is some evidence that girls and boys may favor different...
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