Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour

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What judgements did the children make of their peers' behaviour?

The researchers reported on the following findings:

the children identified their peers with prosocial behaviours much more readily than with antisocial behaviours or victimisation - on average, each child received 24 prosocial, 7.8 antisocial and 5.5 victim nominations out of a possible sixty four pro- and antisocial nominations and thirty two victim nominations;
the numbers of each type of nomination varied considerably between schools which may have been a reflection of behavioural differences in the classrooms or differences in children's attitudes towards what is good and bad behaviour (for example, the average number of prosocial nominations received by each child ranged from 14.9 in one school to 31.6 in another, whilst antisocial nominations ranged from 3.8 to 14.1 and victim nominations ranged from 1.8 to 8.6);
children who were judged by their peers to behave antisocially were also judged as unpopular - this unpopularity was associated with both physical and verbal abuse;
children who saw themselves as behaving in an antisocial manner were, surprisingly, judged as popular by other children, implying that children who judge themselves as behaving antisocially, did not use the same criteria as when they identified their peers with these behaviours;
whether the children saw themselves as prosocial had a major influence on how they judged other children's behaviour - prosocial children appeared to have higher expectations of themselves and others than their antisocial peers and therefore applied stricter criteria when differentiating between acceptable social behaviours;
there was some agreement between victims and their peers as to the identity of the victims, and victims were not judged to be popular, although they were not necessarily unpopular; and
the children made judgements about their peers' more common prosocial behaviour, but their overall judgements were influenced by antisocial behaviour, suggesting that while prosocial behaviours were more common, antisocial behaviours were more prominent.

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction What did the researchers want to find out? What categories of behaviour did the researchers identify? What judgements did the children make of their peers' behaviour? Did boys and girls differ in how they saw other children's behaviour? How was the study designed? What are the implications of the study? Where can I find out more? Send us your feedback Collated digests To view/remove/add notes and save your collated digests click here Get Word Reader Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour This digest found in Gender Inclusion Pupil Voice Send to a friend Word doc 50KB Printer friendly Collate for later What judgements did the children make of their peers' behaviour? The researchers reported on the following findings: the children identified their peers with prosocial behaviours much more readily than with antisocial behaviours or victimisation - on average, each child received 24 prosocial, 7.8 antisocial and 5.5 victim nominations out of a possible sixty four pro- and antisocial nominations and thirty two victim nominations; the numbers of each type of nomination varied considerably between schools which may have been a reflection of behavioural differences in the classrooms or differences in children's attitudes towards what is good and bad behaviour (for example, the average number of prosocial nominations received by each child ranged from 14.9 in one school to 31.6 in another, whilst antisocial nominations ranged from 3.8 to 14.1 and victim nominations ranged from 1.8 to 8.6); children who were judged by their peers to behave antisocially were also judged as unpopular - this unpopularity was associated with both physical and verbal abuse; children who saw themselves as behaving in an antisocial manner were, surprisingly, judged as popular by other children, implying that children who judge themselves as behaving antisocially, did not use the same criteria as when they identified their peers with these behaviours; whether the children saw themselves as prosocial had a major influence on how they judged other children's behaviour - prosocial children appeared to have higher expectations of themselves and others than their antisocial peers and therefore applied stricter criteria when differentiating between acceptable social behaviours; there was some agreement between victims and their peers as to the identity of the victims, and victims were not judged to be popular, although they were not necessarily unpopular; and the children made judgements about their peers' more common prosocial behaviour, but their overall judgements were influenced by antisocial behaviour, suggesting that while prosocial behaviours were more common, antisocial behaviours were more prominent.