A STUDY OF. SOME TYPES OF. LEADERSHIP SHOWN BY PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND THR ' SPECIFIC RESPONSESOF 9THER x g Thain. for the DO‘TO‘“ M. A. MICHTGAN STAT-E COLLEGE ? Dorothy Hopson Wall: 1941 ‘ * ‘ - IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII A STUDY OF SOME TYPES OF LEADERSHIP SHOWN BY PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE SPECIFIC RESPONSES OF OTHER CHILDREN TO SUCH LEADERSHIP by Dorothy Hopson WeTls A THESIS Submitted to the Graduate School of Michigan State College of Agriculture and.Applied Science in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the degree of MASTER OF.ARTS Department of Home Management and Child DeveIOpment MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE East Lansing, Michigan 19u1 TH ESlS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Irma H. Cross for her advice and encouragement throughout the study, and to Miss Ruth Wagner for her suggestions and help with analysis of the data. pa CED M km C72 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page List of Tables ..................................... iv I INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1 Definition of leadership ...................... 2 How leadership is observable in the free play of nursery school children ................... 3 Findings of previous studies of leadership of children ..................................... h Previous studies from Which method has been 7 0 adapted- .00...O0.000.00.000.00...OOOIOOOCQOOOO Statement Of prOblem 0000000000.0000000000000000 1 II METHOD OF STUDY 00000000000000000000000.000.000.0000 12 Method of Obtaining Data ......................... 12 Time and place of observation .................. 12 Subjects ....................................... 13 Method of recording behavior ................... 13 Observational procedure ........................ 15 Limitations of method .......................... 16 Records obtained for each child ................ 18 Preliminary observations and results ........... 18 MethOd of Tree-tint)? Data .OCOOOOOOOOO0.00000000000. 23 Analysis of diary records by use of check sheets ....................................... 23 Checking for reliability of data ............... 28 Checking for validity of data .................. 29 Checking reliability of analysis ............... 3h III FINDINGS FROM DATA.OOOOCOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 36 Group Data0.......0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCO0.0.0.... 37 Types of leadership and response found, and frequency of occurrence ...................... 37 Unconscious leadership ......................... Ml Leadership by command or direction, and by suggestion or request ........................ NH The ignoring response .......................... M7 Data for Individual Children and Combinations 0f Children .0.00ICOI0.0.0.0000...0.00.00.00.00. 52 Table of Contents (Continued) Chapter Differences in social interaction between chil- dren of different age groups, and children playing together more or less often ........... Intercorrelations between certain character- istics of the children and frequency with which they exhibited certain behavior ........ Individual differences in patterns of social contacts of socially active and inactive children ..................................... IV SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ........... ..... ............ BIBLIOGRAPHY .000......O0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOCOOOO... Page 52 60 62 65 77 Table II III IV VI VII VIII IX XI XII XIII XIV XV XVII XVIII XIX LIST OF TABLES Sample Check Sheet ... Reciprocal Choices of Playmates ...................... Range of Individual Correlations for 12 odd— and 12 even-numbered observations ........ Range of Individual Correlations for 1-hour Observa- tion Correlated with 25 Time—Sample Observations ... Frequency of Different Types of Leadership ........... Frequency of Different Types of Response ............. Verbal and Non-Verbal Leadership and.Response ........ Unconscious Leadership .........R..................... Initiation of Act or Game Involving Use of Material .. Frequency of Directing and Suggesting ................ use Of Directions 0.0.0.0.....00....CO00.00.000.000... Failure of Each Type of Leadership as Measured by the Number of Times Each was Ignored ... Ignoring Compared with Other Contacts of Individuals . Contacts Observed between Children of Different Age Groups 0000000000000coo0000000000000000.000.0000 Contacts Observed between Children Who Played Together More and Less Often ....................... Non.cooperative Response coo.000.00.000.00000000000coo Percentage of Leadership in Total Contacts of Dif- ferent Groups ......O......0.0.0.0.........OOIOOOOOO Differences in Activity of More and Less-Frequent Playmates .00000000000000000000000000000000000.0000. Contacts of Two Socially Active and Two Socially Inactive Children ............. 00.000000000000000... Non—COOperative Responses of Socially Active and Inactive Children ....... 27 27 28 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The processes of social interaction are complex. Even the inter- action of very young children is complex. However, since the social give and take of the child shapes the social personality of the adult, a study of the contacts of the preschool child is a means of understanding the adult. The responses of the child to adults, to other children, to others older and younger than himself, to his accustomed and unaccustomed play- mates, and to various situations and leaders, make up his pattern of re- sponse. In the adult, this pattern of response might be called a.phil-v osOphy of life. In the child, it is the reaction to life and the cir- cumstances in which he finds himself. In every social contact, his pat- tern of response undergoes some formative change, shaping more and more to his adult pattern. All social behavior is reciprocal. There is constant give and take when two or more persons act as a group. Interaction usually falls into the classifications of leadership and of response. Leadership cannot be comprehended without an understanding of the response which it receives. Response is more complex than leadership, partly because it is difficult to understand how the leadership actually appears to the person receiv- ing it, partly because of the effect which individual personalities have in shaping responses. Even in the direct contacts of children, it is often difficult to see the exact stimulus which a child is receiving, or to discover what is the exact effect of the stimulus upon him. However, some understanding of social interaction can be gained from observation of children at play. Children have not the cover-up mechanisms of adults, and are more overt than adults in their social behavior. This study is an attempt to discover the social processes of a nursery school play group from recorded observations of social behavior. Only overt and rather im. mediate actions can be recorded, with no attempt to show lasting or wide- spread effects of any social relationships. From the rather disconnected view of social relationships that is gained from isolated, short, obser- vations of the play of children, it is difficult to reason the cause for why children act as they do. It is possible, however, to gain a clearer idea of how they do act, and such is the purpose of this study. Through an understanding of the leadership and response shown by preschool chil- dren, some understanding may be gained of the pattern of reactions of individual children and groups of children in social contacts. The term, leadership, as it is used in this study, refers to the ef- fect which one person has on another in changing his thoughts, feelings, and actions. It is found in every situation in which two or more persons are present. Different types and qualities of leadership can be distin- guished. Leadership can be classified as the conscious or purposeful, and the unconscious or unintentional. Conscious leadership presupposes a desire on the part of one person to direct or redirect another, and conscious effort toward that end. Unconscious leadership results in a change in the thoughts, feelings, or actions of the other person following a stimulus which the leader did not know he was giving. This stimulus may be an accidental physical contact, or it may be an act which is seen and imitated although it was begun with no intention of influencing an- other. Again, leadership may be classified as verbal in character, when one person seeks to influence another with words, or as non-verbal, when one starts an action in which others join him, or when a smile or touch is the means of communication. In addition to the observable evidences of leadership, there are other factors influencing the response of the follower. The personality of one person may be such that others respond more favorably to him; the tech» nique of one may be more successful than that of another; the situation in.which attempts at leadership occur is very important. I. H. Cowley of the University of Chicago says (1) "leadership is a function of a def- inite situation.” Parten (2) in a study of leadership among 3“ preschool children, found that "leadership is a function of personnel of the group and of its activities as well as of each individual child.“ These and other factors must be considered in a study of leadership and make that study complex. In like way, the response of one following, or influenced by another, is complex and the result of many related factors. Leadership is observable in the free play of nursery school children. Even at the nursery school level, complex varieties of leadership and response can be observed. Children are more direct and overt than adults in their actions and words. Since much of their activity is direct, force- ful, and of short duration, children are good subjects for observation of attempts at leadership. Observation reveals that verbal attempts at lead- ership can readily be discerned. Such attempts are usually phrased to create immediate action on the part of another, and also phrased so that that purpose is self-evident. Likewise, non-verbal attempts are aimed at immediate change in the actions of another. Pushing, pulling, hitting, (l) Cowley, I. H. “Three Distinctions in the Study of Leaders,” JOurngl of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 23, 1928-29, pp.1mI.57, (p. 151). (2) Parten, Mildren.B. "Leadership Among Preschool Children,” Journal of Abnormal and Soci Ps cholo , 27, 1932-33, pp. u3o-ho, (p. 30). patting, all easily observed, may represent definite attempts to change another's actions or words, or just as definite responses to another's approaches. Even crying may be a response to something another is doing, At the preschool level perhaps better than anywhere else, stimulus and response can be more directly connected, although even here there are underlying factors. For instance, the very fact that response to uncon- scious leadership occurs shows that factors of interest in the leader and interest in his activity, both of which are factors of undetermined quan- tity and quality, are present. Other investigators have studied specific factors affecting leadership and response. Their studies show the followb ing to be important: 1. Age of child. Parten (1) found that independent play decreases in frequency as the children grow older; there is an increase in the fre- quency with which children are observed to follow others, to direct others, and to share the leadership of a group. Marston (2) found an increase in cooperation and in verbal responses with age. Younger children tended to respond non-verbally. Age of the child also influences the extent and intensity of play with others. Green (3) found that an increase in so- ciability from 2-3 years was due to an increase in the extent of social contact, or in the number of children contacted; an increase shown from 3-5 years was due to a greater intensity or depth of friendship of child pairs . (l) Parten, Mildred B. "Leadership Among Preschool Children," Journal of Abnormal and Socigl Psychology, 27, 1932-33, pp. M30-hh0, (2) Marston, Leslie. The Emotions of Young Children, ip,Jersild, Arthur T. Child.Pszchologz. New York: Prentice-Hall; 1933, H62 pp. (3) Green, Elise Hart, "Friendships and Quarrels Among Preschool Children." Child Develgment, h, 1933, pp. 237-52. 2. Personality of chilg. Some children are better able than others to secure the cooperation of those around them, and on the other hand, some children tend to respond 000peratively more than do others. Koch (1) in correlating various behavior items with popularity ratings of pre- school children, found that among other items, "trying to boss,‘l correlat~ ed.positively with popularity and "playing alone" and ”escape reactions" correlated negatively. In another study of popularity of preschool chil- dren, Green (2) found that "mutual friends are more quarrelsome and mutual quarrelers are more friendly than the average ..." 3. Situation in which social contggt occurs. Some types of play have been found to be more conducive of c00peration, others of non-cOOper- ation. Green (3) observed that dramatic play produced the most cooperation and sand play the most quarreling. Van Alstyne (M) found more quarreling when play equipment was scarce, and little social contact when it was over-abundant. h. Previous socigl eyperience of the child. “allay (5) studied the initiation of social contacts of nursery school children in the fall and again in the spring, and found a greater number of successful contacts (l) Koch, Helen Louise. "Popularity in.Preschool Children: Some Related Factors and a Technique for its Measurement,“ Child Develo ment, no 1933: PP. l6u‘75. (2) Green, 93. C_i_t_., p. 251. (3) Green, Elise Hart. ”Group Play and Quarrels Among Preschool Children,” Child Development, II, 1933, pp. 302-07. (R) Van Alstyne, Dorothy. Plgy Behgyior gpd Choice of Plgy Mgterials of Preschool Children, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1932. (5) Mallay, Helena. “Techniques of Successful Social Contacts at the Preschool Level," Journgl of Genetic Psychology, h7, 1935, pp. N31- 57. in the spring. The improvement seemed due to a learning process, since the younger children were more successful in the spring than the older children had been in the fall. Jersild and Fite (1) found an increase in the number of social contacts from fall to spring, which they attri- buted to an increased feeling of security from greater familiarity with others and with the nursery school. 5. Technique of leadership or gpproach. Certain tedhniques of social contact may be more successful than others in establishing social relas tionships. Mallay (2) found that an approach containing the factors of parallel or cooperative activity was almost certain to result in group contact, while those approaches using only looking, talking, or looking and talking accompanied by physical contact, were practically certain of failure. She found, moreover, that the most socially accepted child failed when attempting contact with one of the methods shown to be unp successful. On the other hand, the least socially accepted child was successful when using one of the techniques of approach shown to be of value. Therefore, Mallay asks, “... would it not seem that success in social relations was to a greater extent influenced by the technique than by the personality of the subject?“ (3) Also, Parten (h) found in studying the leadership status of preschool children, that it was possible to distinguish between artful and forceful leaders even at such an early age, and that words, gestures, and facial (1) Jersild, Arthur T. and Fite, Mary D. The Influence of Nursegy School Eyperience on Children's Socigl Adjustments. (2) Halley. 92.. 9.2.3.. P. 165. (3)1113. (h) Parten, Mildred B. “Leadership Among Preschool Children." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27, 1932-33. Pp. hjo-MO. expressions all conveyed orders. This study will borrow its method from the studies which others have made of the social contacts of children. Parten (1) recorded the lead. ership status of 3b preschool children by observation of the free-play hour by a 1-minute time-sampling method. Each child was observed during one minute of the hour, and his social behavior recorded by symbols on a schedule sheet. Sixty or more records were obtained for each child. The child's role in the group was classified.under the head- ings: F, following another child's directions; N, neither directing nor following, but pursuing his own desires at will; B, both directing and following,--that is, holding an inter- mediate position wherein he directed some children and followed others; R, reciprocally directing, or sharing leadership equally with another child, either by alternating the leadership or by the two mutually directing the group activities; and D, direct- ing the group. (2) The percentage of occurrence of each type of leadership was computed, and the relationship found with factors of age, sex, occupational class of father, social participation, and nursery school attendance. The rehabil- ity of the sampling was tested by odd-even day correlations. Ten odd-even days correlated +.76; 20 odd-even days correlated 9.90. Beaver (3) observed groups of N or more children in the nursery school, classifying each child's behavior during a 5-minute interval ac- cording to a coded form.‘ Behavior of the children was classified as in- itiation of contact, response to or refusal of contacts, and as verbal, non-verbal or involving material or playthings, and combinations of these classifications. It was found that as the number of contacts increased, (l) Parten, Mildred.B. "Social Participation Among Preschool Children," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27, 1932-33, pp. 2h3-69. (2) Lug,” p. M31. (3) Beaver, Alma Perry. The Initiation of Social Contgcts by Preschool Children, New York: Bureau.Publ., Teachers College, Columbia; 1932. 55 PP. the percentage of these contacts which were verbal also increased. Thus an increase in verbal contacts with age was indicated, which agrees with the results of other investigators. .For each age group of children, Beaver computed the mean percentage of the total responses which were resistance responses, and compared the percentage of resistance which each child showed with this mean. Thus individual differences were brought out, also the finding that the younger children tended to react to initiap tions of contact with resistance more frequently than did the older chil- dren. The older children showed marked individual differences in the percentage of resistance shown. In our study, we shall attempt to trace some of these individual differences. Beaver (1) also found great individual differences in the range of children contacted. ”It would seem probable that the characteristic (of contacting many or few children) is much more closely tied up with perb sonality than with the number of contacts initiated, which our material indicates is partly a function of age.“ Challman (2) carried a step fur- ther the study of range of sociability by computing a social participa» tion score. This score was found for each child by dividing the total number of children he associated with by the number of hours the child was present and observed. Intensity of contact was measured by the friend- ship index, the ratio between the number of times the child was observed to play in the same group with each other child, and the number of times both members of any one pair were present, i.e., had an Opportunity to play together. (1) Beaver, Alma.Perry. The Initiation of Social Contacts by Preschool Children New York: Bur. Publ., Teachers Coll. Columbia; 1932. 55 pp. (2) Challman, Robert. "Factors Influencing Friendship Among Preschool Children,“ Child DeveloEment, M, 1933, pp. lh6-58. Robinson (1) used the narrative or diary record method of observer tion. She observed 12 children in the summer session of the nursery school for 2 five-minute periods daily, and checked the accuracy of the records by presenting a sample of records for each child to adults in daily contact with him. In almost every case, the child was recognized by the first record read. The validity of analysis was checked by a second analysis of all the YOO—odd records after an interval of 2 months. The percentage of agreement was 91 percent. The reliability of analysis was measured by agreement with analysis by a staff member on every 10th record. That percentage of agreement was 85 percent. The diary record used by Robinson is very similar to that employed in the studies of social behavior of nursery school children at Teachers College, Columbia University. Jersild and Markey (2) describe it as a record-taking in which "the observer followed one child at a time and recorded, as fully as possible, the behavior of this child in his con. tacts with other children as well as the behavior of other children in their contacts with him. The record was taken in the form of a running, diary account, with cepious use of symbols and abbreviations.“ Accord- ing to this method, the diary record is taken for each child in succession for a short sample of time. The time sampling technique was shown by Robinson (3) and Goodenough (h) as well as others, to yield a representaé (1) Robinson, Mabel H. A.Stugy of the Personality of 12 Children in a Nursery School by Analysis of Daily S-Minute Narrativer Records Over a Period of 6 Weeks," Cornell U., unpublished Master's thesis. (2) Jersild, Arthur T. and Markey, Frances V. Conflicts Between Preschool (lhildren New York: Bureau.Publ., Teachers 0011., Columbia; 1935, 179 pp. (153). (3) Robinson, pp, 91;. (M) Goodenough, Florence L. "Interrelationships in the Behavior of Young Children," Child Development, 1, 1930, pp, 29-u7. 10 tive picture of the child's activity, to have a high reliability and validity of results, and to be an efficient way of securing nearly uni- form conditions for the observation of several children in succession. It will be used in this study. The purpose of this study is to gain a further understanding of some of the specific types of leadership shown by preschool children, and some of the specific responses shown by the children to leadership of their peers. Leadership has been studied for amount, kind and quality exhibited, and its relationship to factors of age, intelligence, social status, general social activity and other factors. Social participation has been studied for amount, kind and success of social contact, for fac- tors related to papularity, for effect of type of play and play equipment, and for relationship of quarreling to pepularity, nursery school attend- ance, home background, and other factors. This study attempts to carry on the investigation of leadership by following more intensely the types of leadership and contacts shown. It will give special attention to the relationship fo comparative ages and comparative frequency of playing. together as factors affecting the type of leadership and response shown. Here, the face-to-face contacts of individual children will be studied, and qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of items will be stress- ed. Also, the factor of unconscious leadership will be considered, which has so far received no attention. In working out the individual pat- terns of response and initiation of contact for each child, emphasis will be on individual differences and the observable and measurable evidences of these differences. Stated briefly, the problem under consideration is: By analysis of diary records of behavior of nursery school children during the free—play period for specific responses to specific types of ll leadership, to study: 1. Responses to some specific types of leadership. 2. Responses of individual children analyzed for a. evidences of individual characteristic responses; b. evidences of effect on response of situation in which the stimulus occurs or the child from whom it comes; c. evidences of effect on response of comparative age of play- mates or comparative frequency of playing together. CHAPTER II METHOD OF STUDY Method of Obtaining Data The problems of this study are related to the social interaction of children at unsupervised play. Specifically, the questions are these: If there is a characteristic response shown by each child, can this re- sponse be related to the method of approach of the other child, or to the relationship existing between the two children? What part in this relationship is played by the factors of difference in ages, and frequency of playing together? What specific responses can be related to specific types of approach? To gain some light on these questions, it was neces~ sary to set up a method for analyzing the behavior of children at play. The observational method was chosen so that the children might be as free as possible in individual reactivity. Time and placg of observgtion. It was decided that observations of social behavior could best be made during the period of free play in the nursery school. This period lasts from the time the children begin to arrive at school at 8:30 until approximately 10:00 o'clock. Observations were made 2 mornings a week from 9 to 10. During this time, the children are indoors, usually in a group in the same large playroom, with cpp0r~ tunity to play with any of the other children.present or any of the toys as they wish. Their activity is spontaneous. Only one teacher is present for the group, and although the children are free to call on her.for help or attention, they are also free to pursue their own interests at will. During the first part of the period, the children of both the older and 13 the younger groups of the nursery school play together until almost every- one has arrived at school. Therefore, the observations of the older chil- dren made during the first part of the play period included contacts with younger children. The interaction between the two groups was of interest because the children were of different ages, and because they were ace quainted with each other but seldom had an opportunity to play together. Subjects. Twelve of the older children in the nursery school of Michigan State College were selected for observation. There were 6 boys and 6 girls. Their ages ranged from 3 years h months to 5 years 0 months on February 15, the midpoint of the observations. Most of these children had had previous nursery school experience. Two had not, and entered for the first time in the fall, 2 months before observations began. However, 3 of the children had already attended for 6 terms previous to the fall term, and the average number of terms attended by the 12 children before the fall of 19140 was 3. The children came from differing home backgrounds, all of which were of good socio-economic status. Six of the fathers were members of the faculty of Michigan State College; 3 were in professions; 2 were employed in an automobile factory, one as a superintendent; in one family the fay ther was dead and the mother a graduate student at Michigan State College. Four of the children were only children; eight had other children in the home. Of these 8, 7 had younger brothers or sisters, and 2 had older children in the family. Method of recording behavior. Mallay (1) used a check list of be- havior items in observing children's social behavior. For this method, (l) Mallay, Helena. ”Techniques of Successful Social Contacts at the Pre- school Level," Journal of Genetic Psychology, #7, 1935, pp. ”31-57. IN a list of possible behavior items was prepared and the appropriate column checked as incidents of that behavior occurred. During the early part of this study, a check list similar to Mallay's was prepared for items of behavior indicating either leadership or response, and an attempt made to use this list during observations. The check list was soon discarded, however, and the diary of narrative record used for the following reasons. It was felt that analysis of behavior as it occurred was less accurate than analysis of a narrative, since very often what occurred before and after the incident recorded was important to the analysis. Also, with only one observer, there was no way to check on the analysis if it was made simultaneously with the observation. With the use of the narrative record, it was possible to have a sample of the recorded behavior analyzed by a staff member as a check on the original analysis. It was also found that the narrative record gave a more vivid picture of the incidents ob- served, and therefore a clearer idea of the child's personality and total reention. The objections to the narrative record method are well presented by Thomas (1): These (records) are often very illuminating behavior documents, but they present certain difficulties as material for scientific analysis... Due to the tremendous complexity of any social behavior act and the consequent recording of dif- ferent elements of these complex acts at different times ... even at their objective best, the selection and emphasis are more or less dependent upon the recorder. In spite of this very real difficulty, observations were recorded by this method because of the advantages mentioned above. The time-sampling method, frequently used in studies of social behavior (1) Thomas, Dorothy Swaine and associates. Some New Techniques for Stqu- in Social Behavior, New York: Bureau.Publications, Teachers Col- lege, Columbia; 1929, 203 pp. ' 15 of children.(Parten, Beaver, Mallay, et. al.) was employed. Varying lengths of time-sample were tried and the 3-minute interval selected, since it was short enough to permit observation of all of the children during the hour with reasonable allowance for interference of other activities and loss of time between observations due to stenographic difficulties. Dur- ing the 3-minute observation of each child, approximate 30—second inter- vals were noted, in order to have a basis of comparison for frequency of playing with other children, and of amount of social activity. The 3- minute interval was seldom long enough to follow through a total instance of contact, but since the interest was not in the length of contact, but in the specific actions and words of two children interacting, the sample was long enough to record directly reciprocal words and actions. Observational procedure. The observer sat on a small chair as near as possible to the child under observation without disturbing his activa ity. A.watch with a second hand was kept readily visible, and a running account using abbreviations and symbols was made of everything the child did or said, the toys he played with, who his companions were, and as much as possible of what his companions did or said in so far as it af- fected the child under observation. These records were kept in a note- book ruled for 30—second intervals, and the activity during the 3-minute period was roughly recorded for these intervals. Incidents in which the teachers took part, either as arbitors of a dispute, or as appreciative audiences called on for attention, were recorded but omitted from the analysis. Words, smiles, gestures and actions were recorded, with parti- cular attention to specific responses to specific approaches. A Those children were selected for observation who had not been observ- ed the preceding day, and who were engaged in group activity at the time. 16 At first, an attempt was made to rotate the children in order of observer tion. This attempt was unsuccessful, since attendance, particularly time of arrival, was too irregular. Also, it was found desirable to observe children who were already engaged in group activity rather than children who were playing alone when observation started, in order to gain an idea of interaction. These conditions made a set scheme of order of rotation difficult. However, the method followed resulted in a fairly equal dis- tribution of the children's observations over the first and second halves of the observation period, so that each child.was observed for approxi- mately half of his total observations during the first part of the hour, and for approximately half of his total observations, during the second part of the hour. This distribution was shown by the average rank of each child's observations as number 5.6 out of the average total of 9.58 per day. Limitations of method. The greatest limitation of the method of observation used was that there was only one observer and therefore no check on the accuracy of the actual record-taking. In order to remedy this defect as far as possible, during the two weeks at the midppoint of the observation period, each child in turn was followed for the whole hour from 9 to 10, and his actions and word recorded in the same manner as for the 3-minute sampling. The results of this one-hour record were compared with the analysis of the time—sample records for each child to see whether a correlation between the two would reveal that characteristic behavior was being recorded in the sampling. As a further test of the adequacy of the recordptaking in showing characteristic behavior, a rating scale was drawn up which the two teachers most familiar with the children were asked to mark. They were asked to name 5 children who exhibited to a 17 large degree each of 11 types of behavior for which the records were an- alyzed, and 2 children who in their Opinion exhibited little or none of each of these types of behavior. Later, the list of behavior was short- ened to 7 types, and the teachers were asked to rate the children on the following: 1) leadership in the group; 2) general sociability; 3) inde- pendence; h) imagination; 5) use of speech; 6) adjustment to the group as a whole; 7) cooperation with other children. These ratings by the teachers were compared with the ratings of the children as their behavior was shown by analysis of the records. A further possible inaccuracy resulted from the impossibility of observing every member of the group during each morning of observation. A scattering of observations over many days resulted, allowing differences of immediate environment, personnel of group and activity of the group to creep in. This difficulty of observation was due to several factors beyond the control of the observer. First, as has been mentioned, attend- ance wasveny irregular, particularly during the winter months. Also, since there is no set time for arriving at school, the children came at very irregular times. Some were consistently so late in coming that it was difficult to include them in the observations. Secondly, the observap tion period was sometimes broken up by organized activities. Group music, or reading of stories by the teacher frequently shortened the time when observation of free activity was possible. In the spring, the children went out doors earlier and earlier, until it was finally found necessary to include some observations made on the playground in order to fill out the number desired for each child. Finally, some of the records were dis- carded because the child, although in a group when the observation began, wandered off by himself as soon as recording started, or made contact only 18 with the teacher. Records obtained for each child. Over the period from November 11 to June 6, 25 three-minute observations were made for each of 12 children, with the exception of one who left school when only 21 records had been obtained for him. In some cases, it was occasionally necessary to make 2 reCords for a child in the same morning in order to fill out the total of 25 when the child had been absent for a.period. When this was done, the 2 records were made at the beginning and the end of the hour rather than consecutively, in order to make them as little as possible duplicates of one another. In addition, a one-hour record was obtained for each child, as mentioned above. Preliminary observgtions. As a.preliminary to the 3-minute time- sampling observations, longer diary records were made of the free play activities of the children for a.period of h weeks in the fall. These records served a two-fold purpose. First, they were a.practice period for the actual record taking. During the first 3 weeks, time was record- ed only at the beginning and the end of an incident of behavior, and the attempt was to record everything taking place for the duration of the incident. During the last of the h weeks, the time was recorded for the 30-second intervals subsequently used, and the attempt made to record activity and behavior during those 30—second intervals for a.period of 3-6 minutes. The second purpose which the preliminary observations ful- filled was that of forming a basis for classification of the items of behavior on the part of a child. With these as reference, a tentative list of categories of behavior exemplifying leadership and response was drawn up. Then the entire set of early records was analyzed to see if the list of categories was adequate for classification of all the leading 19 or responding behavior which might be exhibited by the children. In this way, some of the classifications were discarded and others added as nec- essary. Next, the analysis was Checked with a staff member and the final list of categories agreed upon. These were as follows: (The symbols pre— ceding each type of behavior listed here are those used on the check sheets to denote the type of behavior exhibited.) LEADERSHIP 1. Non-verbal. LPl Touch, Q2 ro ach. If the child under observation touches another child, or if he walks up to another with evident intent to gain his atten- tion or change his activity, he is the leader or initiator of the stimulus. LP2 Smile or beckgg. The smile at sight of another child is often the Opening wedge for the beginning of a social contact, like the "Good Morning" of an adult. Beckoning to a child is also an attempt to es- tablish contact. The two are classed together since it is seldom that a bodily or facial gesture occurs alone. LP} Initiate act or game. Any initiation of an act or game which influences another child to respond, or is obviously intended to influence, is a form of leadership. It may be either conscious or unconp scious. If the child responds to initiation of an act or game that has been started with no intention of influencing him, the stimulus has been unconscious. If the stimulus has been intended to influence the other child, then the leader- ship is conscious. LPu Hit, push, take somethigg away. If a child hits, pushes, or takes something away from another, for some reason other than that he has just received an ap- proach from the other, he is the leader in the situation. 2. Verbal leadership. LVl Invite, call for gttention. A call to another child to come and share an activity is a definite attempt to influence another. Such an invitation 20 often takes the form of a call for attention, as "See me Jump, Mary,” and Mary sees and comes to Jump or to watch. LVZ .§iss._asx_:2£d§. When singing arises spontaneously from the situation or activity in which the child is engaged, and is taken up by another child, the first child has unconsciously been the leader. When the child uses the song as a means of social contact, singing and looking, smiling or laughing at the other child meanwhile, his leadership is conscious. In this latter case, although imitation of the song may not have been the purpose or indeed the result of the child's singing, the song was definitely a stimulus directed to the other child, and is therefore a type of conscious leadership. The same is true of word Jumbles and meaningless sentences. LV} Threaten. Some children use threatening or bullying language in attempt- ing to influence others. One little girl was overheard to say,” You.get down or I'll kill you.” Lvh Direct. A.child who directs, tells another to do a specific thing. LVS §2ggest or request. Some tactful children find it unnecessary to resort to com— mands or specific directions. They lead by suggestion, as ”Let's make a window here, shall we?“ or by requests as "Will you get me a book from the shelf?" Lv6 Tell to stop, or forbid. Some children lead or attempt to lead others by directing their activities negatively, that is, by telling them to stOp some activity already in progress, or forbidding them to do a specific thing. LV? Converse. A frequent type of social contact is limited to conversation only. Here the child who starts the conversation is the leader. RESPONSE l. Non-verbal. RPl Smile, laggh, nod. A smile may be a response to another smile, to a touch, to words, or to other conscious or unconscious stimulus from RPZ RPS RPM RP5 3P6 RP? 2. Verbal RVI 21 another child. The same is true of a laugh or nod. 22W. If a child approaches or touches another child when he has been called or spoken to, or is obviously stimulated by some activity in which the other is engaged, such an approach or touch is a response reaction. Accgpt invitation, look or otherwise respond to a call for 21122216322. The child who accepts an invitation to Join an activity is responding to the leadership stimulus of the other child. He may respond to a call for attention either by looking, or by approaching or joining the other child in his activity. Imitate t or oin ame. Strict imitation is not generally found, since children tend to respond as individuals, but if a child enters into an activity of another child, essentially imitating the other child or acting upon a suggestion implicit in the other's behavior, he is for the time being responding to the influence of the other's behavior. Follow commggd or direction. The child who follows a command or direction does exactly as he is told to do. He is not adding his ownideas except in so far as the actual carrying out of the command requires it. Carry out 3 spggestion gr request. Carrying out a suggestion or request involves a subtle under- standing of the suggestion or request, which may be phrased in a manner leaving the interpretation up to the follower. For instance, carrying out the suggestion," You could be the daddy," will require some display of imagination and initia— tive on the part of the child. Add new ideas to the suggestion given. If a child uses a suggested play material in a new and um, usual way, which did not follow from the suggestion, he is displaying evidences of imagination. If he is definitely asserting his own ideas into the game rather than accepting the limitations of the original suggestion, he is adding his own creative touch. response. Imitate words, sogg, sounds. RVZ RV} th RVS 22 Often something a child has said, either independently of the effect it may have upon others, or as part Of a converse» tion, may be taken up by another and repeated in whole or in part. Sometimes it is the idea that seems to appeal: some- times it is the sound. The latter seems especially true when singing, humming, or noises are imitated. Add verbally to g game. This response occurs when a child adds his own ideas to those already expressed by another child. It may be that the other child has suggested something to him, and his acceptance in- cludes a further suggestion Of his own. Respond conversationpllz. Conversation is quite frequent among children 3-5 years old. Many of their comments have no apparent purpose other than communication. All verbal responses not classified as re- sistance, acceding to another's demands, imitation of another's words, or adding verbally to another's expressed ideas, are classified as conversational response. Invite self in. A request, "Can I play with you?" may be a form of Opening contact, but is Often a response to the child who is engaged in an interesting activity, or to that activity. Instances which indicate an approach rather than a response are classi- fied as Leadership: request. Those indicating a wish tO join an Observed activity are classified as Response: invite self in. Verbglly accept demands, reguests, prohibitions, etc. Answering "Yes," “All right,“ and so on to verbal requests, demands, prohibitions, and the like, indicated a willingness on the part of the child. This is not always indicated by a physically passive permitting of the other to carry out his will, and so the two responses have been classified separate- 15'. 3. Non-cooperative responses. RRl Resist ppysically. Pulling away, hitting or struggling are means by which the child expresses physically his unwillingness to follow the command or suggestion Of the other, or to allow the other to do something he has started to do. This may include a mate- rial, as when he pulls back on a block the other has seized to remove. 23 RR2 Resist verball . Verbal resistance may be expressed directly, as "NO," “I don't want to," "Stop," or more indirectly as "My mother doesn't want me to," but always expresses the unwillingness of the child to do something the other wants him to do, or allow the other to do something he has started to do. RR} Igpore. Since a measure of the success of leadership is the response of another to it, it is important to notice those attempts at gaining attention or cooperation which fail in their pur- pose. Ignoring may be conscious Or unconscious, and it is Often difficult to distinguish between the two. If the child ignores another, he pays no attention, his activity is not changed, and it is as if the stimulus from the other child had never occurred. Rah ggcgpt. A.child may accept or tolerate the action or words of another with no attempt at reprisal, cooperation, or further contact, though his activity has been changed by the other. This re- sponse differs from the ignoring response in that here the child's activity has been changed without the presence of any social cooperative or contacting response. Acceptance may indicate perseverance in the face of Obstacle, lack of desire for contact with the other child, or perhaps fear to retaliq ate. RRS Retreat. A child may escape from a situation which is not to his lik- ing, avoid an attempted social contact, express a refusal to comply with a suggestion or direction, or avoid physical punishment or resistance, by running away. This is a re- treat response, and serves to get him out of the situation. RR6 Cpll help, GEE. Some children, in what to them is an unpleasant circumstance, will call help, from an adult or from another child. Others use tears as a means of combatting an unpleasant situation. Both responses indicate that the child can think of no other weapon which he himself possesses. Method of Treating Data Anplysis of diggy records by use Of check sheets. The material Ob- tained by the diary records Of children's activities was reduced to 2'4 measurable form by the use of check sheets. These sheets contained ruled columns headed by symbols representing the types of behavior which had been decided upon as representative Of leadership approaches and response reactions. The following is a sample of the check sheet showing the \ headings as they appeared. Dates Of Observations NO. of Obs. - M on sheet Other child-mat. LP LV . RP RV RR 123h123uf56 [8 T F I I In the column at the left Of the sheet was written the name Of the child with whom the recorded action was taking place. Then a mark was placed Opposite that name, in the column under the symbol representing the action taking place with that child. If more than one action took place, as word and gesture occurring together, both of the apprOpriate columns were checked. Also, the specific response to the leadership shown was checked on the same horizontal line with the name Of the child with whom the action took place. In this way, it was possible to read from the check sheet the type of interaction taking place between each child pair. It was also possible to read the type Of response brought forth by each type of leadership. .In order to distinguish between the two children interacting, a G was placed under the item of behavior checked, if the child under direct Observation was the one exhibiting the bahvaior. An R was placed in the column if the companion of the child observed ex- hibited the behavior checked. The following example will illustrate the method. In the diary 25 records we find this incident recorded during a 30-second Observation of child T.M.: - (T. and D. are building a.block wall.) T. goes to the shelf, holds blocks up for D. to see, says, "We need some of these blocks to build up." D., “Yes, I know." On the check sheet, the actions for which T. was responsible were checked with a G, since he was the child under direct Observation. When he said, "We need some Of these blocks," and held some up for D. to see, he was Judged to be calling for attention, sO a G was placed under the symbol (LVl) representing a call for attention. D.'s response to him was, "Yes, I know," or a conversational response. Therefore the symbol for conversational response (RV3) was checked on the same horizontal line with the check showing the call for attention. Since D., or the compan- ion Of the child under observation, was the child responsible for the con- versational response, the check under this item was an R. Then her name was written in the left-hand column to show that she was the child with whom the incident took place, and the word "blocks" written after her name to show that this play material was used during the incident. Jgpgz 16th . Obs T,M._(child directly observed) Other child-mat. LP Lv RP av 1 RR 123M1251+5F7123u5671213q5 23h156 _ J l _ D. - blocks a [L {a I l l H I [I I On the check sheets, further note was made Of unconscious leadership. If the actions or words Of a child brought a response from another with- out evidence that they had been intended to do so, such action and words were checked with a small a. This a served to differentiate between that 26 leadership which the child intended, and that which arose as a result of other factors. If the contact between the children arose through the use of a toy or play material, and this material played a large part in the contact, a small m was placed over the symbol G or R. The m was intend- ed as a guide to discovering whether the use Of a material occurred more often in incidents of conscious or unconscious leadership. Note was also made on the check sheet Of the 30-second interval dur- ing which each contact with another child was made. During each 3-minute Observation, 6 or these 30—second intervals were recorded. If a contact with another child occurred during the first of these intervals, his name appeared in the left-hand column Of the check sheet with the number 1 following it. If one other child was contacted for a full 3-minute Ob- servation by the child under direct Observation, his name appeared in the left-hand column of the check sheet 6 times, with the numbers 1 to 6 fol- lowing it. Later, the frequency with which each child played with each other child was found by counting the number Of 30-second intervals in which contact occurred between the two. Since the children were also mentioned in each other's records, the total number of times each child» pair was Observed to play together was computed by counting the number Of 30—second intervals in which contacts occurred between them as record- ed in all 12 sets of records. Table I shows a check sheet completely filled out from the diary record Of a 3-minute Observation. . Consistency of the records was found in the frequency with which mutual pairs of frequent playmates were found. That is, if child X was recorded as playing most frequently Of all with child Y, reciprocally, Y's records showed that his most frequent playmate was X. There were 2 27 TABLE I CHECK SREET COMPLETELY FILLED OUT FROM THE DIARY RECORD OF A 3-RINUTE OBSERVATION November 11 [::5::] D, Smith Other child-mat. LP Lv RP Rv RR 123hl 3h567123h567123h5123fl5r6 Alice.......(1) R“ B G Jane........(2) R R G G Alice.......(3) R G Jane..block(1t) 8 RR John........(5) R R G John........(6) G R Of these reciprocal pairs Of most-frequent playmates, 2 instances of I reciprocal 2nd choices, and 1 Of reciprocal 3rd choice. There were also h instances in which a child's records showed as 2nd or 3rd most frequent playmate a child who had chosen him as first. TABLE II RECIPROCAL CHOICES OF PLAYMATES AS FOUND IN INDIVIDUAL RECORDS W Reciprocal Number of Choices Cases 1st Choice .................. 2nd Choice .................. 3rd Choice .................. 1st and 2nd Choices ......... 1st and 3rd Choices ......... \O NNHNN Total ......OOOOOOOOOOOOOCO 28 Checkipg for Reliability Of Datg. Parten (l) correlated the results of Odd and even day observations in order to find the internal reliability Of the data. She found the correlation coefficient to be +.76 for 10 Odd-even days. In this study, 12 oddpeven days were used, and the cor- relation found between the total number of items Ofteach type of behavior occurring on 12 Odd-numbered days Of Observation and the total number of each type occurring on 12 even-numbered days Of Observation. This cor- relation was found for each child. The average correlation was c.726. According to Fisher (2) the correlation coefficient for the number of items included in this study should be 3.h869 to be significant. Garrett (3) says ”... in mental, social and educational measurements ... there seems to be fairly general agreement among workers ... that an r from 3.70 to 31.00 denotes high relation.“ The Obtained correlation of +.726 therefore denotes a high relationship of the results of Observations from day to day, and compares well with the correlation Of 9.76 found by Parten. TABLE III RANGE OF INDIVIDUAL CORRELATIONS FOR 12 ODD AND 12 EVEN- NUMBERED OBSERVATIONS m Range Of' ,; Number Of Correlation Cases «5604.660 +.660-+.76O ............ 9.750-+.860 .........;.. $.860-e.960 .....t...... NW mm I Tata’l ..OOOOOOOOOOOO. 12 (l) Parten, Mildred.B. "Social Participation Among Preschool Children,” Journal Abnormal gpd Social Psychology, 27, 1932-33, pp. 2M3-69. (2) Fisher, R. A. Statistical Methods for Resegpch Workers. Edinburgh, London: Oliver and Boyd; 1930, 283 pp. (3) Garrett, Henry E. Statistics in PsthOlogy and Education, New York, London: Longmans, Green; 1926, 317 pp. 29 Checkipg_for validity of data. The adequacy of the records for showing characteristic behavior of the children was measured in two ways. In the first way, the data Obtained from analysis Of 25 three-minute records for each child were compared with results Of analysis Of a 1- hour consecutive record Of that child. The correlation between the totals of items from each type Of Observation was computed in the same manner as for the correlation between odd and even days. The correlation obtained was slightly lower than for the Odd-even days, though still significant. A lower correlation might be expected from the fact that the hour Obser- vation occurred Of only one day, and therefore depended in its entirety on how the child felt, whom he played with, which other children were present, and what activities took place on that one day. Furthermore, the shorter records were purposely made only when the child was engaged in group activity, and in free social play. The hour records all include ed some routines and organized activities, such as music, washing, or putting away toys under the teacher's supervision. The social interaction under these conditions is quite different. The amount Of activity record- ed during the 25 three-minute observations was greater for each child than that recorded during the 1-hour observation. The greater activity oc- curred because Of the slightly longer time covered by the 25 Observations, (75 minutes, rather than 60), and because of the fact that they were se- lected to cover group activity, while the hour observations covered soli- tary activity as well. In spite Of these factors, the correlation Obtained was +.700, which indicated that a high relationship existed between the data from the two sets of records, and that the time-sampling technique did show characteristic behavior as measured by a 1-hour consecutive Ob- servation. 30 TABLE IV RANGE OF INDIVIDUAL CORRELATIONS FOR l-HOUR OBSERVATION CORRELATED WITH 25 TIME-SAMPLE OBSERVATIONS Range of Number of Correlation Cases +,h80 - +.580 .................... 2 o.5so - +.6so .................... 3 *0680 - .0780 eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee h +.780 — c.880 .................... 3 Total ......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 12 A second test was made of the validity of the Observations in re- cording characteristic behavior Of the children. A comparison was made of the ratings of the children on certain behavior items as Obtained from the record sheets, and their ratings on these behavior items as obtained from their teachers. According to the records Obtained for the children, some Of the children exhibited certain types Of behavior more frequently than did others. A.1ist of 7 Of these types of behavior was presented to the two teachers in charge Of the children, and they were asked to list for each type Of behavior, 5 children who Often exhibited that be- havior, and 2 children who seldom or never exhibited it. The following are the items as they were presented to the teachers for checking: 1. Leadership. Is the child in his ordinary contacts one who influences others, or is he generally one to be influenced by others? 2. General Sociability. Does the child have a wide range of children with whom he plays, or is his play circle limited to a few, always the same? 3. Indgpendence. Is he excessively dependent on adults present for ideas for play and 31 for attention, or is he able to play without adult supervision and show initiative in finding things to do? u. Imggination. Does he display spontaneous imagination in use of materials, in dramatic games? 5. Use of Speech. Is he very verbal, well able to express himself and apt to do so, or is he quiet, relying on physical expression? 6. Adjustment to the Group as a Whole. Does he show good adjustment by evident pleasure in school, ability to get on with others and gain happiness from contacts with them, or does he show lack of social ease ... much resistance? 7. Cooperation with Other Children. Is he cooperative with other children as a rule, or does he tend to be resistent? The method Of scoring the children for the above items according to the results Obtained from records of their social behavior was asfollows: 1. Leadership. The total number Of items of leadership behavior checked for each child on all 12 sets of records was divided by the total number Of items Of all behavior checked for that child, or his total ac— tivity. The result gave for each child the percentage of his total ac- tivity which was leadership activity. Then the children were rated from 1 to 12 according to their percentages of leadership, and the 5 highest and 2 lowest compared with the children listed on the teacher-rating sheet. 2. Sociability. From the 25 records for each child, a count was made Of the number Of children with whom social contact was made by each. Then the children were again rated from 1 to 12 according tO the number of children each contacted. 3. Independence of Adults. From the individual 1-hour records, a 32 count was made Of the number of times each child called on the teacher for help or attention, and the children were rated for frequency of ex- hibiting this type of behavior. h. Imggination. Two of the items on the check sheet were included as indicative Of imaginative behavior. One was adding further action to a suggestion Of another, or using material in a new and unusual way fol- lowing the suggestion Of another which did not indicate this use. The other item was adding verbally to a game, which was understood to include verbally expressed ideas which added to the idea of another, and all flights of imagination in response to another. The number Of times these two responses occurred was found for each child, and the children rated for frequency of exhibiting these imaginative responses. 5. Use of speech. For each child, the percentage Of his total ac- tivity which was verbal activity was computed from a count Of the total number Of verbal contacts which that child made, as leadership and as response. Then each child was given a rating from 1 to 12 on the basis of his percentage of verbal activity. 6. Agipgtment to the:ggggp, The basis for rating the children for adjustment to the group was the number of non-cooperative responses given and received by each in his social contacts. The adjusted child's social contacts with all Of his playmates should be friendly and cooperative, and he should be able to receive cooperation from others. The children for whom non-cooperative contacts were a large percentage Of their total contacts given and received, were judged to be less well adjusted than the children whose percentage Of non-cooperative contacts was small. 7. Cooperation with other children. Adjustment to the group measured the child's ability to enjoy friendly social relationships, both giving 33 and receiving OOOperative responses. Cooperation with others measured only one side of group adjustment, that Of the responses of the specific child to his group, excluding their responses to him. The reason for drawing this distinction is that a child who cooperates well with the leadership given to him by others, may not necessarily be adjusted to the others. He may be simply unable, or afraid, to assert himself against their approaches, and his lack of social skill will show up in his inab- ility to influence them to cooperate with him. Ratings of the children for cooperation took into account only the responses which each child gave to others, and for each child a percentage of comparative response was totaled from the records for all 12 children. By the above method, the children were rated from 1 tO 12 on each of the 7 items listed on the teacher rating sheet. From each of the 7 ratings, the 5 children rated highest, and the 2 rated lowest, were com- pared with the 7 children listed under each Of the 7 items on the teach- ers' sheets. The percentage Of agreement between the ratings Of the two teachers and the ratings from the Observational data was computed accord- ing to the formula: percentage Of agreement is equal to H , where a.. the number Of items agreed upon by Rater l and.Rater 2: b n the num- ber Of items checked by Rater l; and c g the number Of items checked by Rater 2. Thus, Raters l and 2 were agreed on 26 items; Rater 1 had check- ed hO items, and Rater62 had checked M9 items. Therefore, their percent- age Of agreement was fi—E-Eg— or 58.14%. The percentage Of agreement between the two teachers was 58.h%. The composite agreement Of the ratings of the two teachers with the results Obtained from the records was 55.0%. The individual percentages of agree- ment were 58.h% between the ratings Obtained from the observational data 3M and the ratings of the teacher in charge of the children, and us.9% when a comparison was made with the ratings of the assistant teacher. Ratings at their best are of doubtful accuracy, as is illustrated by the rather low agreement (58.M%) between the ratings of the two teach- ers. However, since the agreement between the teacher ratings and the ratings based on the observational data was so nearly the same as the agreement between the two teachers,the indication is that the Observation- al data.were as accurate in describing the behavior Of the children as were the teachers best acquainted with them. Further, the ratings from the Observational data had exactly the same percentage of agreement with the ratings of the teacher in charge as had the ratings Of the assistant teacher. Checkipg reliability of analysis. In order to check the reliability of analysis of the records, a sample of the records for each child was given to a staffnember for analysis. Every 8th record was chosen for this sample, and the order of choice rotated for the children. Thus, for the first child, the sample consisted of records 1, 9, 17; for the next child, the sample consisted Of records 2, 10, 18, and so forth. In all, 36 records were analyzed by the staff member, out of a total of 296 Ob- tained for the group. The sample records were analyzed by the staff member according to the definitions of classifications Of behavior decided upon as character- istic Of leadership and response, using the same check sheets as the writer. Then the analysis of the sample records by the staff member was checked for agreement with their original analysis by the writer. The percentage Of agreement between the two was 60.1% for specific types of behavior checked. A check for agreement between the two on the number of items 35 included under the major categories of non-verbal leadership, verbal leadership, non-verbal response, verbal response, and nonpcooperative response, yielded a percentage Of agreement of 65.8%. This percentage of agreement represents the result of absolutely in- dependent judgments, since there was no COOperation between the two works ere on the analysis, and no explanations were offered by the writer other than those given in the descriptions of classifications of behavior inp eluded earlier in this chapter. For this reason, the percentage may be lower than it would have been otherwise, but it indicates a substantial agreement nevertheless. A check for self-reliability Of analysis was conducted in the same way as the check with the staff member. The writer analyzed for a second time the same sample of records for each child that had been given to the staff member for analysis, and compared the results of the second analy- sis with the results Of the first analysis. The percentage Of agreement for specific types Of behavior checked was 80.3%; the percentage Of agree- ment Of items of behavior checked under the 5 major classifications Of leadership and response was 80.M%. CHAPTER III FINDINGS FROM DATA The free play Of children has Often been Observed for evidences of the beginnings of social personality. This study also made use of ob- servations Of children at play. Children, relatively free in their re- actions, were Observed for evidences of leadership and response behavior, which form the basis of all social interaction. Short observations can- not be expected tO yield a complete picture or explanation of social actions, but they can show trends. For this reason, the data in this chapter are presented, not as an explanation Of why children play as they do, but as data showing certain trends in the Observed behavior of nur- sery school children at play. By analysis of diary records of the free play of nursery school chil— dren, material was gathered showing for each child the number of each type of social contact which he made with each other child. Since the. data included every child and every child pair, it was possible to find the specific pattern of contacts for individual children, for different combinations and groups Of children, and for the group as a.whole. In organizing the data, two methods were used for finding totals Of each type Of activity shown. When the results were for the group as a whole, totals were computed from the records for individual children, and from the total number of contacts given and received by each as re- corded in direct Observations Of each. In computing results of the in! teraction of individuals, or Of smaller groups within the larger one, totals of response or leadership were counted from the records Of all 37 children concerned. For instance, to find the total number of ignoring responses given by one child, the number recorded directly for him was added to the number recorded for him in all Observations of other chil- dren, when he was a companion Of the child directly Observed. This method was considered to be more accurate than using only the results of direct Observation of each child, both because it meant the inclusion of more incidents Of social contact than was possible in the time allotted for direct Observation Of each, and because it minimized any tendency which the Observer might have to record or analyze the actions of one child according to a set pattern or preconceived idea Of that child, when he was the one directly observed. In this chapter, group data are given first, followed by more speci fic examination Of patterns Of individual leadership and response, and the patterns for different groups within the larger group Observed. Part I Group Data A. Freguency Of occurrence of leadership and response. Leadership is defined in this study as the influence which one person has upon an— other to change his thoughts, words, or actions. Overt and observable actions or wOrds of nursery school children which influenced or were in- tended to influence their playmates directly, were recorded as leader- ship. Leadership was then classified as verbal and non-verbal, and sub- types Of these two major classifications. Non-verbal leadership included touching and approaching, smiling and nodding, hitting and pushing, and starting an act or game influencing another. Verbal leadership included inviting and calling for attention, singing and saying silly words, starting a conversation, directing, suggesting, threatening, and forbid- 3s ding. Very often, two or more types of leadership were used simultaneous- ly by one child. NO attempt has been made, however, to show the fre- quencywith which two or more types occurred together, or with which any one type occurred with any other type. Instead, the frequency Of occur- rence of each type has been calculated, and its relative importance for the group as shown by percentage of the whole. From Table V we see that verbal leadership occurred slightly more often than non-verbal, and was 52.1 percent of all leadership. A large part, or 27.5 percent of all leadership, occurred as starting an act or TABLE V FREQUENCY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEADERSHIP Number of Percentage Percentage Types of Leadership Incidents of all Of all Leadership Contacts T011611, @proach eeeeeeeeeeeeee 21"} 800 1‘05 Smile, laugh, nod ............ 119 .h 2.2 Start act or game ............ 7M1 27.5 13.7 Hit, push, take some- thing a'ay eeeeeeeeeeeeee 161* 6.0 3.0 Tot non-verb __1_8_61 Eda ain't Invite, call attention ....... 295 11.0 5.u Sing, say words .............. 297 11.1 5.5 Start conversation ........... 277 10.3 5.1 Threaten eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 31 102 06 Direct. command .............. 172 6.5 3.2 Suggest, request ............. 26“ 10.0 .9 Tell to stop, forbid ......... 81 3.0 1.5 ________._..._._....._.l....._,Tota1 verbal .4141 52.1 3.6.3 égi leadership ,,,,,,,,,, 268M gpp‘g yppé game influencing another. Singing or saying silly words, inviting and calling for attention, and starting a conversation, were next in impor- tance. These three were each about 11 percent Of all leadership. Very 39 few instances of threatening or forbidding occurred. The two approaches might be called negative leadership. The twO together were only 2.1 percent of the total contacts of the group, and M.2 percent of the total leadership. In all, 268M separate instances of leadership were recorded. Of the 268k instances, 1267 or “6.9 percent were non-verbal, and lhl7 or 52.1 percent were verbal. Response was shown by an overt change in acts or words directly traceable to the influence Of another child. Response was considered first as cooperative and non-cooperative. Non-couperative response in- cluded verbal and physical resistance, ignoring, accepting, retreating, and calling help or crying. Cooperative response was classified as ver- bal and non-verbal. Non-verbal cooperative response included smiling and nodding, touching and approaching, accepting an invitation, following a direction or suggestion, and adding new ideas to a suggestion. Verbal cooperative response included imitating words or sounds, responding con- versationally, adding verbally to a game, inviting self in, and accept- ing demands or requests. Table VI shows the data for response. From Table VI we sea that by far the larger part (70.5 percent) Of response was cooperative. Non-verbal cooperative response was a larger part Of the total contacts than was verbal cooperative response. The percentages were “5.8 percent and 2M.7 percent respectively. Table VII shows further, that in response as a.whole, when cOOperative and non-co- Operative responses were considered together, non-verbal items predominated. Of a total of 2731 responses, 1777 were nonpverbal, and only 95“ wereverbal. The most frequent response made was imitating an act or jOining a game. This response occurred N36 times, and was 16.0 percent Of all re- sponses. Conversational response was second in importance, and was also the only high-ranking cOOperative verbal resistance, although verbal resistance was fourth most frequent Of all responses. Conversational response and verbal resistance together were 20.0 percent Of all response. Negative or nonpcOOperative response was 29.5 percent Of all response. However, calling help or crying, and retreating, were together only 2.9 percent Of all response and 1.5 percent of all contacts. The children were evidently able to deal in a constructive way with their difficulties, since these two responses represent means Of avoiding difficulties with- out personally changing the situation in which they occur. TABLE VI FREQUENCY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESPONSE Number Of Percentage Percentage Types of Response Incidents Of all of all Response Contacts Smile, laugh, nOd .oeeoeeeeee 189 700 305 Touch, approach ............. . 150 5.5 2.3 Accept invitation ........... 209 7.7 3.9 Imitate act, join game ...... M36 16.0 8.0 Follow direction ............ 109 h.o 2.0 Carry out suggestion ........ 107 3.9 2.0 Add new ideas to suggestion . N6 1.7 .9 All cooperative non-'verbal eeeeeeeeeee 12116 “.508 23.1 Imitate words or sounds ..... 173 6.3 3.2 Add verbally to game ........ 85 3.1 1.6 Respond conversationally .... 30” 11.1 5.6 Invite self in .............. 28 1.0 .5 Verbally accept demands ..... 88 3.2 1.6 All verbal cooperative.. 678 2h.7 12.5 Total couperative ......... 192“ 70.5 35-6 Resist physically ........... 113 ”.1 2.1 Resist verbally ............. 2M3 3.2 1".5 Ignore eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 256 90 he? mcept .OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 115 “'02 2.1 Retreat oeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee u? 1.7 09 Call help. cry .............. 33 1.2 .6 Total non-cooperative 807 29.5 1M9 All response .............. 2731 100-0 50-5 Ml Table VII shows that in all, 5&15 separate instances of leadership and response were recorded for the group. or the skis contacts, 26st or “9.5 percent were leadership, and 2731 or 50.5 percent were response. The non-verbal contacts totaled 30hh, or 56.2 percent Of all. Verbal contacts were slightly under this number, and totaled 2371, or h3.8 per- cent Of all. leadership. lth were verbal. 2731 responses, 1777 were non-verbal and only 95h were verbal. However, response was predominantly non-verbal. There were a few more instances of verbal than Of non-verbal Of 268“ instances of leadership, 1267 were non-verbal, and Of Of the total contacts, 23.3 percent were non-verbal leadership and 26.2 percent verbal leadership; 32.8 percent were non-verbal response and 17.9 were verbal response. TABLE VII VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL LEADERSHIP AND RESPONSE Occurrence Type of Contact Non-Verbal Verbal Total Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Leadership 0 e e e e e 1267 23 02+ 11”.? 2602 2681‘ )49 06 Response ........ 1777 32.3 95” 17.5 2731 50.h Total ........ . 30th 56.2 2371 h3.8 5&15 100.0 B. Unconscious leadership. was unconscious, or unintentional. Some of the leadership of the children That is, some actions or words of the children brought a response from other children when there was no evidence that they had been intended to do so. For instance, one child started building himself a block structure, and was busily absorbed in his work. Another child, coming in, saw him building and approached and joined him. h2 In this instance, the first child started building blocks as an indepen- dent venture, calling for no help or attention. Yet, his example influe enced the other child to imitate and join him, so he was unintentionally a leader. Likewise, things that children said to themselves and to each other, Often brought a response from a child to whom the remark had not been directed. Such verbal influences were also unconscious. Whenever an incident of unconscious leadership arose, it was checked with a small a on the check sheet, to distinguish it from leadership that was inten- tional. When a play material was a part of the act imitated or joined, whether this act was consciously or unconsciously an influence on others, the action was checked with a small m on the check sheet. Thus it was recorded for each act or game which influenced another child, whether that actor game was intentionally or unintentionally a stimulus to another child, and whether or not a play material was an integral part Of the act. For the verbal approach of singing or saying words, it was recorded wheth- er not the stimulus had been consciously directed toward the child who responded. Table VIII shows that there were 7&1 instances of initiation of an act to which another responded, of which 3N8 or h6.9% were not intended as leadership. Evidently unconscious leadership was important in estab- lishing 000perative action between the children. In unconscious leader- ship, the pull of interest in material was very strong. As Table II shows, play material was a part of 68.1% of all unconscious stimulating acts; it was part of only 53.7% of all conscious stimulating acts, where the personal influence of the child desiring to be imitated or joined was brought to bear on the one to whom the stimulus was directed. In other words, what the child was doing, and especially what he was playing TABLE VIII UNCONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP Incidents Type Of Leadership All Leadership Unconscious Leadership Number Number Percent Initiation Of an act or game eeeeeeeeeeeeeoeeeee. 7h]. 3’48 l+6.9 Singing or saying words ... 297 117 39.7 All leadership (all types recorded) ............... 268h 1‘65 17.2 TABLE IX INITIATION OF ACT OR GAME INVOLVING USE OF MATERIAL Incidents Type of Leadership Total Incidents Using Material Number Number Percent Conscious initiation of act or game ........-. 393 211 53.7 Unconscious initiation of act or game .......... 3&3 237 68.1 All initiation of act or game ................. 7M1 “NS' 60.“ with, were more important in gaining a response in instances of uncon- scious leadership than they were in instances Of conscious leadership. In conscious leadership, the personal influence of the child initiating the act, or the relationship existing between him and the child he de- sired tO influence, was a larger factor than it was in unconscious lead- ership. While H6.9% of all acts imitated or joined were unintended stimuli, only 39.7% Of all singing or saying words occurred as unintended stimuli. (See Table VIII) Since neither actions nor words were recorded as un- conscious leadership unless a response to them was brought forth from another child, the difference in the two percentages is an indication that actions were intrinsically more interesting than words, and there- fore slightly more apt to bring a response from another child without conscious effort. C. Loggership by command or directiop compared with leadership by spggestion or request. The child who commands or directs, tells another child in positive language to do a specific thing. For instance, he may say," Johnny, bring me a pile of blocks from the shelf.” The child who suggests or requests, phrases in more tactful language his desires. He may say, "Will you bring me some blocks, Johnny?“ or "Let's make a big pile Of blocks over here, shall we?“ Both directing and suggesting were Observed in the social interaction of the children. In all, 172 directions were given, and 26h suggestions and requests. Thus, each child gave an average of 1h.3 directions, and 22 suggestions. These figures show that the more tactful method of sug- gestion, was used more often. Moreover, suggestions were used more gen- erally by all the children than.were directions. Only one child gave fewer than 10 suggestions, while N children gave fewer than 10 directions. Seven children gave more than 20 suggestions, while only M children gave more than 20 directions. Further indication of the fact that suggestions were given more gen- erally by all than were directions is found in the fact that h children who gave very few directions gave a large number of suggestions, but in no instance did a child give a small number of suggestions and a large 1+5 TABLE I FREQUENCY OF DIRECTING AND SUGGESTING Number of Instances Number of Children Observed Directing Suggesting 1-10 eeeeeeeeeeee 1+ 1 10-20 h '4 20.30 eeeeeeeeeeee 3 5 3M0 00.00.00.000 1 1 l"0"50 000000000000 0 1 Total 000...... 12 12 number Of directions. Although suggestions and requests were used frequently by all the children, this use was not reciprocal in the different child.pairs. In a given combination Of 2 children, one Of the members usually made more suggestions than the other, receiving comparatively few from his partner; but the partner, in another combination with a different child, was in turn the one who made the most suggestions and received few in return. For example, child A gave 1“ suggestions to child B, and received only 8 in return from child B. Child.B gave 13 suggestions to child C and received only 3 from child 0. Child 0 in turn gave 6 suggestions to child D and received only 1 from that child. Thus, the use of suggestions and requests occurred in every combination of children, but was not re- ciprocal in these combinations. In order to measure the frequency with which directions occurred in general use among the children, the records of the 5 children using di- rections most Often, were consulted. Of a total of 172 directions given by the group, the 5 children gave 120, as shown in Table XI-a. Table XI-b shows that almost h6% of the directions given by the 5 were given to each TABLE XI-a THE USE OF DIRECTIONS SUCCESS 0F DIRECTIONS GIVEN BY DIFFERENT GROUPS M6 Number of Number Percent Group Directing Directions Cooperated COOperated With With 5 most-frequent directors ... 120 81 67.5 Remainder of group .......... 52 “1 78.3 Group as a whole ............ 172 122 70.7 TABLE XI-b THE USE OF DIRECTIONS RECIPROCAL CONTACTS OF 5 MOST-FREQUENT DIRECTORS fim Number of Number Type Of Contact Incidents Reciprocal Percentage Directions .................. 120 55 “5.8 Total social contacts ....... 2229 502 22.5 TABLE XI-c THE USE OF DIRECTIONS RELATIONSHIP OF DIRECTIONS TO OTHER CONTACTS OF THE FIVE CHILDREN DIRECTING MOST OFTEN Number of W Number of Percentage Group Contacts Contacts Directions of Directions Reciprocal contacts among 5 frequent directérs ..... 502 55 10.9 Contacts Of the 5 with others of the group ...... 1727 65 3.7 Total contacts of the 5 with each other and group as a.whole ......... 2229 120 5.3 In other, However, only 22.5 percent of their total social contacts occurred with each other. Therefore, as shown in Table XI-c, in the relationships which the 5 most-frequent directors had with each other, 10.9 percent of their contacts was in the form Of directions, while in their relation- ships with the rest of the group, only 3.7 percent Of their contacts was direction. The indication is that giving directions was a form of lead- ership used more by certain children than by others, and that it was reciprocal in its use among the small group employing it. Giving direc- tions also showed a.positive relationship to leadership, since the 5 chil- dren using directions most often were the 5 who ranked highest in the group for leadership. For the group as a whole, 70.9 percent of all directions received cooperative responses. The 5 children who used directions most Often were slightly less successful than the group as a whole in gaining cooper- ation. As Table XI-a shows, the 5 most-frequent directors received co- operative responses to 67.5 percent of their directions, while the rest of the group was successful in 78.8 percent of directions given. This is very interesting in the light of the fact, which we will show later, that leadership and ability to gain cooperation were found to be positively correlated. However, as shown above, the 5 children ranking highest as leaders gave more directions than other children, but were less success- ful than others in gaining cooperation with their directions. In all, directions were more successful than were suggestions in gaining cooperative responses. Of 26% suggestions, 168 or 63.6 percent received cOOperative responses. Of 172 directions, 122 or 70.9 percent received cooperative responses. D. The igporipg response. Not all the leadership attempted by the #8 children was successful in achieving its purpose. Success can be meas- ured in two ways: first, by whether it is successful in gaining a cOOp- erative rather than a non-cooperative response; second, by whether it is successful in gaining a response at all rather than being ignored entire- ly. Some of the attempts at leadership failed when measured by the sec- ond standard. The child contacted failed to respond, either because he did not care to or because for some reason the approach failed to rouse his attention. Ignoring was the third most frequent response recorded for the group, second only to imitating an act or joining a game, and responding conversationally. The ignoring response occurred 256 times and was 9.h percent Of all responses given by the group. However, since very Often two or more types Of leadership were used simultaneously by one child, it sometimes happened that only one ignoring response was re- corded for several incidents of leadership. Thus we find that although the ignoring response was recorded 256 times, 303 separate instances of leadership were ignored. Some types of approach were less successful than others in gaining a response from the children to whom they were directed. By examining the data sheets, it was possible to count the number of times each speci- fic leadership approach was ignored by the child receiving it, and to calculate the percentage of failure of each type. On the whole, non- verbal approaches were more successful in rousing responses than were verbal approaches: 1M.7 percent of the verbal approaches were ignored, and only 7.3 percent of the nonpverbal. Of the non-verbal approaches, 15.9 percent Of smiling and nodding, and 18.1 percent of touching and ' approaching were ignored. 0f the verbal leadership attempted, 20.0 per- cent of conversational approaches were ignored, 22.M percent Of the in- M9 vitations and calls for attention, and 22.2 percent of forbidding and telling to st0p. Threatening occurred but 31 times in all, and 6 of the threats, or 19.3 percent, were ignored. In all, 11.2 percent of all the attempted leadership, verbal and non-verbal, was ignored, a total of 303 out of 268” attempts. TABLE XII FAILURE OF EACH TYPE OF LEADERSHIP AS MEASURED BY THE NUMBER OF TIMES EACH WAS IGNORED Number of Number Percent Type Of Leadership Incidents Ignored Ignored NONAVERBAL rouCh’ approach OOOOOOOOOOOOOO... 2h} m 18.1 Smile, nOd, beckon .............. 119 19 15.9 Initiate act or game ............ 7A1 13 1.7 Hit, push, take some- thing away eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 161‘ 17 1003 Total non-verbal ............ 1267 93 7.3 VERBAL Invite, call attention .......... 295 66 22.M Sing, 88y words .eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 297 8 205 mreaten eeeeeeeeeeoeeeeeeeeeeeoe 31 6 1903 Command, dirBCt ...,OOCCOOOOOOO... 172 22 12.5 Suggest, request ................ 26“ 3h 12.1 Tell to stop, forbid ............ 81 18 22.2 Start conversation .............. 277 56 20.2 Total verbal ................ 1&1? 210 1h.7 All approaches ............ 268“ 303 11.2 It is interesting that two of the verbal approaches ignored most often, invite or call for attention, and start a conversation, were the second and third in order of most frequent use by the children.' The verbal approach most often used, singing and saying words, was ignored in only 2.5 percent of its appearance. However, a comparison Of the 50 success of the three above-mentioned methods of approach is not fair, since singing and so on was nearly always an accompaniment to a contact already established, while inviting and calling for attention, and start- ing a conversation were very Often the initial approach to a relation- ship. None the less, it is interesting to note the frequent use of methods of approach which were less successful in rousing a response. The ignoring responses shown by individual children. The M chil- dren who ignored others most often were recorded as ignoring the approaches of others on 110 occasions, or 36.3 percent of all. The N children who ignored others the least, gave this response only 59 times, or 19.5 percent Of all. The N who seldom ignored others were relatively active socially, placing lst, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th in order of social activity for the group. They took part in 39.2 percent of all the social contacts recorded for the group. The M who ignored others more often, placed Nth, 5th, 11th, and 12th in order of social activity. They shared in only 30.0 percent of the group's activity. Thus, on the whole, the h who ignored others less Often were more active in social contacts than were the h who ignor- ed others more Often. A possible indication is that some children were more responsive than others, and therefore more socially active. An- other possible implication is that the children who had fewer social contacts, did so as a matter of choice. TO illustrate: child G ignored others 37 times, or more than any other child. He ignored the 3 children with whom he played most Often 26 of the 37 times. But the 3 ignored him only 6 times in return. Thus, sofhr as his relationships with his accustomed playmates was concerned, the playmates were more responsive to his leadership than he was to theirs. He was relatively inactive so- cially, and made next to the smallest number of social contacts of any 51 one child. However, he ranked first in the group for leadership. As far as his contacts were concerned. It seems possible to theorize that his lack Of social contacts came as a result of his personal choice, as indicated by his frequent ignoring of the approaches of others. As shown above, the child who ignored others the most, ranked first for leadership. However, there seems little evidence that leadership and ignoring others were always linked. The average percentage of lead- ership shown by the M who ignored others the most was 26.7 percent: the percentage of leadership of the h who ignored others less Often was 23.2 percent. The difference is small, indicating a.possibility that ignor- ing is a response related more to the individual's reactivity than to the response he receives from others. TABLE XIII IGNORING COMPARED WITH OTHER CONTACTS OF INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN __.. """"T"""" Rank for Total Percent Number Ofm Rank Percent Child Total Number Of Group Ignoring Of all for of Activity Contacts Contacts Responses Ignoring Leader- Leader- Reeponses ship ship A 1 612 --- 16 «..- 3 29.5 B 2 5th -.- 15 -..- 6 2h.s C 3 503 -- 15 --- 11 19.3 D 6 R67 ---- l3 --- 10 19.5 Total for the fOur ignoring others seldom... 2126 39.2 59 19.5 23.2 E h N91 - --—- 25 ---- 2 31.5 F 5 #75 ~--- 28 --- 7 23.7 c 11 3R9 ---- 37 --- 1 32.u H 12 - 310 --- 20 ---- 12 19.3 Total for the four ignoring others Often.... 1625 30.3 110 36.3 26.7 52 Part II Data for Individual Children and Combinations of Children A. Differences in social interaction between children of different age groups and of different frequencies Of playing together. One purpose of this study was to find whether any differences existed in the types Of interaction taking place in contacts of Older with younger children, as compared with interaction within the older group. The 12 children di- rectly observed in the study had some contact with 16 children Of the younger group of the nursery school. The results of the interaction of the 12 older with the 16 younger children was compared with the inter- action Of the rest Of the children observed, who were all of the Older group. Table XIV shows the results. The total contacts of the older- younger group included all leadership and all response for which both older and younger children were responsible in interaction of the differ- ent aged children. No attempt was made to segregate leadership or rep sponse given specifically by younger to older, or Older to younger chil- dren. The greatest difference in the interaction of Older with younger children was in the importance of non-verbal contacts. In the contacts in which younger children were included, non~verba1 contacts were 70.h percent of all, while they were only 5U.h percent of contacts of the rest of the group. Similarly, non-verbal leadership, non-verbal COOperative response, and non-verbal non-COOperative response were all larger per— centages of the total contacts of older with younger children than of contacts within the Older group. Nonrverbal activity might be expected to be a more important part of the contacts of younger children, since verbal contacts increase with age. However, it is interesting to note 53 o.ooa mmwr m.mr oamm n.2m mnmm o.ooa 0mm m.mm mma :.o~ awn .....saseoe ensue m.om «ram :.ma sow m.am mama c.0m mam N.HH mm m.mm cam ........Hsaoe a.rH Ham m.m Hmm H.m or: m.ma mos m.: cm r.sa ma osaaosomooOIRoz c.mm amen m.ma mam w.mm moan a.am man m.m mm H.mm mma ....oenassomooo accommom ~.mr harm H.am mama m.mm amen m.mr Hem r.ma Hon m.0m can unmeasured pmoocoa.uopadz pcoonom conasz accouom nocasz pcoonom cocasz pqoocom cocsdz ucooao cocaez asses Horses Hessoeasoz Hosea Hesse» Hensoeacoz macaw mo coucamaom macho nomcnowiaoeao pompnoo no make commandooo mmDQm¢ Had BZHMHhhHQ ho zamanHmo ZHHBBHm na>mammo meodazoo >HN Hands 5h that in contacts between the Older and younger children, in which the reactions of younger children were presumably only about half of the recorded action, non-verbal activity was so large a part. Non-cooperative response was a slightly larger percentage of the total contacts of the older-younger group than of the contacts within the Older group. For the contacts in which the younger children took part, non-COOperative response was 19.3 percent of all contacts; for the contacts within the older group, non-cooperative response was 1M.2 percent of all contacts. The trend bears out an observation of Beaver in study- ing the social interaction within groups of different aged children: "... the younger children react to initiations (or leadership) with re- sistance in a higher percentage of their total contacts than do the Older group." (1) Here, the social contacts in which younger children took part shows a slightly larger percentage of non-cooperative response than do contacts between older children. To find whether any differences existed in the type of interaction between children who played together often and children who played together seldom, a comparison was made of two groups of children. One group was composed of childppairs playing together only 1-15 observed 30-second intervals. The other group was composed of childppairs playing together more than 15 Observed intervals. Table XV shows the results of the com- parison. In no type of contact was there any decided difference in the two groups. Non-verbal leadership was a slightly higher percentage of the total contacts of the less—frequent playmates, but non—verbal COOper- ative response was slightly smaller for this group than for the more- frequent playmates. In all, 57.9 percent of the contacts of the less— (l) Beaver,.Alma Perry. The Initiation of Social Contacts by Preschool Children. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, COlumbia, 1932, 65 ppe (p. ’49) 55 0.00H oxen o.m: mama o.:m mmwfl o.ooa wmw H.m: wen m.~m ow: ....mflmpo—H ”Ea N.Hm mmafl m.wH mmm ~.mm mmHH N.MH Ha: m.: «ma m.m own m.om Hm: o.wa msa m.mm mam ~.~H ass w.m mm m.oH Hm OOQOOOQOHdeB o>Hpmnomooolqoz m.~m Hmmfl 0.:H mm: m.mm mow m.mm :am N.HH mm o.mm mms ....opnsesoaooo omqommmm w.w: mwma m.~m wsm m.am mma H.m: No: H.3m oow o.mm pom afismuossog unmouom nonssz unmouom nopesz uqoonom nopssz psoonom noQEdz unooaom gonadz unmouom nopsdz Hausa Hangs» Hangmansoz fiance Hmpuo> prhm>lnoz mopmshwam unmdcouhaopoz mousezmam pcmsvohhammoq oodopudooo pompaoo mo mama zmeho mmmq Q24 Hmos mamamwoa nfiwdqm om: zamnnHmo zmmaamm nfi>mfimmd maodazoo >N mamas 56 frequent playmates was non—verbal, and 5M.6 percent of the contacts of more-frequent playmates. The difference was small. The largest difference observed between the groups of more and less accustomed playmates was in the different percentages of c00perative and non-COOperative response. For less-frequent playmates, cooperative re- sponse was 33.1 percent of all contacts: for more-frequent playmates, it was 37.5 percent of all. The difference was M.N percent in favor of a slightly larger percentage of cooperative response for more—frequent playmates. A like trend showed in the percentages of non-cooperative response. For the group of less-frequent playmates, non-cooperative re— sponse was 17.8 percent of all contacts, and for more-frequent playmates, it was 13.7 percent. Here, the difference was M.1 percent, in favor of a slightly smaller percentage of non-COOperative response in contacts of accustomed playmates. The differences were small, but indicated a pos- sibility that COOperation might be greater in contacts of more-frequent playmates. It was decided to choose an even closer group of frequent playmates to discover what the percentage of c00peration of such a group might be. For this purpose, the interaction of each child with the 3 other children with whom he spent most of his time was studied. The resulting group of frequent playmates was composed of 12 smaller groups, each consisting of one of the 12 children directly observed, and his 3 most-frequent play- mates. As Table XVIashows, for these 12 groups non-cooperative response was only 9.2 percent of the total contacts, the smallest percentage of any group measured. However, percentage of non-COOperative response did not present the whole picture, since for the group of closest friends, COOper- ative response was only 26.6 percent of all contacts, a much smaller per- 57 TABLE XVI-a NON-COOPERATIVE RESPONSE IN THE TOTAL CONTACTS OF DIFFERENT GROUPS Type of Response Groups Non-Cooperative COOperative number Percent Number Percent of all of all Contacts Contacts Older-younger group.... 106 19.3 173 31.3 Older group of less- frequent playmates... 1h7 17.8 27h 33.0 Older group of more- frequent playmates... M72 13.7 1291 37.1 Older group of most- frequent playmates... N32 9.2 1269 26.6 Totals for group as awhole.............. 807 1h.2 19214 35.7 TABLE XVI-b NON-COOPERATIVE RESPONSE IN THE TOTAL RESPONSE OF DIFFERENT GROUPS Responses Groups Number of all Number of Non- Percent Responses cooperative Non-cOOp- Responses erative Older-younger. o o e o e e o o e 279 106 37‘ 9 Older group, less- frequent playmates. o 0 14'2]. 1,47 31‘". 9 Older group, more- frequent playmates... 1763 #72 26.8 Older group, most- frequent playmates... 1701 M32 25.3 Total grOUP. o e o e o o o o o e o 27 31 807 290 5 58 centage than for any other group. Looking at the percentages of leader— ship for each group measured (Table XVII) we find that for the 12 groups of M children each, leadership was 6N.3 percent of all contacts. In no other group was leadership more than 50.0 percent of all contacts. The result was that for the groups of M children, response, both c00perative and non-COOperative, was a smaller percentage of the total contacts than for other groups. Therefore, the amount of non-cooperation in this group, when measured as a percentage of the total contacts, was not strictly comparable with percentages of total contacts of other groups. Therefone, in order to better the comparison, non-COOperative response was measured as a percentage of all response rather than of all contacts (leadership plus response). Measured thus, non-coOperative response was 37.9 percent of all response in olderbyounger contacts, 3h.9 percent of response among children playing together infrequently, 26.8 percent of response of chil- dren playing together more than 15 intervals, and 25.3 percent of all TABLE XVII PERCENTAGE OF LEADERSHIP IN TOTAL CONTACTS OF DIFFERENT GROUPS Contacts Groups Number of Number of Leads Percent of all Contacts ership Contacts Leadership Older-younger group... 550 271 ”9.3 Older group, less- frequent playmates. 828 h07 M9.l Older group, more- frequent playmates. 3uh6 1683 h8.8 Older group, most- frequent playmates. N76h 3063 6h.3 Total group.......... 5N15 268M H9.6 59 response of children with their 3 most-frequent playmates. (Table XVI-b) The differences in percentages were not large, but showed a consistent trend toward a smaller percentage of non-cooperation among closer friends. Moreover, although evidently an excess of leadership contacts rather than of cooperative responses replaced in frequency the non-COOperative re- sponse of the closest group, the result was nevertheless that non-coopera- tion was a smaller part of the total contacts of this group. Therefore we feel justified in saying that our evidence points to a tendency for children who play together often to show a rather smaller percentage of non-COOperative response than children who play together less often. One more measurement was made of differences between less-frequent and more-frequent playmates. This difference was in the amount of social activity which each child displayed in the company of his 3 most-frequent playmates, and with other children. The basis for comparison was the average number of social contacts occurring per 30-second interval of play together. Contact is here used to refer to any leadership approach or any response. For the group, an average of 3.5 contacts took place per interval of play with accustomed playmates. For less—frequent play- mates, an average of 2.7 contacts were given and received per interval. The difference in social activity is thus only .8 of a contact per in- terval, in the direction of more social activity with accustomed play- mates. This difference is not large, but some individual differences were found to be larger. From Table XVIII we see that child A averaged 3.8 contacts per interval with accustomed playmates, and 2.8 with infre— quent playmates. Child I averaged 5.8 contacts per interval with accus- tomed playmates, and only 1.6 with other children less often contacted. Child K averaged 3.8 contacts per interval with accustomed playmates, and 60 TABLE XVIII DIFFERENCES IN ACTIVITY OF MOREsAND LESS—FREQUENT PLAYMATES Number of Contacts per 30-second Interval Child With 3 Most-Frequent With Other Playmates Playmates A000... 3.8 2.8 B 00.... 30C 3.2 C .00... 3.0 3.0 Deco-00 301 209 E 0.9... 3.2 3.0 F ...-00 309 202 G000... 3.0 3.0 H ...... 3.u 3.h I 000000 5.8 1.6 J ...... 3.1 2.6 K000... 3.8 2.11 LOCO... 3.8 2.8 Group Average.. 3.5 2.7 2.11 with others. On the whole, differences were not large or consistent enough to draw conclusions, except to say that since some individual dif- ferences were large, the matter of social activity might be considered one of individual reactivity of various child pairs. That is, some com— binations of children were evidently much more active in giving and re- ceiving social contacts than were others, and this characteristic was not necessarily related to the total amount of time which the children spent together. B. Intercorrelations between certain characteristics of the children and the frequency with which they exhibited certain types of behavior. When the 3 most-frequent playmates were listed for each child, some chil- dren were listed several times. A pOpularity rating from 1 to 12 was assigned to the children on the basis of the number of times they were 61 chosen by others as among the 3 with whom they spent the most time. One child was included by 7 others. He was the most popular of all. Then the rank of the children for popularity was compared with a rank given them on the basis of the percentage of leadership which each showed in his total social contacts. A correlation between the two ratings was ,computed, and was +.711, showing that a rather marked positive relation- ship existed between popularity and leadership. Next, a rank correlation coefficient was computed to show the rela- tionship of the ratings of the children for popularity and for percentage of verbal contacts. That correlation was +.l95, so nearly 0.00 that it showed that no relationship existed between the two ratings. In other words, there was no indication that the child who was most active social- ly was more than usually verbal in his contacts. A correlation of the ranking for percentage of leadership with rank for percentage of verbal contacts also showed a very low relationship. Here the correlation was -.O89, so nearly 0.00 that it showed that the child who ranked high as a leader by no means was also a child who was unusually verbal in his contacts. The correlation between rank for pOpularity and rank for amount of c00peration given and received in social contacts was +.5u2, showing that some relationship existed between the two. The two might be expected to be related, since the basis of rating for popularity was the number of times a child was included in the groups of most-frequent playmates, in Whose contacts cooperation was greater than in the contacts of other children. The correlation of rank for leadership and rank for amount of COOper— ation given and received in social contacts showed a marked relationship 62 between the two. Here, the correlation was +.71, showing that the child who ranked high as a leader, also ranked high for amount of COOperation occurring in his social contacts. From the individual percentages of each type of activity shown by each child, there seemed to be a tendency for the more verbal children to be more cooperative in their responses. The rank correlation between ratings for percentage of verbal contacts and for amount of COOperation occurring in social contacts bore out this observation. The correlation between the two ratings was +.3lh, showing a slight tendency for the more verbal children to have a greater amount of cooperation existing in their social contacts than the non-verbal children. This is perhaps an indi- cation that the verbal children were slightly better adjusted to the group than were the non—verbal children. Rank correlations between ratings of the children for certain char- acteristics and for frequency of exhibiting certain types of behavior were as follows: POpularity correlated with leadership .................. +.7ll Leadership with coOperation given and received ........ +.710 Popularity with cooperation given and received ........ +.5h2 Percentage of verbal contacts With COOperation given and received ................................ +.31h P0pularity with percentage of verbal contacts ......... +.l95 Leadership with percentage of verbal contacts ......... -.089 C. Individual differences in patterns of social contacts of socially active and socially inactive children. Some children were more active socially than others, and had a larger number of social contacts given and received. Table XIX shows the percentages of leadership, response, 63 TABLE XIX CONTACTS OF TWO SOCIALLY ACTIVE AND TWO SOCIALLY IN- ACTIVE CHILDREN Less-Active Children MoreeActive Children Chlld.A Child.B Child.x Child Y Number Percent :Nimber ercent 'umber Percent umber ercent Type of Contact Leadership and Response Leadership..... M7 30.1 73 11.2 180 62.5 1M1 nu.7 Response....... 109 69.9 10h 58.8 108 37.5 17h 55.3 Total.......... 156 100.0 177 100.0 288 100.0 315 100.0 Verbal and Noanerbal Verbal......... 38 2h.h 86 us.6 1h8 51.u 1M7 M6.7 Non-Verbal..... 118 75.6 91 51.h iuo h8.6 168 53.3 Total.......... 156 100.0 177 100.0 288 100.0 315 100.0 and verbal and non-verbal activity for the 2 children having the fewest social con- tacts. There were no consistent differences. .A slighthy larger percentage of the active children's contacts occurred as leadership rather than as response, but the difference was not pronounced. Also, the more active children showed.a slightly larger percentage of cooperative response, but again the difference was not pronounced. Percentages of verbal and non-verbal activity showed no perb ceptible relationship to the amount of total activity. In one thing there was a possible difference between the two active and the two inactive children. The non-cooperative responses of the less active chil- dren were passive to a greater extent than they were active, and the reverse was true of the more active children. Thus, the 2 less socially active children showed more ignoring and passive acceptance of others while the 2 more active children showed more of verbal and physical resistance. Table XX illustrates. For the socially inactive children, passive non-cOOperation was 76.9 percent and TABLE XX NON-COOPERATIVE RESPONSES OF SOCIALLY ACTIVE AND INACTIVE CHILDREN 6h Occurrence Less-Active Children More-Active Children Type of Contact Child A Child B Child.X Child Y Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Non-Cooperative Response Active nonpco- Operation...... 6 23.1 9 37.5 15 75.0 36 80.0 Passive non-c0- operation...... 20 76.9 15 62.5 5 25.0 9 20.0 All non-COOpera- tive response.. 26 100.0 2n 100.0 20 100.0 M5 100.0 62.5 percent of all non-cooperative response. For the socially active children, verbal and physical resistance were 75.0 percent and 80.0 pera cent of all non-cooperative response. The totals of the responses are so small, as is the number of cases, that the results of the comparison can form only the basis for speculation. Is there a possible tendency for less active children to have fewer social contacts because more of their non-cooperative responses are ignoring and accepting, responses which do not lead to further contact? CHAPTER IV SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Purpose The purpose of this thesis Was to study specific types of leadership and response behavior occurring in the social relationships of children, by means of observation of the free play of children in the nursery school. It was hoped that some information could be gained on the relative impor— tance of certain types of leadership according to how often they were used and how often they met with COOperation. Responses were studied as they occurred to specific leadership behavior and to specific children. The problems under consideration at the beginning of the study were these: to determine the importance of specific types of leadership and response behavior: to determine some responses made to certain types of leadership; to analyze individual responses for a) evidences of individual character- istic responses; b) evidences of effect on response of situation in which stimulus occurs or child from whom it comes; c) evidences of effect on response of comparative age of children or comparative frequency with which children play together. Method Diary records were made of the social actions of 12 nursery school children, age 3 years and M months to 5 years, during the morning hour of free and unsupervised play. The 12 children were observed for 3 min- utes each during the 1-hour period, until a total of 25 observations had been recorded for each child. Each child was also observed for a full hour during the month of February, when about half of the shorter observa- 66 tions had been made. During observations, a running account was made of the child's social activities, what he did and said, children he played with, and as much as possible of what these other children did and said to influence him. Later, the diary records were analyzed for evidences of leadership and response behavior according to categories of behavior derived from previous observations of the children. Eleven types of be— havior observed in the phay of children were decided upon as characteris— tic of leadership behavior, and 18 types of behavior as shOWing response to the leadership of others. Leadership was considered to be any behavior of a child which pro- duced an overt change in the behavior of another. Verbal leadership was any spoken word which produced, or was intended to produce, a response from another. Non-verbal leadership was that behavior, excluding speech, which influenced or was intended to influence, another child. Some ac- tions or words brought a response from other children when they had not been intended to do so. These actions or words were checked as uncon- scious leadership. Response occurred as an overt change in the behavior of one child because of the direct influence of another. Response, as well as leader- ship, was either verbal or non-verbal. Moreover, all response, verbal and non-verbal, was also classified as cooperative and non-cooperative. COOperative responses were those responses which indicated the child's willingness to continue the relationship on friendly terms, by responding to the leadership behavior of others in a cooperative way. Thus, comply- ing with requests, joining activities, and following directions were co- Operative responses. Non—cooperative responses were those responses which did not lead to further friendly relationships. Non-COOperation consisted 67 of active resistance, which showed an unwillingness to comply with the leadership of others, and passive ignoring and accepting, which showed a lack of desire for continued relationship. The following classifications of behavior were adopted: LEADERSHIP Non~Verbal Touch, approach Smile, nod, beckon Initiate act or game Hit, push, take something away Verbal Invite, call for attention Sing, say words, make noise Threaten Direct, command Suggest, request Tell to stop, forbid Start conversation RESPONSE Cooperative Non-Verbal Smile, laugh, nod Touch, approach Accept invitation, respond to call for attention Imitate act or join game Follow command or direction Carry out suggestion or request Add new ideas to suggestion given Verbal Imitate song, words, sounds Add verbally to a game Respond conversationally Invite self in Verbally accept demands, requests, prohibitions, etc. Non-Cooperative Non-Verbal 68 Resist physically Ignore Accept Retreat Ve rb_a_l_ Resist verbally Call help, cry Check sheets were used to convert the material from diary records to measurable form. On the check sheets, each item of leadership or response behavior was checked as it occurred for each child. A record was kept on the check sheet of the children between whom each incident of behavior took place, and specific responses were checked with the stimuli which brought them forth. Therefore it was possible to read from the check sheets the type of interaction between each child pair, the type of re- sponse brought forth by each type of leadership, and the frequency with which each child played with each other child. Checks for reliability and validity. To measure the reliability of the data, the totals for the 29 items of behavior checked for each child were compared for 12 odd~numbered days of observation, and for 12 even— numbered days. The average correlation betWeen the results of odd and even-numbered days of observation was +.726 for the group. Validity of data was checked by correlating the totals of items of behavior checked for each child during the 25 three-minute observations and during the 1- hour observation. The average correlation between the two types of ob- servation was +.7O for the group. A further check of the validity of the data was made by a comparison of the ratings of the children for 7 items of behavior according to the data obtained from observations, with ratings of the children for the same behavior items by their two teachers. The percentage of agreement between the teacher ratings and the ratings from 69 the observational data was 55.0 percent. Reliability of the analysis for leadership and response behavior was checked by giving a sample of 36 records of the 296 to a staff member for analysis. The analysis of the 36 records by the staff member was checked with their original analysis by the writer, and the percentage of agree- ment between the two found to be 60.1 percent. A reanalysis of the same sample by the writer produced a percentage of agreement of 80.3 percent with the first analysis, thus checking on the reliability of own analysis. The use of suggestions and reqpests compared with the use of commands and directions. The use of directions or commands to do a specific thing, was compared with the use of more tactful suggestion and requests. The success of the two methods of leadership was compared by measuring the percentage of c00perative response which each received. Then the use of each was determined, to see how often the 2 different types occurred in general usage, and to see which children were the most frequent users of each. In all, 172 directions were given, and 26h suggestions and requests. Of the totals, 70.9% of directions received c00perative response, and 63.6% of suggestions. Thus, directions received more cooperation. Only 5 chil- dren used directions often, and gave 120 of'the 172 recorded for the group. Nearly half of the directions which the 5 gave were given to each other, with the result that the use of directions was not widespread, but was reciprocal in a few combinations of children. Leadership and use of di- rections seemed positively related, since the 5 children using most of the directions were also the 5 ranking highest for leadership. All but one of the children used suggestions and requests frequently. In the different child pairs, one child gave more suggestions than his 7O partner, while the partner gave more suggestions than his next playmate in a different combination of children. Thus, suggestions were not as reciprocal a form of leadership as directions, although their use Was more widespread. Conclusions Types of leadership and response observed. A count of the number of items of leadership behavior recorded for the group disclosed that on the whole, verbal leadership occurred slightly more often than non-verbal leadership. Of a total of 268M instances of leadership, 1u17 or 52.1 percent were verbal, and 1267 or M6.9 percent were non-verbal. However, response was predominantly non-verbal. Of 2731 responses, 1777 or 65.1 percent were non-verbal, and only 95M or 3M.9 percent were verbal. In all, 30hh or 56.2 percent of the total of 5&15 contacts recorded for the group, were non-verbal contacts; 2731 or H3.8 percent of all, were verbal contacts. The largest item of leadership was initiation of an act or game in- fluencing another child. This type of leadership occurred 7&1 times, or 27.5 percent of all leadership. Almost half (h6.9 percent) of this type of leadership was not intended as a stimulus by the child initiating it. In the instances of unintended or unconscious leadership by initiation of an act or game, play material was present and important 237 times, or 68.1 percent of all. Play material was part of only 211, or 53.7 percent, of the instances of initiation of an act intended as an influence, and therefore was more important in unconscious leadership. The indication is that for the unconscious incidents, the response of the child probably was given to the situation or to the activity in progress more than to the 71 child initiating the act or game. Of the verbal leadership, inviting and calling for attention occur- red 295 times; singing or saying silly words occurred 297 times; start- ing a conversation occurred 277 times. These three were most frequent of verbal leadership, and were each about 11 percent of all leadership. Imitating an act or joining a game was the response most often record- ed, and totaled M36 or 16.0 percent of all responses. Responding conver- sationally (30h or 11.1 percent), ignoring (256 or 9.M percent), and re— sisting verbally (2M3 or 8.9 percent), were next in importance as responses recorded for the group. The two responses occurring least often were call- ing for help or crying (33 or 1.2 percent) and asking to be allowed to join an activity (28 or 1.0 percent). Non-cooperative responses totaled 807, and were 29.5 percent of all responses. Active resistance, verbal and physical, occurred in about equal numbers with passive acceptance and ignoring. Physical resistance totaled 113 or h.l percent of all response; verbal resistance totaled 2M3 or 8.9 percent. Passive acceptance totaled 115, or h.2 percent of all, while ignoring totaled 256 or 9.h percent of all. Retreating and calling for help or crying were seldom recorded. Retreat occurred M7 times, or 1.7 percent of all response, and calling help or crying occurred 33 times, or 1.2 percent of all. The ignoring response. Sometimes leadership initiated by the children failed to rouse a response in the child to whom it was directed. A count was made of the number of times each type of leadership was ignored, and the percentage of failure of each type computed. Five approaches were ignored in 18-22% of their incidence in the group. These five were touch or approach, invite or call for attention, threaten, forbid or tell to st0p, 72 and start a conversation. Inviting or calling for attention and starting a conversation were the 3rd and Nth in order of leadership most often used by the children as well as two of the most often ignored. In all, non-verbal approaches were more successful in gaining active response than were verbal. Only 7.3% of the non-verbal approaches were ignored, and 1h.7% of verbal approaches. Of the total of 268M incidents of leadership, 303 or 11.2% were ignored by the children to whom they were directed. There was some evidence that the child who ignored others most often, was apt to have fewer social contacts than the child who ignored others seldom. The M children who were responsible for 110 ignoring responses, 36.3% of all, ranked lower for number of social contacts than did the h children responsible for only 59 ignoring responses. A possible indica- tion is that some children were more responsive than others, and there— fore more socially active. Also, if ignoring others is an indication of lack of desire for social contact, then possibly the low number of. social contacts of the h frequent ignorers came as a matter of choice. One child who ignored the approaches of others more than any other child, ranked first in the group for leadership. However, on the whole, the difference in percentage of leadership of children who frequently ignored and children who seldom ignored others, was not strikingly differ— ent. Individual differences in patterns of social contact of socially active and socially_inactive children. As stated above, there seemed to be a slight tendency for children who ignored others frequently to have a small number of social contacts, and vice versa. To see what other possible differences might exist in contacts of socially active and in~ active children, a comparison was made of percentages of each type of 73 activity of the 2 children having the fewest social contacts, and the 2 having the largest number of contacts. The percentages of each activity showed very little difference between the 2 types of children, and no con- sistent differences, with one exception. For the socially inactive chil- dren, passive non—cooperation was greater than active non-COOperation, while the reverse was true for the socially active children. Passive non- cooperation consisted of ignoring, accepting, and retreating. Active non— cooperation consisted of verbal and physical resistance. For the social- ly inactive children, passive items were 76.9% and 62.5 of all non-co- operation; for the active childreh, active resistance was 75.0% and 80.0% of all non—cooperation. While no conclusions can be drawn from so few cases and so few responses, the indication here is that for these children, fewer social contacts accompanied more frequent non-cooperative responses of ignoring, accepting and retreating, which did not lead to further con- tact. Differences in social interaction of children of different ages. The 12 children directly observed for this study had some contact with 16 chil- dren of the younger group of the nursery school. A comparison was made of the interaction of the older with the younger children, and the inter— action within the older group. In all, there were 550 instances of con- tact recorded between the older and the younger children, and h865 in which . the younger Children had no part. The most striking difference in the interaction of the two groups was in the relative importance of non—verbal contacts in relationship with the younger children. For the older-younger group, non-verbal contacts were 70.U% of all contacts, while only 5M.M% of the contacts within the older group were non-verbal. Non—cooperative response was a slightly 71+ larger percentage of the contacts of the older-younger group than of the contacts within the older group. Non~c00perative response was 19.3% of the contacts in which younger children shared and 13.2% of the contacts of the rest of the group. Differences in social interaction of children playing more and less often together. Some children were observed to play together often, others had only casual contacts. A comparison was made of the types of leadership and response displayed by children who played together often, and children who played together only seldom. Children were judged infre- quent playmates if they spent fewer than 15 observed 30-second intervals together, and frequent playmates if they played together more than this time. The largest difference in the two groups was in the percentages of COOperative and non—COOperative response. The more-frequent playmates showed a smaller percentage of non-COOperative response and a larger per— centage of COOperative response than did less-frequent playmates. The difference was not large, so a second choice of even closer playmates was made to verify the finding. After a selection was made for each child of the 3 other children with whom he spent most of his time, the interaction of the resulting group of close friends was studied. The percentage of non—COOperative response for this group of close friends was the smallest for any group studied. For infrequent playmates, non-cOOperative response was 17.8% of all contacts; for more-frequent playmates, non-cooperative response was 13.7% of all; for the group of closest friends, nonacooperap tion was only 9.2% of all contacts. The indication is that non-COOpera- tive response becomes a smaller part of the total contacts as the children spend more time in mutual play. Further, the children who played together most often showed a higher 75 percentage of leadership in their contacts. For the group of closest friends, leadership was 6h.3% of all contacts; for all other groups, leadership was only about 50.0% of all contacts. There was also a slight tendency for the children to show more social activity with accus- tomed playmates, as measured by number of social contacts per 30 seconds of play. However, the difference was slight, and seemed to be related to the individual children and combinations of children. The intercorrelations of certain characteristics and types of be— havior found for the children. From the results of observations, the chil- dren were rated from 1 to 12 as showing much or little of certain char— acteristics and certain behavior. The ratings were for leadership, use of verbal contacts, amount of cooperation given and received, and popularity. The rating for leadership was assigned on the basis of the percentage of leadership each child initiated in his total social contacts. A rating for use of verbal contacts was given according to the percentage of verbal contacts initiated by each child in his total social contacts. The amount of cooperation given and received was measured by the percentage of non- cooperative response in the contacts given and received by each child. That child ranked first for cooperation whose contacts showed the small- est percentage of non—cooperative response. Popularity was measured by the number of times each child.was among the 3 most frequent playmates of other children. Each child was rated from 1 to 12 according to the above method, on each of M items. Rank correlations were then computed between their ratings for the items, to see whether a child possessing one characteristic might be expected to possess another stated characteristic, or exhibit specified behavior. The rank correlations showed: 76 That popularity and leadership were definitely and positively re- lated, r +.7ll. Leadership and amount of cooperation given and received were defi- nitely and positively related, r +.7l. POpularity and amount of COOperation given and received had some positive relationship, r +.5M2. COOperation given and received was somewhat related to the frequency with which verbal contacts were made, r +.31h. POpularity and frequency of use of verbal contacts had no observable relationship, r +.l95. Leadership had no observable relationship to frequency of use of verbal contacts, r -.089. One final conclusion which has been reached as a result of this study is that he who would know children must have his eyes, ears, and under- standing continually alert. The observational method followed here gave the observer a better understanding of the individual children, even on some matters not included in the study. Each child made his impression as an individual personality. This impression was intensified by the pro— cedure of recording each separate action as between two children, rather than as a group action. The final result of the study has been a better understanding by the writer of the interaction and personalities of 12 particular nursery school children, with data from records of their actions which may show trends for all children who play together, and which have been summarized in the foregoing chapter. BIBLIOGRAPHY Challman, Robert. "Factors Influencing Friendship Among Preschool Chil- dren." Child Development, N, 1933. 196—58. Cowley, W. H. "Three Distinctions in the Study of Leaders." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 23, 1928-29. inn-57. Fisher, R. A. Statistical Methods for Research Workers. Edinburgh, Lon- don: Oliver and Boyd; 1930. 283 pp. Garrett, Henry E. Statistics in PsycholOgy and Education. New York, London: Longmans, Green; 1926. 317 pp. Goodenough, Florence L. "Interrelationships in the Behavior of Young Children." Child Development, 1, 1930. 29-97. Green, Elise Hart. "Friendships and Quarrels Among Preschool Children." Child Development, N, 1933. 237-52. Green, Elise Hart. "Group Play and Quarreling Among Preschool Children." Child Development, n, 1933. 302-07. Jersild, Arthur T., and Fite, Mary D. The Influence of‘yursery School Experience on Children's Social Adjustments. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University; 1939. 109 pp., bibliography. Jersild, Arthur T., and Markey, Frances V. Conflicts Between Preschool Children. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Col- umbia University; 1935. 179 pp., bibliography. Koch, Helen Louise. "Popularity in Preschool Children: Some Related Factors and a Technique for its Measurement." Child Development, h, 1933. 169-75. Mallay, Helena. "Techniques of Successful Social Contacts at the Preschool Level." Journal of Genetic Psychology, M7, 1935. u31-57. Marston, Leslie. The Emotions of Young Children. in Jersild, Arthur T. Child Psychology. New York: Prentice-Hall; 1933. M62 pp. Parten, Mildred B. "Leadership Among Preschool Children." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27, 1932-33. M30-h0. Parten, Mildred B. "Social Participation Among Preschool Children." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27, 1932-33. 293-69. \ 78 Robinson, Mable H. A Study of the Personality of Twelve Children in the Nursery School by Analysis of Daily Five—Minute Narrative Records Over a Period of Six:W§eks. Unpublished Master's thesis: New York State College of Home Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; 19330 Thomas, Dorothy Swaine, and associates. Some New Techniques for Studying Social Behavior. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers Col- lege, Columbia University; 1929. 203 pp. Van Alstyne, Dorothy. Play Behavior and Choice of Play Materials of Pre- school Children. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1932. PP- Beaver, Alma Perry. The Initiation of Social ngtacts by Preschool Chil— dren. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College; 1932. 375—13. mm. “31 “M u . _.- 5.14?! v...» ...-.10 .I.I ...-...: J .....J l...| . . .I-..i. ‘I' all- I'll ”- 'I 1‘ Inuhllll 5 ,u-I‘.u‘- I ,Idnifilaflflll ‘II-I III I I I'll In ' t I {OJJfli‘ ‘ I 1111.4’iflI-‘.1uh‘ I‘lIl‘nU-‘I ‘IllildflhINI-q 1|.- lg..." 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