Social dominance in preschool classrooms

Anthony D. Pellegrini, Cary J. Roseth, Shanna Mliner, Catherine M. Bohn, Mark Van Ryzin, Natalie Vance, Carol L. Cheatham, Amanda Tarullo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

101 Scopus citations

Abstract

The authors examined preschoolers' aggressive and cooperative behaviors and their associations with social dominance. First and as predicted, directly observed aggressive interactions decreased across the school year, and same-sex aggression occurred more frequently than cross-sex aggression. Next, the authors examined the relation between aggression and reconciliation, cooperation, and social display variables. Teacher ratings of children's aggression related to observed aggression but not to observed "wins" of aggressive bouts. Instead, wins were related to cooperation and display variables. Finally, they examined the relative power of wins and cooperation in predicting 2 measures of social dominance. After age was controlled, wins alone predicted teacher-rated social dominance. Results are discussed in terms of different forms of competition and how school ethos affects these forms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)54-64
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Comparative Psychology
Volume121
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2007

Keywords

  • Aggressive behavior
  • Contest competition
  • Cooperation
  • Preschoolers
  • Scramble competition
  • Social dominance

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