The goal of this article was to investigate an indirect form of intergroup differentiation in children in the context of racial attitudes: the preference for ingroup members who interact positively with other ingroup members rather than with outgroup members. Study 1 confirmed this general hypothesis with preschool and 1st-grade children,…

Results did not support previous work suggesting large amounts of communication failure in the spontaneous talk of 4-year-old children. (Author)

Group play increased and solitary play decreased during the nine-month period children were studied, while parallel play did not vary much in overall occurrence. (CM)

Mexican-American, Negro, and Anglo-American children participating in a two-person, two-choice game, showed that similar female ethnic pairs cooperated significantly more than dissimilar pairs; that females in the three groups differed significantly in the amount of cooperative behavior, and that reinforcement did not affect cooperative behavior.…

This study investigated the effects of teaching sociodramatic scripts on interactions among three triads, each containing two typical preschool children and one child with autistic characteristics. Results supported the inclusion of systematic training of scripts to enhance interaction among children with and without disabilities during…

This study sought to describe the norms of reciprocity in social interaction from the viewpoint of immediate behavioral exchanges by examining the social interaction of preschool peers in a free-play situation. Seventeen 4-year-old children, eight girls and nine boys, were observed during free play activity periods after a picture sociometric test…

This study was designed to: (1) obtain ecological data on the social behaviors of children in the preschool classroom especially in freeplay settings, and (2) identify characteristics of the physical environment and program variables which support, attenuate, or preclude social behaviors and social development. Observations were made of 16 3-, 4-,…

Dyadic free play of 32 preschool children (16 deaf and 16 hearing) was videotaped on two occasions; each child was observed once with a deaf partner, once with a hearing partner. Results are discussed in terms of the social interactions of hearing and deaf children, with particular attention to the characteristics of initiation attempts.…

Presents two studies of preschool children, which test the hypothesis that a child's scores on two factor-analytically derived dimensions of social-emotional functioning are directly related to the frequency and type of his peer interactions. (Author/SDH)

This investigation probes nursery school activities and children's interactions in relation to private and communal property. Analysis of 27 hours of taped interaction spread over 4 months of participant observation reveals that children attempt to gain access to private property in a different way than they try to obtain access to communal…

This conference paper attempts to describe some of the ecological conditions under which children's social behavior can be, and perhaps is, organized. Thirteen preschool children between 2-1/2 and 5-1/2 years of age, participated in several experiments with confederates acting as peers and with novel as well as familiar toys. Four behavior…

Group and family day care settings were compared with respect to 16 child, teacher, and environmental variables. A total of 25 children, ranging in age from 3 to 5 years, served as representatives of group day care; 16 children, also ranging from 3 to 5 years in age, served as representatives of family day care. Child variables of interest were…

An investigation of peer relationships through longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of 62 children at age 2 1/2 and again at age 7 1/2. These studies specifically examined the differentiation and location of correlates of intensive and extensive peer relationships, sex differences in peer behavior, and the nature of peer-oriented behavior for…