Deviancy Training:Peer Social Process and Young Children

Wichita State University, Wichita KS

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objectives of the proposed project are the reduction of mental health problems through the specification of mechanisms of peer influence in early childhood, which impact the development of conduct problems. These goals will be accomplished by an investigation of a new and relatively inexpensive observational method to assess children's deviant talk/role taking early elementary school and the social mechanisms which promote and sustain deviant talk/role taking. The psychometric properties of the observational measure of deviant talk/role taking, will be assessed. A developmental analysis using a two-part growth model to handle censoring will examine changes in deviant talk/role taking across the school year. A binary growth model will be used to evaluate the presence or absence of deviant talk/role taking across four assessment points in the school year. In the second part of the model, growth in deviant talk/role taking will be examined. The next step will be to determine the relationship of deviant talk/role taking to aggression, and overt and covert conduct problems. The final goal will be to examine the peer process in deviant talk/role taking at two levels; a macro level examining social contagion to determine if there is an increase in prevalence in deviant talk/role taking during the school year, and a more micro level to determine the social learning mechanisms in peer interactions and deviant talk/role taking. The macro level will be evaluated using the change in prevalence assessed by the binary part of the growth model. The micro level analyses will utilize a new methodology of random effects multi-level Cox model to determine the impact of peer responses to deviant talk/role taking on the hazard to the next occurrence. The Cox model will also allow for the evaluation of the relationship of peer rejection and selective affiliation. In the proposed research, a new investigator plans to collect and analyze observations of peer deviancy training and the social mechanisms of deviancy training operating in deviant talk/role taking, as well as various forms of concurrent aggression and overt and covert conduct problems in an early elementary school population. The proposed project aims to identify the peer interactions which lead to the development and promotion of deviancy training in early childhood and the relationship to conduct problems. This will be done through observation of peer interactions and analysis of the relationship of these interactions to the development of conduct problems.