Mary F. Waldrop

Intensive and Extensive Peer Behavior: Longitudinal and Cross-sectional Analyses.

WALDROP, MARY F., and HALVERSON, CHARLES F., JR. Intensive and Extensive Peer Behavior: Longitudinal and Cross-sectional Analyses. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1975, 46, 19-26. Data on peer relations were obtained when a group of children were 2?z years old and again when they were 7?1/ years old. The children who at age 21/2 were friendly, involved with their peers, and able to cope with aggressive peers were likely, at age 7?1/, to spend many hours outside school with peers, to be socially at ease, and to be the ones who decided with whom they would play and what they would play. In other words, sociability at 21/ was positively related to sociability at 71/?. Social behavior at 71 had very different meanings for boys than for girls. The highly social boys, when with peers, tended to have extensive peer relations; that is, they usually played with groups of boys. The highly social girls, when with peers, tended to have intensive peer relations; that is, they usually played with only 1 other girl.

Relations between preschool activity and aspects of intellectual and social behavior at age 71/2.

The relations between preschool high activity and school-age behavior were explored. Two reliable clusters of observed behaviors, activity level and social participation, were associated with teacher ratings of vigorous, high-active play. These two factors and the activity ratings were significantly related to behavior at age 7Vi: For both boys and girls, vigorous, high activity showed considerable stability over 5 years. Vigorous, intense behavior expressed by high activity levels is negatively related to various measures of cognitive and intellective performance at IVi. Vigorous, intense behavior as expressed in social participation is positively related to the same measures of intellectual performance. The activity level component is highly related to an index of minor physical anomalies whereas the social participation component is not. There is some evidence and considerable speculation that early intense, high-energy behavior is implicated in the development of cognitive style differences and related social behavior in children. For example, Kagan, Moss, and Sigel (1963), Witkin (1963), Sigel, Jarman, and Hanesian (1967), and Pedersen and Wender (1968) have speculated that high magnitude activity level may be an important antecedent of various intellectual and social behaviors. The general hypothesis has been that high levels of activity and impulsivity tend to interfere with the development of behaviors conducive to