2005, Vol.18, No.1

THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.67

pISSN : 1229-0718 / eISSN : 2671-6542
https://journal.kci.go.kr/baldal

The present study examined the hypothesis that children's theory of mind ability is related to their peer popularity. Fifty-one preschool children between the age of 4 and 6, and 67 second grade children completed a peer rating task to assess peer popularity. In addition, children were tested on six different false belief tasks. Teachers were asked to rate children's aggressive behavior, conventional social behavior, and intentional social behavior requiring theory of mind. Preschool children's popularity scores were significantly related to the theory of mind scores, the ratings of aggressive, conventional social, and intentional social behavior. In contrast, second grade children's popularity scores were related to the ratings of conventional social, and intentional social behavior, but not to the theory of mind scores. For the preschoolers group, the aggressive behavior was the best predictor of children's popularity, but for the second graders group it was the intentional social behavior. In addition, for the total group of children, the intentional social behavior was the best predictor of peer popularity. The pattern of results suggest that it is not the theory of mind ability itself that has impact on peer popularity. Rather, the social skills to put theory of mind ability to practical use is more important.

This study was aimed to investigate early predictors and impact of peer aggression and victimization on later behavior problems. A subgroup of children included in the Wisconsin Study of Child and Health (Essex, 2001) was assessed for child temperament, and maternal depression from infancy to preschool; child social perception skills in kindergarten; peer aggression and victimization in grade 1; and behavior problems in grade 3. Regression analyses showed that children are more likely to be aggressive or victimized in grade 1 if they earlier showed higher levels of anger-prone temperament, lower levels of social perception skills, and higher levels of maternal depression. Differential predictors were found for relational aggression and victimization: Girls are more likely to be relationally aggressive than boys; infants with high levels of reactive distress were more likely to be victimized in grade 1. Anger-prone temperament moderated the relation of maternal depression to peer problems: Children whose mothers were depressed were more likely to be aggressive or victimized if they were angry-prone and impulsive. Peer aggression and victimization assessed in grade 1 explained both internalizing and externalizing behaviors 2 years later as well as concurrently, even after controlling for early predictors (risk factors). The long-term prospective data in this study contributes to better understanding of how peer aggression and victimization develop and how they impact later behavior problems.

This study was designed to explore behavior and developmental evaluation in preterms at risk, full-terms at risk, and normal infants. Specifically the purposes of the study were to investigate behavior rating scale based on Korean Bayley Scales of Infant Development-Ⅱ(K-BSID-Ⅱ)(2004). The subjects were 116 infants, 39 preterms at risk infants, 38 full-terms at risk infants and 39 normal infants. The data were analyzed through Kruskal-Wallis, a correlation and multiple regrression test to examine the behavioral ratings. It was shown that there were significant differences among three groups in attention/arousal, orientation/engagement and motor quality and the sum of the behavior rating scale. In the terms of behavior rating scale, mental developmental index and psychomotor developmental index, preterms at risk-, full-terms at risk-, and normal infants showed substantial corrrelations to each other. There were some differences on the behavior rating scale depending on the age of the subjects. For the infants of 1 to 5 months of age, mental development index and pyschomotor develpoment index are correlated while behavior rating scale and psychomotor development index are correlated for the infants of 6 to 12 months of age. Authors discussed in terms of canalization theory and future infant developmental study.