Influential children in middle childhood peer culture: Effects of temperament and community culture

Abstract

For children in middle childhood, the social world, particularly the behavior and attitudes of their school peers, has been shown to be an important factor in their educational and mental health outcomes. In the school environment, some children seem to influence the attitudes and behavior of their peers more than others. The behavior patterns of children, as reflected in temperamental traits, have been shown to drive peer perception in important ways and might play a role in identifying the individuals and social processes that operate in peer influence. It seems likely that temperamental traits will have different effects on school peers, dependent on characteristics of the school attended. Fourth and fifth grade children from four rural counties in the southeastern portion of the United States were studied. Temperamental characteristics were assessed based on teacher perception of six characteristics. Peer perceptions of the extent to which each child was perceived to influence others in five areas of school culture (e.g., academics, sports) was measured through a peer nomination procedure. Additional status-related perceptions and behaviors of participating children were also assessed by peer nominations. Teacher ratings of temperamental behaviors were submitted to latent profile analyses resulting in a seven-cluster model. Results indicated temperamental profiles were significantly and meaningfully associated with peer perceptions of influence as well as social status. Further, demographic differences between two groups of schools were found to moderate the effects that temperament profile had on peer influence.