title: Social dominance in preschool classrooms.
abstract: The authors examined preschoolers' aggressive and cooperative behaviors and their associations with social dominance. First and as predicted, directly observed aggressive interactions decreased across the school year, and same-sex aggression occurred more frequently than cross-sex aggression. Next, the authors examined the relation between aggression and reconciliation, cooperation, and social display variables. Teacher ratings of children's aggression related to observed aggression but not to observed "wins" of aggressive bouts. Instead, wins were related to cooperation and display variables. Finally, they examined the relative power of wins and cooperation in predicting 2 measures of social dominance. After age was controlled, wins alone predicted teacher-rated social dominance. Results are discussed in terms of different forms of competition and how school ethos affects these forms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. pelle013@umn.edu
authors.forename: Anthony D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Pellegrini
authors.forename: Cary J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Roseth
authors.forename: Shanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mliner
authors.forename: Catherine M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Bohn
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Van Ryzin
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vance
authors.forename: Carol L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Cheatham
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tarullo
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012919:Social Behavior; D012930:Social Dominance; D012951:Socialization