Social Cognition and Behavior Correlates of Preadolescent Chumship

MCGUIRE, KATHY D., and WEiSZ, JOHN R. Social Cognition and Behavior Correlates of Preadolescent Chumship. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 1478-1484. Previous research on children's friendship has often involved measures that actually gauge their popularity. The present study was an attempt to distinguish behavioral correlates of friendship from correlates of popularity. Friendship and popularity were construed as orthogonal factors. Friendship was defined in terms consistent with Sullivan's theory of preadolescent chumship. Popularity was operationally defined in terms of a traditional peer nomination measure. As predicted by Sullivan, children with friends were more likely than those without friends to display high levels of altruism and affective perspective-taking skill. By contrast, no measures showed significant effects of popularity. Overall, the findings suggest that operational definitions growing out of Sullivan's theory may enrich our understanding of friendship in childhood.