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Peer social skills in toddlers: competencies and constraints illustrated by same-age and mixed-age interaction
1Psychology Department, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260.
Insights
Toddlers can adjust social behavior to partner age. Even young children demonstrate rudimentary skills for adapting interactions in mixed-age peer groups, showing early social competence.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Neuroscience
Background:
- Social competence involves adapting behavior to context.
- Early peer interactions are crucial for social development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if toddlers can adjust social behavior based on partner age.
- To examine social interaction skills in same-age versus mixed-age toddler dyads.
Main Methods:
- Observation of spontaneous peer interactions in 18- and 24-month-old children.
- Comparison of interactions within same-age and mixed-age toddler pairs.
Main Results:
- Replication of known age-related differences in peer skills.
- Toddlers in mixed-age dyads adjusted behavioral content and complexity to partner age.
- Social behavior adjustments were interactive, depending on both child's and partner's age.
Conclusions:
- Toddlers possess foundational skills for adapting social behavior in mixed-age contexts.
- The mixed-age peer context uniquely facilitates the development of accommodation skills.
- Rudimentary social accommodation skills are evident by the second year of life.
Abstract:
One important aspect of social competence is the ability to accommodate social behavior to different contexts. Can children who are just beginning to acquire peer interactional skills adjust their social behavior to the age of their partner? 18- and 24-month-old children were paired in same-age or mixed-age dyads, and their spontaneously occurring peer interactions were observed. Previously documented age differences in peer skills were replicated. Additionally, toddlers in mixed-age dyads adjusted both the behavioral content and the complexity of their social behavior to the age of their partners. For initiations the effects were interactive. That is, children's adjustments in social behavior were a function of both the child's age and the partner's age. There also were age-related constraints on the accommodations that children made to one another. Speculations are offered about potential contributions to these developments during the second year. Results support arguments for the uniqueness of the mixed-age context, and show that by the second year children possess rudimentary skills to permit functional accommodations to this context.