Relations Among Social Behavior, Peer Relationships, Self-perceived Social Competence And Loneliness Of Children

Relations among children's social behavior, peer relationship, self-perceived social competence and loneliness have been an important topic in the field of childhood developmental psychology. Many domestic and western researches have demonstrated that social behavior have effects on peer relationship, and in turn peer relationship significantly predict loneliness, thus, researchers inferred that, peer relationship has mediating the effect of social behavior on loneliness. Meanwhile, researchers have also found the mediator effect of self-perceived social competence between peer relationship and loneliness. Based on these, whether social behavior has impact on loneliness through the multiple mediator effects of peer relationship and self-perceived social competence? Do these mediator effects exist? And what's the functioning pattern? Whether these results have consistency or differences between different cultures? There are very few researches on these problems, thus, it is necessary to investigate them.The present study tried to examine the function of social behavior, peer relationship(social preference and friendship quality) and self-perceived social competence to loneliness, based on this, investigate the differences and consistency of effect pattern and effect power in different cultures. Sociometric nomination, sociometric rating and questionnaire method were applied in this survey. 430 children in an elementary school of China from grade three to five, completed peer nomination, Friendship Quality Questionnaire, Class Play, and Who am I, in June 2003 and June 2004, and so did 165 children in an elementary school of America from the grade four to six in June 2004. Cross-sectional design, longitudinal design and cross-cultural design were employed in the present study. The data were mostly analyzed by SEM and MANOVA.The results showed:1. Significantly negative correlation was found between positive social behavior, social preference, self-perceived social competence, positive friendship quality and loneliness;significantly positive correlation was found between negative social competence, negative friendship quality and loneliness.2. There were significant grade difference on scores of self-perceived social competence and conflict and betrayal of friendship quality. Children of grade five getshigher score in self-perceived social competence than fourth grade, while children of sixth grade gets higher score in conflict and betrayal than grade four.3. There were significant gender difference on scores of overt aggression, passive-withdrawn and intimate exchange of friendship quality. Boys get higher score on overt aggression than girls, while girls get higher score on passive-withdrawn and intimate exchange.4. Results from SEM indicated that social behavior has impact on loneliness through 4 type mediator effect, social behavior—>social preference—?self-perceived social competence—^loneliness, social behavior—^friendship quality—?self-perceived social competence—^loneliness, social behavior—?friendship quality—^loneliness, social behavior—?self-perceived social competence—^loneliness;there are only indirect relation between loneliness and social preference, and there are direct and indirect relations between loneliness and friendship quality;self-perceived social competence is the most powerful predictor to loneliness.5. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that when the influence of self-perceived social competence was controlled, the former social preference and social behavior have no significant predict power to the latter loneliness, while the former self-perceived social competence and friendship quality could predict the latter loneliness significantly;meanwhile, the former loneliness also could predict the latter self-perceived social competence and friendship quality.6. Cross-cultural comparison indicated that there were significant cultural difference on scores of friendship quality, self-perceived social competence and loneliness. Chinese children get higher score in friendship quality than American children, while American children get higher score in self-perceived social competence and loneliness than Chinese children.7. Cross-cultural comparison indicated that there were no significant cultural difference on effect pattern(the form of model), social behavior can predict social preference, friendship quality and self-perceived social competence significantly, social preference and friendship quality could predict self-perceived social competence significantly;the comparison of path coefficient in the model indicated that the predict power of friendship quality to self-perceived social competence and self-perceived social competence to loneliness in China are greater than American's.