Social Behavior and the Social Acceptance and Rejection of Children with Mental Retardation

Abstract

The present study examined pathways to social acceptance and rejection among peer groups consisting of children with mental retardation. Because previous research has found acceptance and rejection to be distinctly different dimensions of social status, separate paths of influence between children's actual behavior and their acceptance and rejection were hypothesized. Within both models, peer and teacher perceptions of behavior served as mediating variables. Children with mental retardation (N = 43) attending substantially separate classrooms were observed while working with their peers in groups on a cooperative task. In addition to observations of social behavior, measures of teacher and peer perceptions of behavior were also obtained. Children's sociometric choices for friends and non-friends represented their acceptance/ rejection. When predicting social acceptance, the frequency of peer interaction and peer perceptions of positive behavior were influential. When predicting social rejection, positive behavior of the target child and peer perceptions of negative behavior were influential. These findings indicated that the factors that influence acceptance are different from the factors that influence rejection. The results also suggested that educators' intervention efforts to improve children's social acceptance and reduce their social rejection need to address not only children's social behavior but also peer perceptions of their behavior.