The Relationship between Social Competence and Popularity in Children

아동의 사회적 능력과 인기도간의 관계

The present research studied the relationship between children's social competence and popularity and examined popularity variables for the prediction of children's social competence. The subjects of this study were 80 children, 40 boys and 40 girls at age 5. Children's social competence was measured by the children's teachers with the use of the Social Competence Scale (Kohn & Rossman, 1972). Children's popularity and unpopularity were obtained from the subjects with the use of Moore's (1973) Sociometric Status Test. Teacher's estimate of the popularity of children was obtained with the use of Connolly & Doyle's (1981) Teacher Rankings of Popularity. The analysis of the data was by Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, and Stepwise Multiple Regression. There were significant relationships between children's social competence and popularity (children's popularity, children's unpopularity, teacher's popularity). Teacher's estimate of child's popularity was the best variable with which to predict children's social competence, the second best variable was children's popularity as measured by Moore's Sociometric Test.