Peer Interaction and Cognitive Development.

RARDIN, DONALD R., and MOAN, CHARLES E. Peer Interaction and Cognitive Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 1685-1699. 81 children from 1 classroom each of kindergarten, first, second, and third grades were ranked on measures of popularity, cognitive and social development. The measure of social development, developed for this study, consisted of combined ratings from 4 measures: Reason for Friendship, Stability of Friendship, Names Not Known, and Congruency of Friendships. The 2 measures of physical concept development were conservation and classification. Piaget proposed that, during the grades studied, physical and social concepts are closely related to each other and are parallel in their development. He also proposed that various systems of cognition are becoming interconnected during this period and that peer interaction is a causal force helping to bring about this qualitative change in cognition. 2 hypotheses, based on these formulations, were examined. The first, that peer relations develop in a manner parallel to the development of physical concepts, was significantly supported. Both cognitive and social skills progress from kindergarten through the third grade in a similar manner. A second hypothesis was that a child's cognitive development would be directly affected by the quality of his peer relations, as judged by popularity rankings. Popularity was found to be closely related to social development, but its relations to measures of physical concept development were relatively minor.