Automatic Versus Reflective Social Problem Solving in Relation to Children's Sociometric Status

Children's automatic and reflective social problem-solving skills were compared by requiring them to generate solutions to hypothetical social problems immediately after hearing them or after being required to wait 20 s before answering. When responding immediately, a condition designed to evoke Ss' automatic response tendencies, both aggressive and nonaggressive, rejected boys generated fewer verbal assertion responses and more conflict-escalating responses than did nonrejected boys. When required to delay before responding, a condition that encouraged reflective reasoning, only the responses of aggressive rejected boys differed from those of nonrejected boys. Similar status-related differences in the solutions proposed by female Ss were not found. The implications of these findings for aggressive and rejected children's social problem-solving deficiencies are discussed.

Duke Scholars

Author David Rabiner Psychology & Neuroscience