The influence of child attributes and social-situational context on school-age children's risk taking behaviors that can lead to injury

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Abstract

Many injuries occur to school-age children when they are allowed independence in decisions about risk taking during play. The present study examined the influence of child attributes (sensation seeking, typical emotional responses in risk situations) and social-situational context (peer presence) on risk taking. Children in the Experimental Group made decisions about risk taking with an unknown same-sex peer present and watching, while those in an age and sex-matched Control Group made decisions without a peer present. Results revealed that children who were high in sensation seeking and typically experienced excitement more than fear in risk situations engaged in greater risk taking. The presence of an observing peer, even though the peer was unknown to the child and said nothing, also was associated with greater risk taking. A regression analysis indicated that risk taking was predicted both from child attributes (sensation seeking) and emotion-based (fear) factors. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Introduction

Unintentional injury poses a significant health threat to children. Identifying factors that elevate children's risk of injury is essential to support the development of evidenced-based prevention programs. In the present research child attributes and social-situational context were studied, with the aim of identifying factors associated with increased risk taking (i.e., engaging in a behavior that could result in physical injury when there are alternative behaviors that do not do so).

In Canada and the United States, as in most other industrialized nations, unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children and youth over 1 year of age (Baker et al., 1992, Barnhorst & Johnson, 1991, Canadian Council on Social Development & Scott, 1996). Injury is also a leading cause of hospitalization during childhood (Baker et al., 1992, Canadian Institute of Child Health, 1994). In the United States, for example, approximately 25% of children require medical attention for injuries each year (Scheidt et al., 1995). Boys generally engage in greater risk taking (Ginsburg & Miller, 1982, Hillier & Morrongiello, 1998, Morrongiello, 1997, Morrongiello & Rennie, 1998, Rosen & Peterson, 1990) and sustain more frequent and serious injuries than girls (Baker et al., 1992, Canadian Institute of Child Health, 1994, Rivara et al., 1982, Rivara et al., 1989). The scope of the child-injury problem has led some to argue that childhood injury is the “last of the great plagues to be the subject of scientific inquiry” (Haddon, 1984, p. xxvii).

Because the economic and personal costs of injury are staggering, there have been numerous calls for research to identify factors that elevate children's risk of injury so that prevention programs can be developed to address these issues (Finney et al., 1993, Roberts, 1995). For pre-school children most injuries occur in and around the home (Shannon, Bashaw, Lewis, & Feldman, 1992). Consequently, most research targeting injury-risk among young children focuses on caregivers' beliefs and/or behaviors (e.g., Lewis et al., 2004, Morrongiello & Kiriakou, 2004). For school-age children, however, injuries most often occur when they are away from the home and making independent decisions about risk taking or doing so in the company of peers (Morrongiello, 1997, Shannon et al., 1992, Scheidt et al., 1995). Hence, studies of injury risk at these ages often focus on social-situational factors (e.g., peer influences) and individual child attributes. Both of these topics are considered below.

Research demonstrates that the peer group takes on increasingly greater importance in determining children's behavior and attitudes during the school years (Erwin, 1993, Tinsley, 1992). Indeed, some have argued that one of the greatest risk factors for injury to school-age children is the social context, specifically, the presence of peers (Sandels, 1977, Wilson et al., 1991). Hence, research on the social-situational context of risk behavior is particularly important for understanding injuries during the elementary school years.

A number of aspects of the social-situational context have been investigated and shown to influence children's perceptions of risk, as well as their intentions to risk take. For example, the persuasive verbal appeals of older siblings and close friends have been shown to influence children's risk decisions (Christensen & Morrongiello, 1997, Morrongiello & Bradley, 1997, Morrongiello & Dawber, 2004). Moreover, the number of persuasive appeals and quality of the relationship between the persuader and persuadee mediates the impact of these verbal communications on the child's risk-taking decisions. Persistence pays off for the persuader, with greater compliance by the persuadee more likely to occur with increasing number of persuasive appeals (Morrongiello & Bradley, 1997). Children also are more likely to go along with encouragements for greater risk taking when they highly value the relationship with the persuader (e.g., Christensen & Morrongiello, 1997; Duryea, Ransom, & English, 1990; Morrongiello & Bradley, 1997; Morrongiello & Dawber, 2004). Hence, verbal communications from friends in the social-situational context influence children's risk-taking decisions.

Evidence indicates too that school-age children are influenced not only by verbal messages from children they know who are in the immediate social-situational context but also by non-verbal communications based on the facial displays of unknown children they are observing who are engaging in risk behaviors in the situation (Morrongiello & Rennie, 1998). Hence, children rate risk as lower and indicate greater readiness to imitate risk behaviors if the child observed shows a facial display that communicates confidence when engaging in risky play behaviors.

Alternatively, observing children who appear wary and uncertain while engaging in risk behavior leads to greater ratings of injury risk and refusal to engage in the risk behaviors modelled. Interestingly, these observational-based influences on risk appraisal and modelling of risk behaviors occur even though the child being observed is a complete stranger to the child observing. Thus, children's risk taking also is influenced by non-verbal, observation-based information about risk that is communicated by complete strangers who are engaging in the risk behaviors the observer is considering doing.

Building on the latter findings, another goal of the present study was to determine if the mere presence of a same-sex age-mate was sufficient to influence risk taking. Children have been shown to engage in greater risk taking in the presence of an unknown peer when the task poses no physical threat of injury, with this effect particularly strong for boys (e.g., playing a board game; Miller & Byrnes, 1997). However, whether children engage in greater injury-risk behavior in reaction to unknown children observing them is highly relevant to prevention programming and remains to be determined.

Considerable research has sought to identify individual attributes that are relevant to understanding injury risk in children. Studies have examined aspects of temperament (Schwebel & Bounds, 2003, Schwebel & Plumert, 1999), activity level (Davidson, 1987, DiScala et al., 1998, Farmer & Peterson, 1995, Wazana, 1997), aggressive behavior (Bijur et al., 1988, Bijur et al., 1986), perceptual analysis skills (Hillier & Morrongiello, 1998), oppositionality (Schwebel, Speltz, Jones, & Bardina, 2002) and estimation of physical abilities (Plumert, 1995, Plumert & Schwebel, 1997, Schwebel & Plumert, 1999). Generally, these studies have yielded mixed results regarding the relevance of these attributes for understanding child-injury risk. Surprisingly, however, there has been virtually no research on sensation seeking and emotional responses to risk in children, although research with adults and adolescents indicates that these attributes reliably influence risk taking.

Sensation seeking is a stable personality trait associated with daring, thrill-seeking behaviors and the need for novelty and risk exposure. Hence, adults high in sensation seeking engage in greater physical risk taking than those low in sensation seeking (Barnea et al., 1992, Caspi et al., 1997, Zuckerman, 1979, Zuckerman, 1994). Similar findings are evident in research with adolescents. For example, adolescents high in sensation seeking engage in greater health-risk behaviors, such as drug use, smoking, and drinking (Barnea et al., 1992; Clayton, Cattarello, & Walden, 1991; Zuckerman, 1979). Thus, research with adolescents and adults suggests that sensation seeking is a personality attribute that may be relevant to understanding children's physical risk taking.

The contribution of emotions is also emerging as an important factor in children's risk taking. School-age children draw on emotions communicated by a peer when appraising extent of risk of the peer's behavior, rating injury risk as greater when observing a risk-taking peer who looks fearful as opposed to excited and confident (Morrongiello & Rennie, 1998). Children differentially experience fear and exhilaration in reaction to simulated risky play situations (Peterson, Gillies, Cook, Schick, & Little, 1994) and anticipated emotions predict risk-taking decisions (Morrongiello & Matheis, 2004). Specifically, when asked about hypothetical injury-risk situations, children who anticipated feeling excited in the situation endorsed greater risk behaviors and those who anticipated feeling fearful endorsed less risk taking. Children did not, however, actually have to engage in risk taking, they merely reported on how they believed they would behave. Hence, the relation between emotion-based responses and risk behaviors needs to be examined in a task that has greater ecological-validity and that actually involves physical risk taking. One goal of the present study was to address these outstanding issues by examining the relations between actual risk taking and the child attributes of sensation seeking and children's emotion-based responses in ecologically valid risk situations.

In an effort to study risk taking in an ecologically valid way, children participated in a task that actually posed risk of physical injury. For the risk taking task, children were asked to choose from a set of alternatives of varying risk involving a balance beam type apparatus. When selecting their own desired level of risk (i.e., height of beam), they were told that they would be expected to walk across the beam at the chosen level. Those in the Experimental group were asked to make their height selections after being informed that an unknown same-sex peer would be watching silently. It was expected that children would choose a higher level of risk (i.e., height of beam) when responding in a peer's presence than alone. However, Morrongiello and Dayler (1996) had reported that 65% of parents attributed boys' greater risk taking to their being more easily influenced by peers than girls. Consistent with this, boys have been shown to be influenced more than girls by peers when risk taking in non-injury contexts (Miller & Byrnes, 1997). Hence, in the present study we considered that the impact of peer presence on risk taking might be greater for boys than girls.

In addition, each participant completed measures of child attributes that were thought likely to relate to their performance in the present study. A measure of sensation seeking was taken to determine if children higher in the personality attribute of sensation seeking would choose riskier alternatives. Children also completed a questionnaire about typical emotional reactions in risk situations in order to determine if children who reported usually experiencing fear in risk situations would show reduced risk taking and those who typically experience excitement would show greater risk taking. Peer pressure may come not only in the form of overt persuasion or teasing, but in the strength of children's own beliefs that their peers are judging their performance. Hence, some children possess attributes or beliefs that make them more susceptible than others to peer presence. To examine this possibility, children in the present study completed measures of need for approval and fear of negative evaluation. It was expected that children high in need for approval and/or fear of negative evaluation would be particularly vulnerable to the influence of peer presence, and would therefore choose a higher level of risk in the presence of the unknown same-sex peer. Finally, to address the question of the validity of the present task, children completed a measure of typical level of engagement in injury-risk behaviors, with the expectation that scores on the present task and this questionnaire measure would be positively correlated if the present measure is a good indicator of injury-risk behavior.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants included 90 children (42 boys and 48 girls) between 9 and 10 years of age (M = 9.39, SD = .49). Half the children (equal numbers of males and females) were randomly selected from a data base of families interested in participating in research studies on child development; the rate of success in recruiting participants was approximately 65%. The remaining half was then matched in age (within 3 months on either side of the birthdate) and sex to this group, and also selected from the data

Assessment of task validity

In order to assess the validity of this new laboratory task, preliminary analyses were conducted comparing performance on the task with typical levels of risk taking as reported on the Injury Behavior Checklist. Actual risk taking in the present task positively correlated with reports of typical levels of injury-risk behavior, as reported on the IBC, r(89) = .33, p < .001. Thus, children responded in this laboratory task in ways consistent with how they typically respond in risk situations (i.e.,

Discussion

One significant challenge to studies that aim to identify factors that influence children's risk-taking behavior is to determine an ecologically valid measure of risk taking. One needs a task that actually poses some threat of physical injury but this must be deemed an acceptable level of threat by parents, ethics review boards, and children. The balance beam task used in the present study fulfilled these requirements. Moreover, children who engaged in greater risk taking on this task also

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a grant to Barbara A. Morrongiello from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The authors extend their appreciation to the school staff for the welcome, the children for their enthusiastic participation, the research assistants (Meghan McCourt, Natalie Johnston) for their meticulous attention to detail and unflagging enthusiasm and humor, and to Mike Corbett for assistance with data analysis.

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