Preschool teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotional reactions to young children's peer group behaviors

Highlights

• We explored preschool teachers’ views about children's different peer group behaviors.

• Overall, teachers expressed more negative views towards child aggression as compared to social withdrawal.

• However, teachers also made more nuanced distinctions among sub-types of both aggression and withdrawal.

• Exuberance and rough-and-tumble play were viewed comparatively positively.

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine preschool teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotional reactions in response to vignettes depicting a range of children's peer group behaviors. Participants were N = 405 female preschool teachers, aged 20–65 years (M = 41.54, SD = 10.50), recruited from childcare centers and preschools located primarily in Ontario, Canada. Participants read a series of short scenarios depicting hypothetical children engaging in a range of peer-group behaviors at preschool, including: (1) physical aggression; (2) relational aggression; (3) shyness; (4) unsociability; (5) rough-and-tumble play; and (6) exuberance. Following each vignette, teachers responded to a series of items assessing their attitudes (e.g., intent to intervene, tolerance), beliefs (e.g., implications for children's social and academic functioning), and emotional reactions (e.g., anger, worry) toward each child behavior. Results indicated that preschool teachers expressed more negative views in response to child aggression as compared to social withdrawal. Exuberance and rough-and-tumble play elicited comparatively positive, but also somewhat mixed responses. However, clear differences were also evidenced among sub-types of both aggression and social withdrawal. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications of teachers’ distinctions among different types of young children's peer-group behaviors at preschool.

Introduction

Preschool teachers may be the first important non-family adult with whom children develop a relationship (Dobbs & Arnold, 2009). Preschool teachers function as both a caregiver and educator by providing children with warmth and nurturance, as well as learning experiences that set the stage for children's future social, emotional, and academic success. The early childhood classroom is often children's first formal peer group – and it has been suggested that teachers of young children tend to emphasize the development of social skills as compared to academic skills (Del’Homme et al., 1994, Von Brock Treuting and Elliott, 1997). Accordingly, preschool teachers are thought to play a particularly critical role in the facilitation of children's social development (Kemple, 2004).

Past research suggested that teachers’ beliefs about child development not only influence their responses to children's classroom behaviors (Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988), but can also contribute to their teaching style and classroom decisions (Charlesworth et al., 1991, Sakellariou and Rentzou, 2011, Vartuli, 1999). Moreover, teacher beliefs both directly and indirectly impact child outcomes (Fang, 1996). For example, teachers’ beliefs about children's social characteristics have been found to affect their opinions about children's intelligence and academic abilities (Coplan et al., 2011, Espinosa and Laffey, 2003, Lerner et al., 1985). This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy (Hauck, Martens, & Wetzel, 1986), whereby teachers’ beliefs and responses may come to influence children's self-perceptions and outcomes. Teacher beliefs are also related to the development of teacher–child relationships (McAuliffe et al., 2009, Rudasill and Rimm-Kaufmann, 2009, Stuhlman and Pianta, 2002), which in turn, concurrently and predictively impact a wide range of child outcomes at school (Birch and Ladd, 1997, Decker et al., 2007Garner and Waajid, 2008, Mashburn et al., 2008). Finally, teacher attitudes and beliefs may help define a child's social reputation (Chang, 2003) and influence classroom norms by which students assess each other's likeability (Hughes, Cavell, & Willson, 2001).

Despite such previous research related to elementary school teachers’ attitudes and beliefs, such findings may not be directly generalizable to samples of preschool teachers. For example, elementary school teachers and preschool teachers differ in their educational background and accreditation (Coplan et al., 1999, Harwood et al., 2013), which may contribute to differences in their classroom strategies (Hadley, Wilcox, & Rice, 1994). There has been very limited previous research about preschool teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and emotional reactions toward specific child social behaviors in early childhood classrooms (Hurd & Gettinger, 2011). Moreover, to date, no previous studies have explored such perceptions across a broad range of children's peer group behaviors.

Understanding the distinctions that preschool teachers may (or may not) make among different types of children's social, asocial, and antisocial behaviors has important implications for the early identification of young children experiencing peer relations difficulties. Accordingly, the goal of the present study was to examine preschool teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotional reactions in response to hypothetical vignettes depicting preschool children displaying different forms of aggression (physical, relational), rough-and-tumble play, social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability), and exuberance.

In the present study, vignettes depicting two forms of aggression were included. Physical aggression refers to the intent to hurt or cause bodily harm to another, by using physical force such as hitting and pushing, or using physical intimidation and verbal threats (Crick and Grotpeter, 1995, Dodge et al., 2006). There is consistent empirical evidence to suggest that physically aggressive young children are at heightened risk for a wide range of maladaptive outcomes at school, including academic difficulties, peer rejection, and other externalizing problems (Campbell et al., 2006, Crick et al., 2006, Moffitt and Caspi, 2001, Ostrov et al., 2004).

Unsurprisingly, teachers tend to have quite negative views of young children's physical aggression, citing its adverse classroom effects and disruptive interference with teachers’ instructional and socialization tasks (Cunningham and Sugawara, 1988, Kedar-Voivodas, 1983). In response to a series of hypothetical vignettes depicting different classroom social behaviors, Arbeau and Coplan (2007) found that kindergarten teachers reported the least tolerance for physical aggression, and anticipated substantively negative social and academic implications for the hypothetical aggressive child. Consistent with this finding, elementary school teachers have also previously reported a high tendency to directly intervene in response to physical aggression in their classroom (Bauman and Del Rio, 2006, Yoon and Kerber, 2003).

Teachers’ emotional responses often affect the way they react to challenging situations (Hastings and Brown, 2002, Lucas et al., 2008). We were not able to locate any previous studies of teachers’ emotional reactions to physical aggression. However, mothers of preschool-aged children report feeling angry in response to hypothetical instances of young children's physical aggression (Mills and Rubin, 1990, Werner et al., 2006). Much of the previous research on teachers’ emotional responses involves children with disabilities, but findings show that teachers tend to report more anger toward child behaviors they feel are controllable (Lucas et al., 2008). Since teachers rate aggression as much more controllable than shyness (Arbeau & Coplan, 2007), it was expected that aggressive behavior will result in more self-reported anger from teachers than shyness.

Relational aggression is conceptualized as a non-physical form of aggression that harms others directly (e.g., threatening to end a friendship unless the friend complies with a request) and/or indirectly (e.g., persuades others to dislike a peer by spreading lies) through damage and manipulation of their social relationships (Archer and Coyne, 2005, Crick and Grotpeter, 1995, Crick et al., 2006). This form of aggression has been more often studied among older children, but it has been suggested that relational aggression tends to take a more direct form among preschoolers (Ostrov and Keating, 2004, Ostrov et al., 2004). There is also some evidence to suggest that relational aggression in preschool has negative social implications (e.g., peer rejection) and is associated with other behavior problems (Crick et al., 2006, Juliano et al., 2006Ostrov and Crick, 2007, Ostrov et al., 2008). Findings regarding academic performance are less consistent, with some researchers reporting negative links between relational aggression and indices of academic performance (Estrem, 2005) and others reporting positive associations (Bonica et al., 2003, Woods and Wolke, 2004).

Again, less is known about teachers’ attitudes toward relational aggression, particularly in early childhood. There is some evidence to suggest that pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers might have less negative views towards relational aggression as compared to physical aggression (Bauman & Del Rio, 2006). As well, Yoon and Kerber (2003) reported that elementary school teachers were less likely to intervene in response to relational aggression as compared to more overt forms of aggression. However, our review of the literature revealed only one previous study to date where researchers examined preschool teachers’ beliefs and responses to different types of aggression. Hurd and Gettinger (2011) provided 48 preschool teachers with hypothetical depictions of young children's physical versus relational aggression. Among the results, preschool teachers reported that they would be more likely to intervene and would do so with greater immediacy in response to physical as compared to relational aggression. Physical aggression was also perceived as being more hurtful and as having more negative consequences than relational aggression.

Socially withdrawn children remove themselves from opportunities for peer interaction in the classroom (Rubin, Coplan, & Bowker, 2009). Previous research has suggested that elementary school teachers are generally more tolerant of social immaturity (including social withdrawal) than they are of social defiance (including aggression) (Algozzine et al., 1983, Cunningham and Sugawara, 1988, Safran and Safran, 1984). Similarly, teachers tend to rate internalizing behaviors as less serious as compared to externalizing behaviors (Chang & Sue, 2003). However, similar to aggression, social withdrawal is no longer considered as a unidimensional construct (Coplan, Prakash, O’Neil, & Armer, 2004). Accordingly, in the present study, we included vignettes depicting two different types of social withdrawal: shyness and unsociability.

Shyness refers to wariness and self-consciousness in novel, social situations and instances of perceived social evaluation (Rubin et al., 2009). The school setting may be particularly stressful for shy children. For example, the presence of a large peer group and academic demands for verbal participation may serve to exacerbate shy children's feelings of social fear and self-consciousness (Coplan & Arbeau, 2008). At school, shy young children refrain from talking and often watch others’ social interactions without participating (Coplan et al., 2008, Roorda et al., 2011). From early childhood on, shyness at school is concurrently and predictively associated with internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, loneliness), peer relation difficulties (e.g., rejection, victimization), and academic under-performance (Coplan et al., 2007a, Coplan et al., 2008, Gazelle and Ladd, 2003, Hughes and Coplan, 2010).

Because shy children may be less disruptive to classroom functioning, teachers may have more positive attitudes toward them as compared to their more aggressive counterparts (Arbeau and Coplan, 2007, Coplan and Arbeau, 2008). Accordingly, it has previously been suggested that shy children may get “less noticed” by, and receive less attention from teachers (Evans, 2001, Rimm-Kaufman and Kagan, 2005; Rudasill & Rimm-Kaufman, 2009). However, results from other recent research suggest that teachers do perceive shyness as problematic (particularly in the peer domain) and will intervene to assist shy children (Arbeau and Coplan, 2007, Coplan et al., 2011, Roorda et al., 2011, Thijs et al., 2006). Coplan et al. (2011) also recently reported that elementary school teachers not only expected hypothetical shy children to do perform worse academically in their class (as compared to average and talkative/exuberant children), but also perceived shy children as the least intelligent (Coplan and Arbeau, 2008, Keogh, 2003, Lerner et al., 1985). Finally, consistent with results from similar research among parents (Mills & Rubin, 1990), teachers were also expected to react to child shyness with greater worry as compared to anger.

Unsociability (or social disinterest) refers to a non-fearful preference for solitude (Coplan & Weeks, 2010a). At school, although unsociable children may be content to play alone, they do not appear to fear or avoid opportunities for social interaction (Asendorpf and Meier, 1993, Coplan et al., 2004). Generally, unsociability is considered to be a relatively benign form of social withdrawal, particularly in early childhood (Coplan & Weeks, 2010a). In support of this notion, unsociability is typically not associated with indices of socio-emotional or academic difficulties (e.g., Coplan and Weeks, 2010b, Coplan et al., 2001Coplan et al., 2004, Harrist et al., 1997).

Very little is known about teachers’ attitudes toward unsociability in the classroom. It can be speculated that teachers may be more positively disposed toward children's unsociable behaviors because they maintain order in the classroom (Rubin, 1982). Our review of the literature uncovered only one previous study where researchers specifically examined teacher attitudes and responses toward children's unsociable behaviors. Arbeau and Coplan (2007) presented a sample of 202 kindergarten teachers with hypothetical vignettes depicting shy, unsociable, aggressive, and prosocial behaviors. As compared to aggressive and shy children, teachers reported greater tolerance, less perceived academic and social costs, and a lower likelihood of intervening in response to the unsociable vignette.

Rough-and-tumble play (RT) refers to playful fighting behaviors such as wrestling, kicking, and tumbling in a social context (Pellegrini & Smith, 1998). Although this form of behavior may appear similar to physical aggression, the playful signals that are evident during a rough-and-tumble interaction among friends may serve to discredit the intention to hurt or cause harm (Fry, 2005, Pellegrini, 2003, Pellegrini and Perlmutter, 1988). It has been suggested that RT has adaptive functions for young children, assisting in the establishment of dominance and promoting social cohesion among peers (Pellegrini, 2003, Pellegrini and Smith, 2005, Smith, 1982). RT in young children has been associated with positive outcomes in the social domain, including peer-liking and social competence (particularly among boys) (Colwell and Lindsey, 2005, Smith and Lewis, 1985). Indeed, socially skilled children employ RT as a playful and well-regulated form of peer interaction. However, among less socially skilled children, RT may more frequently degenerate into bouts of aggression and conflict, and may provoke peer rejection (Pellegrini, 1988).

Elementary school teachers tend to have a negative view of RT and often misconceive it as “real” aggression (Conner, 1989, Smith et al., 2002). Preschool teachers appear to have a more mixed view, acknowledging that RT may foster the development of children's social skills, but also expressing concerns about child safety and the belief that RT could promote physical aggression (Brett et al., 2002, Smith and Lewis, 1985, Tannock, 2008). These views are supported by a recent study by Logue and Harvey (2010), who found that 46 percent of preschool teachers sampled had a “no tolerance” policy towards RT.

The final vignette described behavioral exuberance, which denotes high levels of social approach, positive affect, and little to no fear in social situations (Fox, Henderson, Rubin, Calkins, & Schmidt, 2001). Exuberant young children tend to be socially dominant at preschool, but may also disrupt the classroom (e.g., interrupting, talking out of turn) and demand more attention from teachers (Kochanska et al., 2000, Stifter et al., 2008, Tarullo et al., 2011). Moreover, excessive exuberance also tends to co-occur with impulsivity, aggression, and other externalizing problems (Pettetier et al., 2006, Putnam and Stifter, 2005, Stifter et al., 2008).

Teachers might also be expected to have a mixed response to exuberant behaviors. On the one hand, socio-communicative behaviors are generally considered as important components of classroom learning (Butler, 1999, Daly and Korinek, 1980, Williams, 2006). Indeed, exuberant children tend to be judged by teachers as having better language skills and as more intelligent than less-talkative peers (Bell, 1995, Evans, 1996, Gordon and Thomas, 1967). As well, exuberant behaviors may be tolerated more in the preschool context than in elementary school because of age-normative expectations regarding (the lack of) regulation abilities in early childhood (Dennis, Hong, & Solomon, 2010). In contrast, the potentially disruptive nature of exuberant behaviors in the classroom may also lead to negative responses from teachers (Coplan et al., 2011, Nucci and Turiel, 2009, Stipek and Miles, 2008, Thijs et al., 2006). Accordingly, the exuberant vignette was included as a comparison for both aggressive (i.e., disruptive but not hurting others) and socially withdrawn (i.e., talkative as opposed to quiet) children.

The primary goal of this study was to examine preschool teachers’ attitudes (intervention intentions, tolerance), beliefs (implications for children's social and academic functioning), and negative emotional reactions (anger, worry) to a range of young children's classroom peer group behaviors. Drawing upon the extant theoretical and empirical literature presented in the previous pages, we hypothesized that overall, preschool teachers would report the more negative views (i.e., greatest likelihood of intervention; least tolerance; most anger and worry; most negative perceived social/academic implications) toward aggressive as compared to socially withdrawn behaviors. Within these broader behavioral categories, physical aggression was anticipated to be viewed more negatively than relational aggression and shyness more negatively than unsociability. Rough-and-tumble play was expected to be comparatively more positively perceived, whereas the exuberant child was anticipated to evoke more of a mixed response (e.g., more negative perceived social implications but more positive perceived academic implications).

Finally, teachers have been found to discipline their male and female students differently. For example, boys receive more commands, louder reprimands, greater disapproval, and more negative controlling behaviors from teachers as compared to girls (Stipek and Sanborn, 1985, Wittmer and Honig, 1988). As well, early childhood aggression and rough-and-tumble play are more common among boys, whereas relational aggression is more common among girls (Card et al., 2008, Colwell and Lindsey, 2005, Crick et al., 2006, Logue and Harvey, 2010, Mesman et al., 2008). However, in the present study we were interested in whether teachers might have more positive/negative responses to the same behaviors displayed by boys versus girls. In the few previous studies that have specifically examined this hypothesis in response, these types of gender differences have not typically been reported (Arbeau and Coplan, 2007, Coplan et al., 2011). Accordingly, no specific hypotheses were forwarded with regard to the gender of the hypothetical children.