Social information processing patterns, social skills, and school readiness in preschool children

Abstract

The links among social information processing, social competence, and school readiness were examined in this short-term longitudinal study with a sample of 198 preschool children. Data on social information processing were obtained via child interview, data on child social competence were obtained via teacher report, and data on school readiness were obtained via child assessment (early literacy skills) and teacher report (approaches to learning). Findings provided support for our hypothesis that both social information processing and social competence are related to school readiness. Social competence also partially mediated the link between social information processing and school readiness, thereby supporting our hypothesis about an indirect path in which mental processes are translated into social skills and then translated into school readiness.

Introduction

The link between children’s social information processing (SIP) patterns and their social skills has been well established in many studies, especially in school (e.g., Crick and Dodge, 1994, Dodge, 1986, Dodge et al., 1990, Dodge et al., 2002, Dodge and Price, 1994, Garner and Lemerise, 2007, Lansford et al., 2006, Schultz et al., 2004, Zelli and Dodge, 1999) but also during the preschool years (e.g., Hart et al., 1992, Katsurada and Sugawara, 1998, Runions and Keating, 2007, Ziv and Sorongon, 2011). Most of these studies have linked distorted SIP patterns with less competent social skills, but some (e.g., Mayeux and Cillessen, 2003, Nelson and Crick, 1999) have also reported strong links between more competent social information processing patterns and prosocial behavior. A different set of studies have found that children’s social skills are related to their readiness for school and later to their actual academic achievement in school (e.g., Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2011, NICHD Early Child Care Network, 2004, Pianta and McCoy, 1997, Zill and West, 2001), with children exhibiting more socially competent behaviors generally being in a better position to succeed academically in school than children exhibiting less competent social behaviors.

Nevertheless, no studies to date have examined whether and how social information processing patterns are related to school readiness and academic adjustment in preschool. Thus, given (a) the direct links between social information processing and social skills as well as between social skills and school readiness and (b) the apparent paucity in empirical examinations of the links between social information processing and school readiness, it seems that the purpose of the current study—to examine relations among SIP, social skills, and aspects of school readiness in preschool—is timely and needed.

This research is guided, both theoretically and methodologically, by the social information processing approach of Dodge and colleagues (Crick and Dodge, 1994, Dodge, 1986, Dodge, 2006). According to this approach, at the root of every social encounter is a series of stepwise mental mechanisms responsible for the processing of new social information. These mechanisms are activated in response to external social cues and deactivated on the individual’s enactment of a behavioral response and include (a) encoding of social cues, (b) interpretation of the cue, (c) clarification of goals, (d) response construction, and (e) response decision (Crick & Dodge, 1994). This is a circular process in which each mental step affects, and is affected by, a database for behavior in social encounters. During the early stages of this process, the individual selectively focuses on particular social cues and, based on these cues, interprets the context of the situation. During later stages, the individual accesses possible responses enacted in previous encounters and then stored in long-term memory. The individual then evaluates these responses and, based on this evaluation process, selects a response to enact (Crick & Dodge, 1994). The database that guides this process includes also acquired social rules and schemes that are highly influenced by past experiences. In every social situation, this database is presumed to guide one’s perception of appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors. If one’s database is distorted, it likely means that the knowledge of what is right or wrong, what is acceptable or unacceptable, and what is the correct response to a certain social situation is inaccurate (Dodge, 2006). This in turn may result in a faulty social decision-making mechanism that could inhibit social behaviors that contribute to positive developmental outcomes in favor of social behaviors that delay optimal developmental outcomes.

As mentioned, previous social information processing research had focused almost exclusively on socioemotional developmental outcomes, whereas this study aimed to examine whether these outcomes also include aspects of school readiness. Theory suggests, however, that if indeed social information processing is related to school readiness, this link is mediated via social behavior. First, this cognitive process fosters competent social skills and inhibits problem behavior (or, in the case of distorted processes, the other way around). Then, when children’s social skills are solidified, the path for competent and more efficient learning is paved (or, in the case of less competent social skills, is inhibited or blocked). To the best of our knowledge, this complete mediation path (social information processing via social skills to school readiness) has yet to be examined empirically. As mentioned above, however, the two separate paths that are included within this mediated model (social information processing to social skills and social skills to school readiness) were examined extensively in previous research. Findings from these two lines of research suggest that the assertion of a mediated path between social information processing and school readiness through social skills is plausible. In the next few sections, literature on these two separate paths is reviewed.

The social information processing approach presented above was proven to be quite effective in identifying unique patterns of social perceptions in school-aged children as a function of their social behaviors, particularly in relation to three of the five mental stages presented above: interpretation of cues, response construction, and response decision. Children with aggressive tendencies were found to have distorted social information processing patterns in each of these steps. They were found to be less accurate in their interpretation of peers’ social intentions (Dodge et al., 1984, Dodge and Price, 1994, Hart et al., 1992, Katsurada and Sugawara, 1998, Lansford et al., 2006, de Castro et al., 2005, Runions and Keating, 2007), more likely to construct aggressive or inept responses (de Castro et al., 2005, Schultz and Shaw, 2003, Webster-Stratton and Lindsay, 1999), and more likely to expect positive instrumental and interpersonal outcomes for an aggressive response (Crick and Ladd, 1990, de Castro et al., 2005).

Similar findings were also found in preschool children, although the number of studies conducted with this age group is much smaller. Katsurada and Sugawara (1998) showed that hostile/aggressive preschoolers were more likely than their less aggressive peers to attribute a hostile intent to another person’s actions. Hart and colleagues (1992) showed that preschoolers who engaged in more antisocial/disruptive behavior expected more positive instrumental outcomes for hostile methods of resolving conflict than their less disruptive peers. In more recent studies, Runions and Keating (2007) showed that hostile attribution measured during the preschool years is a better predicator of problem behavior in first grade than hostile attribution measured concurrently in first grade, and Ziv and Sorongon (2011) showed that preschoolers with aggressive tendencies evaluate better outcomes for aggressive responses.

Unique social information processing patterns were found not only for aggressive children. For example, Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, and Booth-LaForce (2006) found that, as opposed to aggressive children, shy/withdrawn children were more likely to attribute hostile intentions to unfamiliar peers than to familiar peers. These and similar findings (e.g., Hanish and Guerra, 2004, Rubin et al., 1993) led Burgess and colleagues (2006) to suggest that withdrawn children have distinctive ways of thinking about interpersonal interaction in light of their own experiences of rejection and victimization.

Finally, social information processing patterns have been found to also predict desirable, socially competent behavior (as opposed to the mere absence of maladaptive behavior). For example, Nelson and Crick (1999) found that children who were identified as prosocial by their teachers and peers showed significantly less hostile attribution bias than other children. Mayeux and Cillessen (2003) found that boys who were more socially popular generated more positive responses to ambiguous social situation compared with their less popular peers. Positive social interactions were also found to predict more competent social information processing patterns. For example, Ziv, Oppenheim, and Sagi (2004) showed that by 7 years of age, children who were classified as securely attached to their mothers at infancy exhibited more competent response evaluation patterns compared with children who had been classified as insecurely attached to their mothers.

Researchers have devoted much attention to the social skills of preschoolers and their possible contribution to school readiness and children’s adaptability to the formal school setting (Coolahan et al., 2000, Ladd et al., 1990, NICHD Early Child Care Network, 2004, Pianta and McCoy, 1997, Zill and West, 2001). Findings from this research have contributed to the notion that the emergence of the ability to establish effective and positive peer relationships in preschool is an important indicator of school readiness. For example, preschoolers’ ability to establish and maintain positive peer relationships has been found to be associated with a more positive transition to formal school settings as well as continued school achievement throughout the school years (Fantuzzo and McWayne, 2002, Hampton and Fantuzzo, 2003, Ladd et al., 1996, Ladd and Price, 1987). It has also been found that children who are rejected or not liked by others, and children who have negative peer interactions during the early years, are more likely to have negative outcomes during the school years and beyond, including poor academic performance and grade retention, high absenteeism, and negative emotional sequelae (Denham and Holt, 1993, DeRosier et al., 1994, Hartup and Moore, 1990, Kupersmidt et al., 1990, Ladd and Coleman, 1997, Parker and Asher, 1987, Wasik et al., 1993). In contrast, findings from six large-scale longitudinal studies, including the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), suggests that whereas academic skills such as early reading and math skills at kindergarten entrance were strongly predictive of higher grade academic skills, social competence and positive social behavior were not as predictive (Duncan et al., 2007).

Blair (2002), in an integrative review of the neurodevelopmental, socioemotional, and school readiness literatures, proposed a model of school readiness that emphasizes the importance of social and emotional capacities in the development of school readiness. This model posits that children’s emotionality and emotion-related functioning (implicitly including social functioning) influence neurophysiological maturation and the interconnections among the neuronal structures that underlie higher order cognition. Blair’s theoretical approach is complemented by the work of Eisenberg et al., 1997, Eisenberg et al., 2000, Eisenberg et al., 2004, who examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between maternal characteristics (e.g., emotional expressiveness) and aspects of children’s emotionality and social functioning throughout the school years. The findings of these studies suggest that children’s early socioemotional environment is associated with children’s emerging capacities to engage in effortful control and emotion-regulated behavior, which in turn are associated with social competence and then with positive adjustment to and achievement in school.

In conclusion, existing findings are inconclusive about the existence of a link between social competence and academic competence and also about the direction of effects between these two competencies (Kupersmidt and Coie, 1990, O’Neil et al., 1997, Wasik et al., 1993, Welsh et al., 2001). However, the examination of the existing research along with the consideration of models such as Blair’s suggests that this path is plausible but may be more complex than originally envisioned. At least part of this complexity may be attributed to the role that social cognitive processes play in the interplay between behavior and cognition.

The social information processing approach guiding this study suggests that the interplay between children and their environments, whether interpersonal or academic, are encoded, interpreted, organized, and stored in memory to be translated into mental models or schemas that inform subsequent exchanges (Burks, Laird, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1999). In this way, early social information processing patterns may persist in their contribution to children’s social behavior in school, thereby impacting later school readiness and academic success. As long as these processes are not biased, they do not interfere with the learning process and children may be able to devote adequate mental resources to academic tasks. However, social information processing distortions may put children at a considerable disadvantage in the classroom because they may misinterpret others’ intents, devote considerable resources to negative emotional processes, and translate these emotions into less competent social behaviors. These distortions could then serve as self-fulfilling prophecies, with others starting to hold negative attitudes and intents toward the maladjusted children, making their task to maintain academic readiness harder because of the negative social environment that is building around them.

Although this explanation is theoretically plausible, there are many other factors that may be more clearly related to academic achievement. For example, there is abundant literature supporting the role of children’s cognitive abilities in school readiness (Bickham et al., 2001, Duncan et al., 2007), in particular executive functions (e.g., Riggs et al., 2003, Zelazo et al., 1997), preliteracy (e.g., Hart and Risley, 1999, Jordan et al., 2000, Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998), and prenumeracy skills (e.g., Sophian & Vong, 1995). Thus, when examining links between social cognitions and aspects of school readiness, one must carefully consider the types of school readiness factors that are most likely to be influenced by these social cognitive processes. From this perspective, an aspect of school readiness that seems to be especially vulnerable to social information processing disruptions is children’s approaches toward learning.

Approaches toward learning are defined as the individual characteristics and observable behaviors that children show while taking part in learning activities (McWayne, Fantuzzo, & McDermott, 2004) and include behaviors such as persistence, motivation, attentiveness, flexibility, and organization (Fantuzzo et al., 2007, McWayne et al., 2004). The successful acquisition of these behaviors during the preschool years is considered to be a vital first step toward a smooth transition into the more formal and strict school environment (Li-Grining, Votruba-Drzal, Maldonado-Carreño, & Haas, 2010). Many recent studies have shown that approaches to learning are negatively related to children’s problem behavior and positively related to their positive social skills (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2011, Escalon and Greenfield, 2009, Fantuzzo et al., 2005). Because approaches to learning represent basic perceptions about school, these may be more vulnerable to other types of social perceptions of peers that are a major part of the school experience. Therefore, in the current study, a measure of approaches to learning as an indicator of school readiness is also included.

However, measuring school readiness only through children’s approaches to learning does not take into account cognitive abilities such as early literacy that are still considered the core of academic competence. In the only examination of links between social information processing and such skills, Runions and Keating (2007), using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study of early child care and youth development, reported that kindergarten children with higher literacy skills were more likely to attribute benign intents to peers in ambiguous social situations and were less likely to attribute hostile intents to peers demonstrating aggressive responses. In the current study, the same early literacy measure used in Runions and Keating’s report, the Picture Vocabulary subtest of the Woodcock–Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery–Third Edition (McGrew & Woodcock, 2001), is also used.

Based on the above review, the first hypothesis of this study is that social information processing patterns will be significantly and positively related to children’s social competence and that social information processing and social competence will be positively related to school readiness. The study’s second hypothesis is that social competence will mediate the link between social information processing and school readiness such that the indirect path between SIP and school readiness via social competence will be significant. The complete hypothesized structural model guiding this study is presented in Fig. 1.