SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SELF-ENHANCEMENT IN CHINESE CHILDREN - A COMPARISON OF SELF-REPORTS AND PEER REPORTS OF GROUP MEMBERSHIP

Children's self reports of social groups were compared with the social groups identified by a consensus judgment of their peers. The subject s were 138 Chinese 4th grade students (mean age = 9.91) from a primary school and 167 Chinese 7th grade students (mean age = 13.09) from a s econdary school, both located in Hong Kong. Following the Social Cogni tive Map (SCM) procedure, students were asked to identify the social g roups within their grades, including their own groups. The subjects al so rated themselves on multiple domains of competence. Their teachers rated them on the same domains. Subjects tended to be biased toward se lf-enhancement when reporting their own groups: They omitted members w ho had low school scholastic rank and unfavorable scores on teacher ra tings of competence. There was a strong effect of propinquity and gent ler on group membership, in that all groups were comprised of children from the same classroom and virtually all (98%) of the same sex. Memb ers scored similarly on teacher ratings of competence. In elementary s chool, conventional values and academic achievement provided the behav ioral bases for peer group cohesion. By early adolescence, peer-relate d concerns supplemented rather than replaced conventional values as th e bases for group cohesion.