CHILDRENS INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTIONS - A SOCIAL-RELATIONS ANALYSIS OF PERCEIVER AND TARGET EFFECTS

Children's interpersonal perceptions in an academic context were studi ed from the sociocultural perspective (L. S. Vygotsky, 1978). The auth ors predicted that with development, judgments of classmates would sho w increasing impact of the stimulus target (consensus) and decreasing impact of the perceiver's effect. A social relations analysis estimate d perceiver and target effects. A 3-year cross-sequential design permi tted study of age differences and longitudinal consistency of the effe cts. Children's interpersonal perceptions were consensual in middle ch ildhood, and target effects increased with development, whereas percei ver effects declined. Target effects were more consistent than perceiv er effects across a 3-year period. Target effects for behaviorally bas ed and environmentally cued judgments, however, were more consistent t han target effects on judgments of psychological characteristics.