THE ROUGH PLAY OF ADOLESCENT BOYS OF DIFFERING SOCIOMETRIC STATUS

Two forms of rough-and-tumble play (R&T/Chase and R&T/Rough) were obse rved in a group of young adolescent boys while they were on the playgr ound during their school recess period. Although little variation was observed for the R&T/Chase category, sociometrically defined average a nd rejected boys, compared to popular boys, spent a significant portio n of their time in R&T/Rough. This latter form of R&T was, in turn, re lated to aggression and perspective-taking status for rejected boys; i t was related to dominance status for all boys. Additionally, rejected and average boys chose to engage in R&T/Rough with children who were less dominant than they. R&T/Chase was not reliably correlated with ot her measures. These findings are interpreted as supporting the claim t hat some children exploit play bouts for their own dominance-exhibitio n ends.