Social Information Processing from a Developmental and Gender Perspective in Argentine Children

ANNIE KARIN SCHULZ-BEGLE; KENNETH H. RUBIN

Philadelphia

Congreso; 13th Society for Research in Adolescence Biennial Meeting; 2010

Society for Research in Adolescence

Although there has been a considerable body of research on the Social Information Processing theory related to both social and psychological adjustment and difficulties in children, there seems to be little research examining the developmental characteristics of this construct.  Furthermore, social information processing has barely been studied in the Argentine population. In this context, the goal of this study was to explore the developmental and gender differences in social information processing of Argentine children. The study included 222 children (51.4% girls, 48.6% boys) from 8 to 12 years old (M = 9.93, SD = 1.27) living in the city of Paraná, Province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. The measure used was an Argentine validation of the Attributions and Coping Questionnaire (Burgess et al., 2006) in which three different stories that show ambiguous situations were presented to children, who were asked to select an attribution, emotion, and coping strategy they thought would be appropriate if they were the victims in each story. These stories were presented in two contexts, namely a general one in which the putative protagonist is an imaginary peer with non specified identity, and in a friendship context in which the putative protagonist who carries out the actions is the best friend of the participant. Results of regression and Student’s t-test analyses revealed several age and sex effects. In the general peer situation, there was a significant and positive age effect on external attributions. Also, with increasing age, children were more likely to become upset and to suggest strategies of revenge whereas they were less likely to suggest appeasement. In the friendship context, increasing age predicted increases in being upset when the negative event befalling them was associated with a friend protagonist. Regarding gender, girls presented significantly higher scores than boys on internal attributions of blame in the general peer context and neutral attributions, emotional reactions of sadness, and avoidance coping strategy in the friendship context. Boys offered more neutral attributions and emotional reactions of feeling OK in the general context. None of the coping strategies for the general context were predicted significantly by the gender of the child. Results will be discussed in the light of previous research, existing theories, and culture.