Poster #94 - Children’s social perceptions and metaperceptions during an initial interaction with an unfamiliar social partner

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Background. The ability to establish and maintain social connections is vital for healthy social-emotional development and is particularly important during the transition to adolescence (Berkman & Glass, 2000). However, there is variability in how easily children form these connections. The accuracy of children’s metaperceptions, or their ability to accurately perceive the impression they are making on someone else (Laing et al. 1966), may impact this variability. Although this has been partially explored in adulthood, it has yet to be examined in late childhood. In the current study, following an online dyadic interaction with an unfamiliar peer, we a) compared children’s perceptions (i.e., what they think of their partner) to their metaperceptions (i.e., what they think their partner thinks of them), and b) examined agreement between dyad members’ perceptions (i.e., what my partner thinks of me) and metaperceptions (i.e., what I think my partner thinks of me).
Methodology. Children (N = 126, 73 dyads) aged 9 to 12 years were randomly paired with an unfamiliar peer of the same age and gender and participated in a five-minute unstructured interaction where children were instructed to ‘get to know each other’ over Zoom. After the interaction, children completed the Perceptions and Metaperceptions Questionnaire (Usher et al., 2018), assessing their perceptions (e.g., “How happy is ___?”) and metaperceptions (e.g., “How happy does ___ think you are?”) for positive and negative traits on a 5-point scale.
Results. Children perceived their peers more positively than negatively (t(125) = 21.10, p < .001) and believed their peer thought more positively than negatively of them (t(125) = 8.42, p < .001). Interestingly, children reported thinking that the peer felt less positively (t(125) = 4.67, p < .001) and more negatively about them (t(125) = -7.83, p < .001), than they felt about their peer (Figure 1).
In terms of accuracy, children’s beliefs about how positively their partner felt about them were unrelated to their partner’s actual positive ratings (r(125) = .02, p = .873), suggesting it was difficult for children to tell when their peer was perceiving them positively. Interestingly, though, there was a small but significant and positive association between children’s metaperceptions of how negatively their partner felt about them and their partner’s actual negative ratings (r(125) = .18, p = .046), suggesting that children were more accurate in noticing when their peer felt negatively about them.
Conclusions. Consistent with findings from adults (Elsaadawy & Carlson, 2022), children felt generally positive about a new acquaintance after a brief interaction. However, children consistently believed their peer felt less positive and more negative about them than they really did. This tendency to underestimate and act cautiously towards how well one is being perceived by others may be adaptive in the development and maintenance of relationships (Haselton & Buss, 2000). Future research should examine specific within-child characteristics (e.g., temperament) and/or dyad characteristics (e.g., similarity in temperament) that predict how well children can predict the impression they are having on others.

Authors

• Mya Dockrill, University of Waterloo
  Presenting Author

• Linda Sosa-Hernandez, University of Waterloo

• Kristie Poole, Brock University

• Heather Henderson, University of Waterloo