A longitudinal study of childhood social behaviour: Inter-informant agreement, inter-context agreement, and social preference linkages

This study examined inter-informant agreement, inter-context agreement, and social preference linkages for social behaviour subtypes. On two occasions, data was collected on 600 children (8-10 years old) via mother, father, teacher, and peer reports. Informant reports converged within each context and agreement across school and home contexts was strong for overt aggression and for prosocial behaviour, but less pronounced for relational aggression. Concurrent associations with social preference emerged within the school context and longitudinal bidirectional associations surfaced between dislikeability and overt aggression at school. Relational aggression at school correlated with future dislikeability, whereas likeability and dislikeability correlated with future relational aggression. Prosocial behaviour at school was particularly linked with future likeability. Gender and grade differences emerged for social preference linkages.