Peer Influence on Primary School Children's Social Judgment-making: An Experimental Study

Philipp Nicolay^1*Corinna Hank¹Sara Egger²Christoph Michael Müller³Christian Huber¹

• ¹School of Education, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
• ²University of Teacher Education Bern, Bern, Bern, Switzerland
• ³Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

Introduction: Peer influence is usually often studied with regard to the development of specific behaviors (e.g., maladaptive behavior, prosocial behavior) in adolescents. Following a broader understanding of peer influence, this study investigated if primary students are also influenced by peers when making social judgments about other students and to what degree social anxiety is associated with greater susceptibility to peer influence. Method: 103 (Mage = 9.18 years) primary school children participated in a computer-based experiment. Participants made social judgements regarding 22 pictures of potential exchange students in three consecutive trials (T1, T2, T3). For T1 and T2, general variability in participants' ratings was assessed without experimental manipulation. For T3 (manipulation), participants were introduced to social judgments allegedly made by peers that contradicted their earlier ratings. They were then asked to rate the 22 pictures again.Results: Random-Intercept Llinear mixed models were used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that participants' social judgments aligned significantly more with manipulated peer ratings than in the absence of manipulation. This shift towards the peer ratings was higher when peers' social judgments were more negative than participants' ratings compared to cases where peers made more positive social judgments than participants. Social anxiety did not predict how much participants' social judgments shifted towards those made by peers. However, a significant interaction between social anxiety and the direction of the manipulation (positive vs. negative) was found. Greater social anxiety was associated with a stronger effect of peer influence towards more positive social judgments.Discussion: Findings suggest that peer influence as a process is relevant in the primary school context and in regard to everyday decision-making as to whom individual children want to interact with. While this effect was particularly pronounced for peer influence towards more negative social judgments, social anxiety seemed to moderate this effect. In conclusion, implications for research and practice are discussed.