Roberts, Alan (2019) Resource control and social dominance in early childhood – behavioural, cognitive and affective factors in the first year at school. PhD thesis, University of Greenwich.

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Abstract

Social dominance in early childhood has traditionally been viewed as a social status based on aggression. However, through the lens of resource control theory, social dominance is attained via acquisition of resources (e.g. toys, friendship), which can be achieved via any behavioural means – prosocial or coercive. This research used this theoretical approach as a basis to investigate the associations between resource control strategy use, resource control success and social dominance, along with associated cognitive and affective factors – theory of mind, empathy, emotion comprehension and contextual moral application. Ninety-two children aged between 4 and 5 years old were recruited, along with their class teachers from 3 schools in the south east of England. At three time points across their first year at school, the children were assessed using a battery of verbal, theory of mind, empathy, emotion comprehension and selective moral disengagement assessments, as well as being asked to respond to vignettes in which their avatar was required to acquire a resource from an opponent. At each timepoint, class teachers reported on the children’s general behaviour, resource control strategy use, resource control success and social dominance. Results found children’s resource control strategy use explained near half the variance in resource control success near the beginning of the school year. However, this reduced by the end of the school year, with affective empathy associated with more frequent coercive and prosocial strategy use. Resource control success predicted social dominance at all timepoints. Social dominance was also directly predicted by both prosocial and coercive strategy use at T1, but only coercive strategy use at T2 and T3. Regardless of social preference, ToM, empathy, emotion comprehension and selective moral disengagement, as well as overall changes in class prosocial and coercive resource control strategy over the year, both social dominance and resource control success at the start of the year predicted themselves at the end of the year. Whilst resource control success was found to be directly predictive of social dominance in the immediate-short term, it did not predict social dominance across the year, suggesting that teacher-ratings of social dominance may be influenced by the social prominence of the child when rating their social dominance. The lack of significant associations between resource control strategy and theory of mind suggest future measures should attempt to capture instances of theory of mind usage within real-world resource contest situations, via direct observation. Overall this work highlights the need for direct observational data to more accurately ascertain the interplay between cognition and strategy selection in early childhood, allowing greater elucidation of the establishment of social dominance in young children’s peer groups.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Resource control, Social dominance, Early childhood,
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
Last Modified:	10 Sep 2023 18:42
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/44074

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