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Children's AnticipatedResponses to HypotheticalPeers With UndesirableCharacteristics: Role of Peers'Desire to Change, Effort toChange, and OutcomeMark A. Barnett a , Jennifer L. Livengood a , TammyL. Sonnentag a , Natalie D. Barlett a & Rachel Y.Witham aa Kansas State UniversityPublished online: 08 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Mark A. Barnett , Jennifer L. Livengood , Tammy L. Sonnentag ,Natalie D. Barlett & Rachel Y. Witham (2010) Children's Anticipated Responses toHypothetical Peers With Undesirable Characteristics: Role of Peers' Desire to Change,Effort to Change, and Outcome, The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research andTheory on Human Development, 171:3, 262-269, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2010.492815

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2010.492815

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The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 2010, 171(3), 262–269Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

BRIEF REPORTS

Children’s Anticipated Responsesto Hypothetical Peers With UndesirableCharacteristics: Role of Peers’ Desire

to Change, Effort to Change,and Outcome

MARK A. BARNETTJENNIFER L. LIVENGOODTAMMY L. SONNENTAG

NATALIE D. BARLETTRACHEL Y. WITHAMKansas State University

ABSTRACT. The authors explored the extent to which 5th- and 6th-grade students’ an-ticipated responses to hypothetical peers with undesirable characteristics (e.g., being over-weight) are influenced by information that each peer (a) desired (or did not desire) to changethe characteristic, (b) exerted effort (or did not exert effort) to change the characteristic, and(c) was successful (or unsuccessful) in changing the characteristic. In general, the childrenanticipated responding more favorably to peers who were successful in overcoming anundesirable characteristic than those who were unsuccessful. However, across both out-come conditions, peers who wanted to change and exerted effort to change were rated morefavorably than were peers who reported no effort to change an undesirable characteristic,regardless of whether or not they had expressed a desire to change that characteristic. Forpeers whose failure to change an undesirable characteristic was associated with no effort tochange, those who expressed a desire to change were rated more favorably than those whoexpressed no desire to change.

Keywords: desire, effort, peer evaluation, social cognition

Address correspondence to Mark A. Barnett, Kansas State University, Department of Psy-chology, Bluemont Hall, 1100 Mid-Campus Drive, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA; barn@ksu.edu (e-mail).

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Children tend to respond in a relatively negative manner toward peers who areperceived as deviant or deficient in their appearance, ability, or behavior (e.g.,Juvonen, 1991; Nowicki & Sandieson, 2002; Puhl & Latner, 2007). However,little is known of the various factors that may be associated with children’s re-jection (or acceptance) of such peers. In a prior investigation (Sonnentag, Barlett,Livengood, Barnett, & Witham, 2009), we asked third- and sixth-grade studentsto complete a series of questionnaires inquiring about their perceptions of and an-ticipated reactions to hypothetical peers described as having various undesirablecharacteristics (e.g., being overweight). The more the children agreed that a peerwas at fault for his or her characteristic, the more they tended to agree that theywould tease that peer and the less they tended to agree that they would like orhelp that peer if he or she needed assistance. However, children who perceiveda peer with an undesirable characteristic as similar to him- or herself or a friendanticipated responding to that peer in a relatively positive manner. Unexpectedly,the more the children perceived hypothetical peers as wanting to change an unde-sirable characteristic, the more favorable their anticipated responses to those peers.To more fully explore this unexpected finding, we examined the extent to whichboys’ and girls’ anticipated responses to hypothetical peers are influenced by thepeers’ desire to change, effort to change, and success in changing an undesirablecharacteristic.

In our prior study (Sonnentag et al., 2009), children who tended to believethat peers want to change their undesirable characteristics may have experiencedfeelings of sympathy for (and, in turn, anticipated responding relatively favor-ably toward) those peers. However, an awareness that a particular peer desired tochange, but exerted no effort to change, an undesirable characteristic may evoke adecidedly more negative reaction. Consistent with this view, attribution research(e.g., Juvonen, 1991; Weiner, 1986) has demonstrated that individuals who areperceived as responsible for unpleasant personal circumstances due to negligenceor laziness tend to be devalued and treated relatively harshly. Therefore, in thepresent study, we predicted that children would anticipate responding more favor-ably to peers who desired to change, and exerted effort to change, an undesirablecharacteristic than peers who (a) desired to change but exerted no effort to changeand (b) did not desire to change and exerted no effort to change. In addition,we explored whether this predicted pattern would emerge for peers who weresuccessful, as well as those who were unsuccessful, in changing an undesirablecharacteristic.

Method

Participants and Experimenters

Participants were 112 fifth- and sixth-grade students (60 girls, 52 boys; Mage = 11.76 years, SD = 0.63 years). The children, who were predominately White

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264 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

and from middle-class backgrounds, attended three public elementary schools inNortheast Kansas. Fifth- and sixth-grade students were selected as participantsbecause they fell within the age range of participants in our prior study (Sonnentaget al., 2009). Two female experimenters conducted the study in the children’sregular classrooms during days and time slots selected by the teachers.

Materials and Procedure

The children read summaries of a pair of interviews with six hypotheticalmale peers who discussed something about themselves that they or someone elseconsidered a problem. During the first interview, the peers described the specificcharacteristic (i.e., being a poor student, a poor athlete, overweight, aggressive,shy, or hyperactive–inattentive; descriptions adapted from Sonnentag et al., 2009)and indicated whether they wanted to change that characteristic. During thesecond interview, which presumably occurred 6 months later, the peers describedwhether they had (a) tried to change that characteristic and (b) been successfulin changing that characteristic. The specific desire–effort–outcome interviewsummary for a peer with a particular undesirable characteristic was varied acrossthe classrooms and reflected one of six conditions presented to the childrenin each classroom: Desire–Effort–Success, Desire–Effort–Failure, Desire–No Effort–Success, Desire–No Effort–Failure, No Desire–No Effort–Success,No Desire–No Effort–Failure (see Appendix for an example of the wordingof the various desire–effort–outcome interview summaries presented to thechildren). Two other possible conditions, No Desire–Effort–Success and NoDesire–Effort–Failure, were not included in the study because it seemed unrea-sonable for a peer to express no interest in changing a characteristic and, then, todescribe the behaviors engaged in to change that characteristic.

After reading each interview summary, the students rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (disagree a lot) to 5 (agree a lot) the extent to whichthey agreed with seven statements concerning their anticipated reactions towardthat peer (summary labels for the reactions: would like, would want as friend,would tease, would help, handled problem well, admire, see as good role model).We calculated the total scores derived from each child’s responses to the sevenstatements on each questionnaire (with responses to the “would tease” statementnegatively keyed).1 This aggregate measure (possible range: 7–35) was found tohave an acceptable level of internal reliability across the six desire–effort–outcomeconditions of the study (Cronbach’s α = .77–.85).

Results

A 2 × 2 × 3 (Gender of Participant × Outcome Condition × Desire–EffortCondition) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the last two variables as repeated

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measures was conducted on the children’s aggregate scores across the six con-ditions.2 The significant effects that emerged from this analysis are presentedsubsequently.

Gender of Participant

The boys (M = 20.57, SD = 3.32) anticipated responding more negatively topeers who described themselves as possessing undesirable personal characteristicsthan did the girls (M = 22.46, SD = 3.50), F(1, 110) = 8.39, p < .01, η2

p = .07.

Outcome and Desire–Effort Conditions

In general, the children anticipated responding more favorably to peers whowere successful (M = 23.71, SD = 4.09) than unsuccessful (M = 19.49, SD =3.78) in overcoming an undesirable characteristic, F(1, 110) = 161.72, p < .001,η2

p = .60. However, across both outcome conditions, peers who desired to changeand exerted effort to change were rated more favorably than were peers whoreported no effort to change an undesirable characteristic, regardless of whetheror not they had expressed a desire to change that characteristic (see Table 1),F(2, 220) = 115.72, p < .001, η2

p = .59. This main effect of Desire–Effort Condi-tion was qualified by a significant Outcome Condition × Desire–Effort Conditioninteraction, F(2, 220) = 90.10, p < .01, η2

p = .05. As presented in Table 1, for peerswhose failure to change an undesirable characteristic was associated with no effortto change, those who expressed a desire to change were rated more favorably thanthose who expressed no desire to change. Within the success condition, in contrast,no difference was found in the children’s ratings of peers in the Desire–No Effortand No Desire–No Effort conditions.

TABLE 1. Children’s Ratings by Outcome and Desire–Effort Conditions:Means and Standard Deviations

Success Failure

D/E D/NoE NoD/NoE D/E D/NoE NoD/NoE

M 27.99d 21.36c 21.79c 22.90c 18.58b 16.99a

SD 4.78 5.38 5.90 5.98 4.75 5.02

Note. D/E = Desire–Effort; D/NoE = Desire–No Effort; NoD–NoE = No Desire–No Effort.Means with different superscripts differ at p < .05 as determined by post hoc ANOVA andpairwise comparisons.

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266 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

Discussion

The gender difference observed in the present study is consistent with prior re-search (Killen, Crystal, & Watanabe, 2002; Townsend, Wilton, & Vakilirad, 1993;Whalen, Henker, Dotemoto, & Hinshaw, 1983) demonstrating that boys tend to beless accepting of peers who are different or deficient on some dimension than aregirls. The extent to which the present gender difference was influenced by usingonly male peers in the interview summaries presented to the children cannot bedetermined.

As predicted, the children anticipated favoring peers who wanted to changeand exerted effort to change over those who had not tried, regardless of whetherthey had expressed a desire to change. This pattern of results, especially in thefailure condition, is consistent with prior research (e.g., Juvonen, 1991; Weiner,1986) indicating that individuals whose undesirable condition can be attributableto personal negligence or lack of effort tend to be derogated by others and treatedin a relatively negative manner. The children’s expectation that they would respondrelatively unfavorably to a peer who had not tried was observed, not only in thefailure condition, but in the success condition as well. Indeed, although the childrengenerally anticipated responding more favorably to peers who were successful thanunsuccessful in changing an undesirable characteristic, peers who tried and failedreceived ratings that were comparable to peers who reported exerting no effort inachieving their success (see Table 1).

Whereas a peer’s effort to change an undesirable personal characteristic ap-pears to have been valued by the participants regardless of the outcome associatedwith that effort, a peer’s desire to change was associated with a relatively favor-able response only in the failure condition. Despite their lack of effort, peers whoacknowledged that their desire to change had gone unfulfilled may have elicited amore sympathetic response from the children than peers with undesirable charac-teristics who did not try to change and did not seem to care. A similar pattern ofresults may not have been found in the other outcome condition because, regard-less of whether they did or did not express a desire to change, peers who reportedsuccess in changing an undesirable characteristic were unlikely to have evokedfeelings of sympathy.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although the present findings contribute to our understanding of children’santicipated responses to peers with undesirable characteristics, the limitations ofthe present study provide direction for future research.

As noted in the Method section, two potential conditions (i.e., No Desire–Effort–Success and No Desire–Effort–Failure) were excluded from the designof this study because it appeared unreasonable for a peer to express no inter-est in changing an undesirable characteristic and, then, to describe the behaviors

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engaged in to change that characteristic. Undoubtedly, there are numerous occa-sions in which children express no interest in (and, indeed, are resistant to) alteringa personal characteristic or pattern of behavior, yet are requested to do so by others(e.g., parents, teachers, peers). Further research, conducted in more naturalisticsettings, should address children’s perceptions of and responses to peers with unde-sirable characteristics whose effort to change (whether successful or unsuccessful)is motivated not from within but by the encouragement or insistence of others.

Because of the size of the present sample, it was unfeasible to analyze theimpact of the various desire–effort–outcome conditions on the children’s antic-ipated responses to peers with specific undesirable characteristics.3 Given thatchildren perceive some undesirable characteristics as under more personal controland as more modifiable than others (Juvonen, 1991; Sigelman & Begley, 1987;Sonnentag et al., 2009), future researchers should address the extent to which theirreactions to peers who vary in their desire to change, effort to change, and outcomeare influenced by the specific characteristic the peers possess.

The present sample was limited to fifth- and sixth-grade students, and nograde-related differences were expected or found in the participants’ responses topeers as a function of the peers’ desire to change, effort to change, or outcome (seeNote 2). In a cross-sectional study of individuals’ inferences about others’ emo-tions, Thompson (1987) found that whereas second-grade students relied primarilyon a story character’s positive or negative outcome in making judgments aboutthat character, fifth-grade students and undergraduates tended to consider causalattributions (e.g., personal effort) in making such judgments. In a similar vein,future cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations of individuals’ responses toothers with undesirable characteristics should span a broader age range than thepresent study in order to identify developmental trends in the use of outcome- andprocess-related information in formulating those responses.

The present results may provide some insight into an unexpected findingfrom our prior investigation (Sonnentag et al., 2009) wherein the more childrenperceived hypothetical peers as desiring to change an undesirable personal char-acteristic, the more favorable their anticipated responses to those peers. Given therelatively favorable response to peers in the present study who expressed a desireto change an undesirable characteristic and exerted effort to back up that desire,the children in the prior study who perceived peers as desiring to change mayhave also assumed that this desire would necessarily lead to effort to change (and,perhaps, to successful outcomes). The speculation that some children may havea desire→effort→outcome optimistic bias that contributes to relatively favor-able responses to peers with undesirable characteristics merits attention in furtherresearch.

NOTES

1. There were very few instances in which a child failed to provide a response to astatement on a questionnaire. Missing data were handled using the mean replacementapproach.

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2. Because the age range of the participants in the present study was so narrow, nograde-related differences were expected in the children’s responses to peers as a functionof the peers’ desire to change, effort to change, or outcome. The results of a preliminaryANOVA that included the grade of the participant as a variable were consistent with thisexpectation.

3. Six different undesirable characteristics and six desire–effort–outcome conditionswere incorporated as within-subject variables in the design of the present study, yieldinga total of 36 cells. An adequate comparison of the impact of the various conditions on thechildren’s anticipated responses to peers with specific undesirable characteristics wouldhave required a minimum of 360 participants (assuming a minimum of 10 participants percell).

AUTHOR NOTES

Mark A. Barnett is a professor in the Department of Psychology at KansasState University. His research interests focus on the development and expression ofvarious interpersonal behaviors relevant to children and adolescents (e.g., teasing,empathy, and helping). Jennifer L. Livengood is a doctoral student in the social-personality psychology program at Kansas State University. Her research interestsinclude the effects of maternal employment on children as well as perceptionsof mothers who work outside of the home. Tammy L. Sonnentag is a Master’scandidate in the social-personality psychology program at Kansas State University.Her primary research interests focus on individual differences associated with andperceptions of exceptional moral behaviors in children and adolescents. NatalieD. Barlett is a doctoral candidate in the social-personality psychology programat Kansas State University. Her primary research interest concerns individualdifferences associated with common antisocial behaviors in children includinginterpersonal manipulativeness and relational aggression. Rachel Y. Witham isa Master’s candidate in counseling and educational psychology at Kansas StateUniversity. Her research interests include parent–child relationships and childhealth behaviors.

REFERENCES

Juvonen, J. (1991). Deviance, perceived responsibility, and negative peer reactions. Devel-opmental Psychology, 27, 672–681.

Killen, M., Crystal, D. S., & Watanabe, H. (2002). Japanese and American children’sevaluations of peer exclusion, tolerance of differences, and prescriptions for conformity.Child Development, 73, 1788–1802.

Nowicki, E. A., & Sandieson, R. (2002). A meta-analysis of school-age children’s atti-tudes toward persons with physical or intellectual disabilities. International Journal ofDisability, Development and Education, 49, 243–265.

Puhl, R. M., & Latner, J. D. (2007). Stigma, obesity, and the health of the nation’s children.Psychological Bulletin, 133, 557–580.

Sigelman, C. K., & Begley, N. L. (1987). The early development of reactions to peers withcontrollable and uncontrollable problems. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 12, 99–115.

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Sonnentag, T. L., Barlett, N. D., Livengood, J. L., Barnett, M. A., & Witham, R. Y. (2009,May). Children’s perceptions of and anticipated responses to peers with various undesir-able characteristics. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for PsychologicalScience, San Francisco.

Thompson, R. A. (1987). Development of children’s inferences of the emotions of others.Developmental Psychology, 23, 124–131.

Townsend, M. A. R., Wilton, K. M., & Vakilirad, T. (1993). Children’s attitudes toward peerswith intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 37, 405–411.

Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Whalen, C. K., Henker, B., Dotemoto, S., & Hinshaw, S. P. (1983). Child and adolescentperceptions of normal and atypical peers. Child Development, 54, 1588–1598.

Original manuscript received September 22, 2009Final version accepted May 2, 2010

APPENDIXWording of the Various Desire–Effort–Outcome Interview Summaries

Presented to Children: The “Poor Student” Example

First interviewWhen Jacob was first interviewed, he told us that he was a poor student. He said

that he was a slow reader and had difficulty with math, science, and English.Jacob said that he got poor grades on tests and often did not know the correctanswer when he was called on in class.

Desire: Jacob told us that he would like to become a better student.No Desire: Jacob told us that he did not care about being a poor student.

Second interviewEffort: When Jacob was interviewed again about 6 months later, he told us that he

had been trying to become a better student by working harder at school and byreading and studying more at home.

No Effort: When Jacob was interviewed again about 6 months later, he told us thathe hadn’t been putting any effort into becoming a better student.

Success (following Effort): Jacob told us that now he is getting better grades inmath, science, and English and that his reading skills have improved. Jacobconcluded that he has become a better student.

Success (following No Effort): Jacob said that even though he hadn’t tried toimprove, he is getting better grades in math, science, and English and that hisreading skills have improved. Jacob concluded that he has become a betterstudent.

Failure (following Effort): Jacob said that even though he had tried to improve, hestill has poor grades in math, science, and English and that his reading skillshave not improved. Jacob concluded that he still is a poor student.

Failure (following No Effort): Jacob told us that he still has poor grades in math,science, and English and that his reading skills have not improved. Jacobconcluded that he still is a poor student.

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