Relational Schemas and Friendship Quality in Inner-City School Children.

This research was a pilot study that evaluated the impact of relationship schemas and the quality of children's friendships in children's person perception. This study extends previous work in this area in three ways by: (1) examining how children integrate multiple types of information to form impressions of others; (2) evaluating the impact of relational schemas (internally represented relationship knowledge) in children's person perception; and (3) correlating children's friendship quality to relational schemas. Fifty African-American children (24 males and 26 females from grades 3 and 4) participated in the present research. Children were asked to complete two friendship questionnaires and two impression-rating questionnaires. Overall, higher or more positive ratings were consistently attributed to children presented to best friends than as nonfriends. Several dimensions of friendship quality were associated with behavioral impression ratings, but it did not predict the type of processing (categorical vs. individuating) used by children when presented with information that was either consistent or inconsistent with an initial relational expectancy. (Author/SLD)