Developmental Change in the Sentiment Structure of Children's Groups

Current theories of cognitive development in children and those of structure in small-scale social systems when jointly considered suggest that the social organization of children's peer groups will demonstrate developmental trends. This inference is tested by measuring transitive organization in 118 positive affect sociograms of children's classroom groups and regressing these measurements on an age variable and other variables associated with the sociometric data. The analyses indicate that a statistically significant positive association exists between transitive organization and age and that this association is independent of variation in choices, made and received per group member, pair proportions, group size or sex composition.