Power strategies used in conflict resolution by popular and rejected black South African children

The aim of this study was to investigate the power strategies used to resolve conflict by two groups of black South African children. Fifty‐eight children aged between eight and twelve years who had been nominated either as popular or as rejected by their peers on a sociometric measure were presented with eight hypothetical conflict situations and were asked to resolve them. Their responses were categorised into four power strategy types based on the Falbo and Peplau (1980) and Ohbuchi and Yamamoto (1990) models. The results show that the use of power strategies was highly influenced by the children's sociometric status: popular children chose more bilateral strategies while rejected children favoured unilateral power strategies. The results also lend support to previous findings indicating that gender is an important predictor of power strategies chosen to resolve conflict: indirect strategies were preferred by girls while boys chose direct strategies. In addition the choice of power strategies was found to be affected by the status of the target/opponent in the conflict.