Popular, Amiable, Isolated, Rejected: A Reconceptualization of Sociometric Status in Preschool Children

PEERY, J. CRAIG. Popular, Amiable, Isolated, Rejected: A Reconceptualization of Sociometric Status in Preschool Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 1231-1234. Increasing the discriminative power of the classic sociometric approach is proposed by using a modified picturesociometric questionnaire instrument employing both positive and negative questions. Scoring includes 2 dimensions: social impact, the number of children who mention a given child, and social preference, the predominance of either positive or negative responses. 4 sociometric categories, rather than the usual 2, result from an intersection of social impact and social preference: popular (high social impact, positive social preference), amiable (low social impact, positive social preference), isolated (low social impact, negative social preference), and rejected (high social impact, negative social preference). The utility of the model is demonstrated in a study of social comprehension skills of preschool children from each sociometric category.