Individual difference in perceptions of social structure: Social standing predicts accuracy in social network perception

This study examined the extent to which social standing based on reputation (i.e., popularity), affective regard (i.e., peer acceptance and peer rejection), and affiliation-network centrality (i.e., degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality), in addition to gender and grade in school, predicted children's accuracy in detecting affiliation patterns within peer networks. Third through fifth-grade students (n = 400) were from three semi-rural elementary schools and clustered in eight grade-level units. The relationship between a child's perception of the affiliation (i.e., "hanging-out") network and the collective perception of the affiliation network served as the indicator of network perception accuracy. In general, girls, older children, and more popular and well-connected children had more accurate perceptions of the social environment. In particular, girls, popular children, children with high degrees centrality, and fifth graders, were more likely to report ties that existed in the collectively perceived network (made fewer false-negative reports). Fifth graders' specific patterns of accuracy/inaccuracy suggested a more developed cognitive model of social network structures. Children experiencing peer rejection made more false negative errors (failed to report existing ties). Interestingly, net of the other network variables in the model, closeness centrality was related to a decrease in falsely reporting ties (improving accuracy) but an increase in failing to report ties that existed (worsening accuracy). These relationships between children's social standing and grade level on their accuracy of network perception has conceptual and methodological implications for studies of children's social functioning within their school-based peer networks.