Peer Interaction in the Presence and Absence of Observers

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Abstract
Preschool-aged peer dyads and school-aged peer dyads were observed in a laboratory playroom in the presence or absence of observers. Seven behaviors were operationalized and observed: positive verbalizations, negative verbalizations, directives, social conversation, nonsense verbalizations, task-related verbalizations and on-task play. The analyses revealed that the frequency of all of the behaviors sampled, except positive verbalizations, decreased in the presence of observers. Only 1 age group .times. observers present or absent interaction was detected, and thus the presence of observers appeared to influence the 2 age groups in a similar manner. The results for directives and social conversation were replicated when an analysis that controlled for differences in interaction rates was executed. A different result was found for the on-task verbalization measure than was found in the frequency analysis. Proportionally more on-task verbalizations were emitted in the presence of observers. Finally, a within-session analysis revealed that the peer dyads adopted an interactional style that did not change across the observation session.

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