De Samenhang tussen Resource Control Groepen en Status Groepen: Een onderzoek bij Nederlandse Brugklassers

Abstract

When acquiring a social status two aspects appear to be of interest, which are the degree of popularity and the degree of beloved. In this study these aspects are combined to divide the random survey of first graders in six different status groups. It was examined to which extent there is a correlation between the status groups and the resource control groups at first graders. The Resource Control Theory of Hawley (1999) distinguishes five categories that vary in the extent to which they apply to coercive and prosocial strategies. As a result, social dominance can be obtained. 1185 boys and 1229 girls from the first grade (Mage = 13.3) from schools throughout the Netherlands are classified using peer nominations and peer reports on the status groups and resource control groups. The consistency is tested through a cross-table analysis. The results show that, contrary to Hawley (1999), non-controllers are most strongly related to the status group well-liked and non-popular and bistrategist with the group popular and disliked. Typicals are closely related to the residual group and the group of non-popular and disliked. Also, this is not consistent with the study of Hawley (2003b; 2008). Prosocial controllers are mainly related to the status groups of non-popular and well-liked; and medium-popular and medium-liked. The coercive controllers haven’t had a significant positive relationship with a status group. It can be found that there is a significant correlation between status groups and resource control groups. Strengths of this study are the large random survey and the stricter operationalization of strategy use. The limitation of this study is the large residual group. A suggestion for future research is to investigate besides the first graders also the higher and lower classes to considerate age differences regarding the relationship between resource control groups and status groups. Keywords: perceived popularity, likeability, resource control, bistrategics, typicals, non-controllers, prosocial controllers, coercive controllers.