Interpersonal Attribution, Interpersonal Belief, Facial Expression Recognition and Friendship Quality as Related to Gender and Sociometric Status among Elementary School Students

[[abstract]]The main purpose of this study was to explore whether the students of different gender and different sociometric status were different in their interpersonal event attribution, interpersonal belief, facial expression recognition ability and friendship quality. A further purpose was to investigate whether or not these four variables could effectively discriminate their sociometric status. The participants were 316 fourth-grade students (151 boys and 165 girls) from an elementary school in Taipei. The variables of interest were measured by the Sociometric Scale, Interpersonal Attribution Scale, Interpersonal Belief Scale, and Friendship Quality Scale. There were 135 fourth-grade students (68 boys and 67 girls) participating in the facial expression recognition experiment using the SuperLab software. The obtained data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA, two-way MANOVA, one-way ANOVA, and discriminant analysis. The results of this study were as follows: First, there were significant gender differences in interpersonal attribution, facial expression recognition ability and friendship quality. But no gender differences were found in interpersonal belief. Second, the students with different sociometric status were different in interpersonal attribution, facial expression recognition and friendship quality, but not in their interpersonal belief. Third, these four variables of interpersonal attribution, interpersonal belief, facial expression recognition and friendship could discriminate elementary school students’ sociometric status. The findings were discussed and suggestions for education and future research were also proposed.