Task and Partner in 7-year-olds’ Use of Assertive and Affiliative Language
Victor M. Borges, Brittney N. Richardson, Samantha M. Cytryn, Caitlyn M. Fisher, Marissa M. Berry & Ganie B. DeHart
State University of New York at Geneseo
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Research on gender differences in children’s and adolescents’ use of affiliative and
assertive language has focused primarily on interactions with same-sex peers. Based
on these studies, researchers have long suggested that boys use more assertive
language than girls and girls use more affiliative language than boys.
Figure 1. Target Child Positive Assertive Language Use
with Siblings and Friends in Free Play and Game Tasks
7
Utterances per Minute
As part of a longitudinal study, we examined 7-year- olds’ use of assertive and
affiliative language with siblings and friends during free play and a board game.
Contrary to past research, we found that task and interaction partner may influence
the use of assertive and affiliative language more than gender does.
6
Sibling Free
Play
5
Friend Free
Play
4
Sibling
Game
3
2
Friend
Game
1
0
Mitigated
Unmitigated
Type of Positive Assertive Utterance
However, recent research suggests that the relationship between language use and
gender is more complicated, especially when negative affect and mitigation are taken
into account. Relatively little is known about differences in boys’ and girls’ use of
affiliative language, assertive language, and mitigation over the course of
development, across interactions with different partners, or across different tasks or
interaction contexts.
Figure 2. Target Child Negative Assertive Language Use
with Siblings and Friends in Free Play and Game Tasks
2
Utterances per Minute
As part of a longitudinal study, we examined 7-year-olds’ use of assertive and affiliative
language during interactions with siblings and friends. Assertive utterances were
defined as those used primarily to accomplish a goal, whereas affiliative utterances
were those intended to establish or maintain contact with others. In the current
analyses, we focus on comparisons between a free-play task and a game task
because the game was intended to elicit competition, which might be expected to
result in heightened use of assertive language.
RESULTS
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
Sibling Free Play
Friend Free Play
Sibling Game
Friend Game
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Mitigated
METHOD
Participants
 39 white, middle-class 7-year- olds living in Western New York
Figure 3. Target Child Affiliative Language Use with
Siblings and Friends in Free Play and Game Tasks
 Half of the siblings were older than the target child, and half were younger.
Procedure
 7-year-olds were videotaped during separate 10-minute free play and game
sessions with a sibling and with a friend.
 During each session, sibling and friend dyads spent 10 minutes playing an
unfamiliar board game and 10 minutes in free play with experimenter-provided toys.
3
Utterances per Minute
 Approximately half of the sibling pairs were same-sex, half mixed-sex.
2.5
2
Sibling Free Play
Friend Free Play
Sibling Game
Friend Game
1.5
1
Affiliative Language Use (Figure 3)
Mitigated Affiliative
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated
affiliative language with friends than with siblings (F = 28.98, p < .001).
• There was a significant main effect of gender, such that targets from an Older
Female/Younger Male dyad used more mitigated affiliative language than targets from any
other dyads (F = 4.95, p < .01).
Unmitigated Affiliative
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated
affiliative language with friends than siblings (F = 5.13, p < .05).
• There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated
affiliative language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 14.03, p < .01).
0
Mitigated
Unmitigated
Type of Affiliative Utterance
 Assertive and affiliative utterances were further classified as positive or negative.
 In the current analyses, we focus on comparisons between the free-play task and
the game task because the game was intended to elicit competition, which might be
expected to result in heightened use of assertive language.
Negative Assertive Language Use (Figure 2)
Mitigated Negative Assertive
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated
negative assertive language with friends than with siblings (F = 11.37, p = .002).
• There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more mitigated negative
assertive language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 4.33, p = .045).
Unmitigated Negative Assertive
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated
negative assertive language with siblings than with friends (F = 33.16, p < .01).
• There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated
negative assertive language in the game task than in the free play task (F = 5.87, p = .021).
0.5
 A separate group of researchers coded transcripts of these sessions for instances
of assertive and affiliative language.
 All utterances were then coded as mitigated or unmitigated; mitigated utterances
were those in which the impact of the utterance was softened in various ways.
Unmitigated Positive Assertive
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated
assertive language in interactions with friends than siblings (F = 28.13, p < .01).
• There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated
assertive language in the free play task than the game task (F = 23.80, p < .01).
Unmitigated
Type of Negative Assertive Utterance
 Target children were each paired with a sibling (15-30 months older or younger than
target child) and with a same-age friend.
Positive Assertive Language Use (Figure 1)
Mitigated Positive Assertive
• There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated
assertive language in interactions with friends than with siblings (F = 17.29, p < .01).
• There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more mitigated assertive
language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 12.82, p < .01).
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr. Ganie DeHart for making
this opportunity possible and for all of her guidance
during the course of this study. Support for data
collection was provided by the Geneseo Foundation.
DISCUSSION
Our results suggest that differences exist in the use of assertive and affiliative language
depending on the assigned task (game or free play) with sibling and friend partners. As
expected, more assertive utterances in general were used in the game task in comparison to
the free play task. More specifically, both boys and girls used more negative assertive
language in the game task than in the free play task. Both boys and girls also used more
negative assertive language with siblings than with friends.
However, in contrast to previous assumption, very few gender effects were found. While there
were no significant gender effects found in assertive language, targets from the Older
Female/ Younger Male dyad used more affiliative language than any other pair of dyads.
Further research incorporating other tasks and further information on mitigation is needed to
better understand how assertive and affiliative language use relates to the dynamics between
same-sex and mixed-sex sibling and friend pairs across development.