Research with adults has shown that people differ in their tendencies to monitor their own behavior, through self- observation and self-control. These tendenciesm, called self- monitoring, have been measured and related to a wide variety of social behavior, including patterns of cooperation and competition, friendship formation, social comparison, and self- evaluation. What is not known, however, is how or when self- monitoring tendencies develop, what events in childhood or adolescence induce self-monitoring, or even how children engage in self-monitoring. This project, a three-step program of research, will provide data to determine whether: (a) self- monitoring can be assessed in children and adolescents: (b) self-monitoring is affected by changes in children's social environment; and (c) self-monitoring is related to basic processes of emotional communication, self-control, and interpersonal interaction in children and adolescents. The project will conduct basic foundational work upon which later work on social development can be built.
