Quantitative analysis of spontaneous sociality in children's group behavior during nursery activity.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science

Social Behavior*; Child Behavior/*psychology; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Group Processes ; Humans ; Male ; Movement

Sociality is the tendency to spontaneously interact with others to establish and maintain relationships. Some approaches, including questionnaires, tests, controlled experiments, and qualitative field research, cannot capture complex social interactions, such as in children during nursery activities, because of problems with ecological validity and the labor cost of analysis. Here, we introduced a new methodology for the quantitative analysis of spontaneous social movement and investigated children's group behavior using position data. We periodically visited a nursery and recorded videos of eurhythmics, in which children move in tune with music, in different classes. The results revealed that children in the six-year-old class approached others in a short period of time (within one second) and established group behavior like that in a game of tag. It can be interpreted that such social behavior may include actions related to the cognition of anticipating others' behaviors in a complex situation. Although only a small amount of data could be acquired, this study suggests one of the characteristics of social behaviors in the classroom considering an ecological approach.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2013 Jul;4(4):391-402. (PMID: 26304226)
PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9(2):e1002915. (PMID: 23468605)
Annu Rev Psychol. 2017 Jan 3;68:243-267. (PMID: 27687121)
Child Dev. 1988 Feb;59(1):26-37. (PMID: 3342716)
Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 05;6:23911. (PMID: 27045443)
Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Oct;14(10):441-7. (PMID: 20674467)
Front Psychol. 2014 Aug 08;5:874. (PMID: 25152745)
PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e47911. (PMID: 23144834)
Annu Rev Psychol. 2013;64:231-55. (PMID: 22804772)
PLoS Comput Biol. 2014 Jul 24;10(7):e1003697. (PMID: 25057853)
PLoS Comput Biol. 2018 Nov 5;14(11):e1006545. (PMID: 30395600)
Phys Rev E. 2018 Feb;97(2-1):022410. (PMID: 29548247)
Cognition. 1983 Jan;13(1):103-28. (PMID: 6681741)
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2004 Sep;87(3):327-39. (PMID: 15382983)
J Theor Biol. 2002 Sep 7;218(1):1-11. (PMID: 12297066)
J Abnorm Psychol. 1999 May;108(2):211-21. (PMID: 10369031)
Front Hum Neurosci. 2010 Dec 08;4:220. (PMID: 21165176)
Trends Cogn Sci. 2006 Feb;10(2):70-6. (PMID: 16406326)
Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Dec 5;113(23):238701. (PMID: 25526171)
Front Psychol. 2016 Sep 27;7:1462. (PMID: 27729886)
Nature. 2005 Feb 3;433(7025):513-6. (PMID: 15690039)
Cognition. 1982 Mar;11(2):159-84. (PMID: 6976880)
Cognition. 2017 Jan;158:165-176. (PMID: 27835787)
PLoS One. 2013 Aug 07;8(8):e71182. (PMID: 23951106)
Infancy. 2001 Oct;2(4):419-436. (PMID: 33451194)
Child Dev. 2001 May-Jun;72(3):655-84. (PMID: 11405571)
Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2005;9(3):184-211. (PMID: 16083360)
Psychol Sci. 2006 Dec;17(12):1075-81. (PMID: 17201790)
Dev Psychol. 2017 Jan;53(1):100-113. (PMID: 28026192)
Psychol Bull. 1969 May;71(5):359-72. (PMID: 4892572)
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Mar 27;109(13):4786-91. (PMID: 22427355)
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2011 Jan;2(1):117-123. (PMID: 26301917)

Date Created: 20210202 Date Completed: 20210723 Latest Revision: 20210723

20250114

PMC7853442

10.1371/journal.pone.0246041

33529267