Assessment of Personality Profile of Peer Rejected Children

Abstract

The relationship with peers permits a new kind of interpersonal experimentation and exploration, which serve as one of the cornerstones for the development of personality. Present study aims at examining the personality profile of peer rejected school going children and compare them with the personality of peer accepted children. Peer rejected children were found to be shy in nature, disregarding social rules, involved more in anti-social activities, were emotionally less stable, depended, disobedient and have no originality of their own. Further, they were found to be socially immature and were having more negative and inadequate self-concept that made them more anxious, less adjusted and less effective in the tasks required at school and in their real life. Whereas, the peer accepted children were found to be obedient, emotionally stable, and were more creative in nature. They were also found to be less anxious and well adjusted both at school and home. Present findings indicated that the peer-rejected children are ‘at risk’ and intervention is required to develop positive personality traits so as to be accepted by their peers. An implication of this study has been discussed in the context of providing social skills training to the peer rejected children through ‘peer-mediated intervention’ in the Indian classroom situation.