Positive Peer Reporting

Description of the Strategy

Social attention in the form of acknowledgment from one's peers can be a powerful positive reinforcer, particularly for students who are rejected or neglected by their peers. Unfortunately, peers may be more likely to attend to and reinforce antisocial behaviors [Page 1429]of their peers than to attend to and acknowledge prosocial behaviors. Positive peer reporting is a strategy designed to address this issue by increasing the availability of peer acknowledgment for the display of appropriate behavior and social interactions for a target individual or group of students. More specifically, this strategy involves training peers to notice and subsequently acknowledge positive aspects of the behavior of a targeted student or group of students. To promote the occurrence of peer acknowledgment, the strategy involves the delivery of incentives to peers for making positive comments about the target student's behavior. Training peers to focus on the positive aspects of the behavior of a target student is intended to shift the social ecology (classroom or home) from one that promotes negative gossip, tattling, and teasing to one in which students receive compliments from their peers for their appropriate behavior.

Although specific procedures for positive peer reporting vary, the basic principle underlying this strategy is positive reinforcement. For the target student, peer acknowledgment operates as positive reinforcement for displays of appropriate behavior and positive social interactions. For peers, incentives in the form of social praise from teachers or tokens or points that can later be exchanged for access to preferred activities or tangible items operate as positive reinforcement for peer acknowledgment (i.e., making positive comments about the target student).

Research Basis

An emerging line of research on positive peer reporting has demonstrated that providing opportunities for peers to report positive aspects of the behavior of their classmates has resulted in increases in appropriate social interactions (e.g., cooperative play), decreases in inappropriate social interactions (e.g., aggression), and improved peer acceptance (e.g., sociometric ratings) for children and adolescents in home and school settings. These effects have been found in residential care settings, special education classrooms, and general education classrooms. Further, positive effects have been noted across young children without identified disabilities and for older adolescents with or at risk of antisocial behavior disorders. Although likely to occur in the future, studies have not yet investigated procedural variations that might occur in positive peer reporting, such as comparisons between the manner in which peer reports are given (indirect or direct) or the length of the time frame about which reports are made (e.g., a day, class period). Although the number of studies on positive peer reporting is relatively small, preliminary results are promising.

Relevant Target Population Characteristics and Exceptions

This strategy was designed primarily for children and adolescents who are socially ostracized (ignored, avoided, rejected) by their peers and for whom the current setting (home or school) provides little peer acknowledgment for appropriate behavior.

Complications, Cautions, Guidelines

Positive peer reporting focuses on enhancing the display of existing appropriate social behaviors and not on the training of new social skills. Therefore, this strategy is more appropriate for children or adolescents who have a performance deficit in their display of appropriate behavior and not a skills deficit in this area. Further, because intervention strategies should be tied closely to the functions of identified problem behaviors, this intervention may be most effective for students whose problem behaviors are maintained by access to peer attention. For problem behaviors that are primarily maintained by escape from academic demands or escape from peer interactions, this strategy may be contraindicated. In particular, this procedure may not be advised for children or adolescents who are socially anxious and whose problem behaviors function to avoid social interactions. Although positive peer reporting may decrease negative peer interactions and minor aggressive behaviors, this strategy is not intended for reduction of severely aggressive or self-injurious behaviors. Behaviors dangerous to the safety of the target student or peers should be dealt with directly by procedures beyond the scope of the positive peer reporting strategy.

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