This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks in adult-supervised after-school cooperative group activities and group discussions about group functioning. Discussions from each group meeting were coded for instances of verbally expressed communicative competencies. Results suggested a relation between level of social understanding, reflectively expressed, and frequency of competent communications expressed in the course of the group discussions. Children's strategies for task-related negotiation were also coded. The number of developmentally advanced strategies was significantly lower for the group of young children with lowlevel reflective social understanding as compared to the other three groups. Results are discussed in the context of the problems with assessing developmental levels of social understanding in natural settings.
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