The Development of Social Competence from Early Childhood through Middle Adolescence: Continuity and Accentuation of Individual Differences Over Time

Abstract

One of the fundamental concerns of developmental psychology is the nature of continuity and change across development. The present study investigated the continuity of social competence across developmental periods, paying special attention to the transition from middle childhood to adolescence. Using a birth cohort of youths (277 males, 315 females), I examined the stability of social competence across developmental periods, assessed the relation between quality of early parenting and later competence, and tested how timing of pubertal maturation and school transition impact the stability of social competence, using both variable-centered and person-centered analyses. It was expected that social competence would be highly stable across development, but less stable across the transition to adolescence, and that higher quality parenting would predict greater competence among males and females. Furthermore, I expected that pubertal maturation and school transition would deflect trajectories of social competence over time, accentuating individual differences (e.g., socially competent youths would become more competent, whereas incompetent youths would become less competent). As expected, the nature of social competence was fairly stable from early childhood to adolescence, although there is evidence that social competence is less stable as youth transition from early childhood to middle childhood and from middle childhood to adolescence. Moreover, individuals with warm parenting evinced greater social competence across time. Consistent with my hypothesis, off-time pubertal maturation and school transition accentuated individual differences in social competence, increasing social competence among more competent youths, and further diminishing social competence among less competent youths. Finally, I find evidence that experiencing both off-time pubertal maturation and a school transition simultaneously incurred more risk for females, particularly among less competent females, than experiencing only off-time maturation or a school transition.