Crick and Dodge‘s (1994) Social Information Processing Model

One avenue of social adjustment research has specifically focused on the individual aspects of cognitive processing that are involved in social interactions (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Over the past two decades, SIP models of children‘s social behaviour have

considerably developed our understanding of children‘s social adjustment. Models aim to provide a detailed account of how children, when faced with a social situational cue, progress through a series of mental states that precede their behaviour. Perhaps the most established SIP model is that of Crick and Dodge (1994), in turn a reformulation of Dodge‘s (1986) previous work. Crick and Dodge argued that children come equipped with a set of biologically determined capabilities and past experiences which influence their cognitive processing during any given encounter, and that it is the processing of the social cues available in said encounter that determines their behavioural response. Crick and Dodge depict this processing as occurring over several steps as shown in Figure 2.1. The steps of the model are hypothesised to occur rapidly and in parallel, with numerous feedback loops.

According to Crick and Dodge (1994), SIP begins when the child attends to and encodes social cues (step one). The child must then interpret these cues (step two), and subsequently determine his/her goals for the situation (step three). Responses to the situation are generated (step four), and evaluated for anticipated outcomes, the likelihood that the response will help the child to achieve his/her goals, and with respect to the self-efficacy held in performing the response (step five). Finally, the most positive evaluated response is

selected and behaviourally enacted (step six). After step six the cycle starts again.

because although individuals are engaged in parallel processes at the same time,

To illustrate, imagine a child who has been bumped into from behind and fallen over.

In step one, the child may selectively attend to certain aspects of the situation, which may lead them to be more or less inclined to interpret intent behind the provocation (step two). If hostility is assumed, the child must determine what his/her goals are – to avoid the

provocateur or to get revenge on them (step three). In order to get revenge the child generates predominantly aggressive responses (step four) and selects one that (s)he believes will have a positive outcome and that (s)he holds him/herself capable of carrying out (step five). This is likely to be epitomised in physical or verbal aggression (step six).

Figure 2.1: Crick and Dodge‟s Social Information Processing model of children‟s social adjustment

The information processing does not end there. The child will then evaluate the effectiveness of their behaviour thereby providing valuable insight into processing a similar situation in future. The database depicted at the centre of the model represents this process, contributing influential information to the processing of each step, and adapting itself accordingly in light of new experience. In the example above, the child may have experienced much hostility at home and thus inappropriately encodes anger from the provocateur (step one). Previous experience could also contribute to the likelihood that hostility is attributed in step two. Similarly, avoidance may have proven ineffective in

previous encounters biasing the child to focus on revenge driven goals (step three). (S)he may have found aggression to be an easy and pertinent way to achieve revenge in the past and thus generates hostile responses (step four) that (s)he believes will be effective in resolving the conflict (step five). Finally, the child responds by hitting out at the provocateur (step six).

The involvement of a database in the model enables Crick and Dodge (1994) to explain how social experiences (such as social rejection) can manifest themselves in maladaptive information processing and can also explain how maladaptive patterns can become habituated. This is particularly important as children may develop maladaptive schemata –organised sets of cognitive perceptions that influence every stage of SIP based upon their representation of events - which are often inaccurate and in contrast to peers‘

perceptions (Dodge, 1993). The development of an aggressive schema for example, could lead the child to feel in persistent threat from their peer group, interpreting even ambiguous provocation as indicative of targeted aggression, and cause them to respond inappropriately for the situation in hand (such as withdrawing from social interaction or reacting aggressively to non-threatening stimuli). Encouragingly, the most likely part of an individual‘s SIP to change is the database of social knowledge, and experiences of positive social interaction

may thus provide a potential route out of maladaptive behaviour. If the child repeatedly experienced positive outcomes to their cooperative behaviour they might be led to revaluate their interpretations of others, reconsider their social goals and even establish a new set of appropriate social behaviours.

Finally, a recent development of the model (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) is reported on, that explicitly considers the role of emotions within social information processing.

Lemerise and Arsenio (2000) posit that peer provocation situations are especially likely to be emotionally arousing for children. They argue that a child‘s database of past experiences consists of affective as well as cognitive components, and that children vary in their ability to regulate arousal or mood. Poor emotion regulators are held to be less competent throughout the SIP stages and therefore at higher risk for maladjustment (see Eisenberg et al., 1996).

In specific relation to the steps within Crick and Dodge‘s model: encoding negative emotional cues (such as anger; step one) in the provocateur would facilitate hostile

attributions to even ambiguous provocation (step two; Lemerise, Gregory, Leitner, &

Hobgood, 1999, cf Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000); being emotionally charged (in an angry mood) makes it more likely that a child will focus on instrumental goals of revenge (step three; Lemerise, Harper, Caverly, & Hopgood, 1998, cf Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000); and subsequently too self-focused to generate and evaluate a sufficient variety of responses, engaging instead in ―preemptive processing‖ (steps four and five; see Crick & Dodge, 1994).

The consequence of these processing biases is an emotionally fuelled maladaptive response unlikely to further social interaction (e.g., running away or retaliating angrily).