Emotional adjustment and peer relationships: The role of behavioural reputation and classroom social climate

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332297 September 18, 2025 7 / 13 It should be noted that the same pattern was found when gender was included as a further grouping variable. Applying equality constraints on all paths from Time 1 behavioural reputation to Time 2 social preference across both low vs. high social climate classrooms and gender showed that constraints do not hold, Χ2(15) = 29.28, p = .015. However, when the equality constraint was freed for the path from disruptive behaviour to Time 2 social preference, only for low vs. high social climate while maintaining equality across gender, goodness of fit was restored, Χ2(14) = 18.39, p = .190, ∆Χ2(1) = 10.89, p = .001. Discussion The current study is aligned with nationwide developments in promoting social and emotional skills and mental health in UK schools [39,41,42]. In line with this, our results shed light on the interplay among emotional adjustment, peer relations and social climate in the classroom, providing information for future tailored intervention. As hypothesised, children’s levels of anger and anxiety had differentiated links with their behavioural reputation within the peer group: reputations were more disruptive and aggressive and less cooperative and shy in the case of those scoring high on anger, whereas reputations were more shy and less aggressive in the case of those scoring high on anxiety, in line with previous litera- ture [43,44]. All of these effects were evident over and above positive pathways between greater self-worth and greater

social preference via more cooperative and less disruptive behaviours. However, not all of the reputational characteristics appeared to be socially impactful in terms of predicting changes in social preference over the course of the project. In particular, the connection between anger and social preference appeared to hinge upon a reputation for more disrup- tive behaviour and less cooperative behaviour. But surprisingly, an aggressive reputation for starting fights, though more common in those experiencing more anger, was not uniquely predictive of changes in social preference. This perhaps reflects the fact that some aggressive children may be able to establish and maintain positions of social status within peer groups [45]; behaviour that is judged to disrupt social groups, on the other hand, may be more generally problematic and Fig 1. Final model (for entire sample) of associations between emotional adjustment, behavioural reputation, and social preference. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332297.g001