After children had interacted with each other during the week of summer camp, children evaluated the characteristics of their peers in their respective camp groups using a peer nomination method on the last day of camp (cf. Coie & Dodge, 1983). Counselors conducted the peer rating assessment with individual children. For each peer in the camp group, children were given five brief behavioral descriptors characterizing different types of social behavior and asked to select one peer from the group who best file the behavioral description, as well as select the one child who he/she liked most and liked least. The behavioral descriptors included a child who was: cooperative, a leader, shy, disruptive, and a fighter. The total number of nominations that each individual child received from peers in each category was determined, and these totals were converted to proportions of the possible nominations in each category, and these scores in each category were standardized within each year of camp. A summary peer acceptance score was calculated as the difference between scores for liked most and liked least. Scores for peer acceptance, leadership, and cooperativeness were used to assess social competence during the school age years.
