Children's and Parents' Views of Ingratiation Tactics

Three studies were conducted. In Study I, 272 children were individually administered, via tape recordings, a questionnaire designed to assess their preferences for ingratiation tactics given particular targets. It was found that learning disabled children preferred ingratiation strategies which were judged less socially desirable by adults than those selected by non-learning disabled children. Additionally, scores on the questionnaire were not correlated with intelligence test scores, but were correlated with the child's sociometric ratings from peers and teacher ratings of the child's academic and attentional competence. In Study II parents of learning disabled and nondisabled children were compared as to their ratings of the social desirability of various ingratiation tactics. While no differences were found which were attributable to parent differences, parents made reliable discriminations as to the social desirability of various tactics addressed to particular targets. Study III attempted to replicate the results of adult judgments of ingratiation tactics obtained in studies I and II by employing an additional group of college students as subjects. Results across the studies suggest that adults agree on the social desirability of some forms of ingratiation tactics as used in interaction with particular targets. The implications of these findings for social-skills training are discussed.