Interrelations were examined between young adolescents' characteristic social conduct and their social inferencing ability. Factor analysis of 48 teachers' ratings of 119 seventh grade students' characteristic social conduct resulted in the extraction of two factors. The first represented integrative or other-enhancing behavior; the second represented assertive behavior. Social inferencing loaded on the second factor for boys, and on a third orthogonal factor for girls. These results are interpreted in terms of male and female adolescents' differential ways of processing experience.
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