State University of New York at Geneseo Task and Partner in 7-year-olds’ Use of Assertive and Affiliative Language Victor M. Borges, Brittney N. Richardson, Samantha M. Cytryn, Caitlyn M. Fisher, Marissa M. Berry & Ganie B. DeHart State University of New York at Geneseo ABSTRACT RESULTS As part of a longitudinal study, we examined 7-year- olds’ use of assertive and affiliative language with siblings and friends during free play and a board game. Contrary to past research, we found that task and interaction partner may influence the use of assertive and affiliative language more than gender does. Positive Assertive Language Use (Figure 1) Mitigated Positive Assertive There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated assertive language in interactions with friends than with siblings (F = 17.29, p < .01). There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more mitigated assertive language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 12.82, p < .01). Unmitigated Positive Assertive There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated assertive language in interactions with friends than siblings (F = 28.13, p < .01). There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated assertive language in the free play task than the game task (F = 23.80, p < .01). Negative Assertive Language Use (Figure 2) Mitigated Negative Assertive There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated negative assertive language with friends than with siblings (F = 11.37, p = .002). There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more mitigated negative assertive language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 4.33, p = .045). Unmitigated Negative Assertive There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated negative assertive language with siblings than with friends (F = 33.16, p < .01). There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated negative assertive language in the game task than in the free play task (F = 5.87, p = .021). Affiliative Language Use (Figure 3) Mitigated Affiliative There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more mitigated affiliative language with friends than with siblings (F = 28.98, p < .001). There was a significant main effect of gender, such that targets from an Older Female/Younger Male dyad used more mitigated affiliative language than targets from any other dyads (F = 4.95, p < .01). Unmitigated Affiliative There was a significant main effect of partner, such that targets used more unmitigated affiliative language with friends than siblings (F = 5.13, p < .05). There was a significant main effect of task, such that targets used more unmitigated affiliative language in the free play task than in the game task (F = 14.03, p < .01). INTRODUCTION Research on gender differences in children’s and adolescents’ use of affiliative and assertive language has focused primarily on interactions with same-sex peers. Based on these studies, researchers have long suggested that boys use more assertive language than girls and girls use more affiliative language than boys. However, recent research suggests that the relationship between language use and gender is more complicated, especially when negative affect and mitigation are taken into account. Relatively little is known about differences in boys’ and girls’ use of affiliative language, assertive language, and mitigation over the course of development, across interactions with different partners, or across different tasks or interaction contexts.   As part of a longitudinal study, we examined 7-year-olds’ use of assertive and affiliative language during interactions with siblings and friends. Assertive utterances were defined as those used primarily to accomplish a goal, whereas affiliative utterances were those intended to establish or maintain contact with others. In the current analyses, we focus on comparisons between a free-play task and a game task because the game was intended to elicit competition, which might be expected to result in heightened use of assertive language. METHOD Participants 39 white, middle-class 7-year- olds living in Western New York Target children were each paired with a sibling (15-30 months older or younger than target child) and with a same-age friend. Approximately half of the sibling pairs were same-sex, half mixed-sex. Half of the siblings were older than the target child, and half were younger. Procedure 7-year-olds were videotaped during separate 10-minute free play and game sessions with a sibling and with a friend. During each session, sibling and friend dyads spent 10 minutes playing an unfamiliar board game and 10 minutes in free play with experimenter-provided toys. A separate group of researchers coded transcripts of these sessions for instances of assertive and affiliative language. Assertive and affiliative utterances were further classified as positive or negative. All utterances were then coded as mitigated or unmitigated; mitigated utterances were those in which the impact of the utterance was softened in various ways. In the current analyses, we focus on comparisons between the free-play task and the game task because the game was intended to elicit competition, which might be expected to result in heightened use of assertive language. DISCUSSION Our results suggest that differences exist in the use of assertive and affiliative language depending on the assigned task (game or free play) with sibling and friend partners. As expected, more assertive utterances in general were used in the game task in comparison to the free play task. More specifically, both boys and girls used more negative assertive language in the game task than in the free play task. Both boys and girls also used more negative assertive language with siblings than with friends. However, in contrast to previous assumption, very few gender effects were found. While there were no significant gender effects found in assertive language, targets from the Older Female/ Younger Male dyad used more affiliative language than any other pair of dyads.    Further research incorporating other tasks and further information on mitigation is needed to better understand how assertive and affiliative language use relates to the dynamics between same-sex and mixed-sex sibling and friend pairs across development. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Dr. Ganie DeHart for making this opportunity possible and for all of her guidance during the course of this study. Support for data collection was provided by the Geneseo Foundation.