Peer Popularity Research Articles

The Social Climate of Schools in the Aftermath of 9-11

Since September 11, 2001, ethnic tensions involving persons of Middle Eastern descent have increased in the United States. This study examined the peer relationships of 748 fifth-grade students of different ethnic groups both at one month and eight months post-9-11. Results indicated that only Middle Eastern children showed a large drop in positive peer nominations and popularity over the course of the school year. Bullying of Middle Eastern and Hispanic students also showed a significant increase. Given that peer problems and bullying are detrimental to the school climate and promote violence, the need for proactive school-based programs to foster racial tolerance is discussed.

Subtypes of self-esteem and self-concept in adolescent violent and property offenders.

To investigate the relationship between subtypes of self-esteem/self-concept (familial, academic, social, and personal security) and antisocial behavior in adolescents (violent and property offending). A self-report survey was administered in a representative group of 1466 students aged 12 to 18. Both low family acceptance and low academic competence were found to predict property and violent offending, while high peer popularity was found to predict mainly violent offending. The finding that subtypes of self-esteem/self-concept present differently in antisocial adolescents may have clinical and scientific consequences, and such differentiation should be considered in future research. It should also be investigated whether this finding has therapeutic consequences.

Adolescent oral sex, peer popularity, and perceptions of best friends' sexual behavior.

To provided initial descriptive information regarding adolescents' engagement in oral sex and to investigate adolescents' perceptions of their best friends' sexual behavior and peer-reported popularity as two social mechanisms that may influence engagement in oral sex. A total of 212 tenth graders reported their engagement in oral sex and intercourse, number of sexual partners, and use of sexually transmitted infection (STI) protection, as well as perceptions of their best friends' sexual behaviors. Sociometric assessment yielded peer-reported measures of adolescents' preference- and reputation-based popularity. Adolescents were more likely to report engagement in oral sex than intercourse, report more oral sex partners than intercourse partners, and were unlikely to report use of STI protection during oral sex. Perceptions of best friends' behavior were significantly associated with adolescents' own oral sex behavior, but not intercourse. Adolescents who reported sexual activity had high levels of reputation-based popularity, but not likeability among peers; however, sex with more partners was associated with lower levels of popularity. Implications for prevention programs are discussed.

The Relationship Between Psychological Understanding and Positive Social Behaviors

AbstractThis research investigates the relationship between psychological understanding and positive social behavior in preschool children. A sample of 67 children were given measures of mental state understanding and emotion understanding. Positive social behavior was measured by classroom observation, teacher report and peer ratings. Both mental state understanding and emotion understanding were positively related to teacher ratings of social skills, behavioral observers’ global ratings of social skills and peer popularity. When language ability was partialled out of these relationships, many of the significant correlations disappeared; however, for variables related to peers’ perceptions, psychological understanding continued to predict unique variance. The results are discussed in terms of the multiple determinacy of positive social behaviors and the potential role of language in these processes.

Kindergarten Social-Emotional Competence: Developmental Predictors and Psychosocial Implications

Forty-nine children ( M age =46.36 v mths) participated in a study of the predictors of social-emotional competence in kindergarten. This study longitudinally examined relations among child-mother attachment at age 3, family stress at ages 3, 4, and 5, and social-emotional outcomes in kindergarten. Attachment was measured using the Attachment Q-Set and family stress was determined using the Life Experiences Survey. At kindergarten age, mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18, teachers completed the Preschool Socioaffective Profile, and focal children's peers completed a sociometric task to determine peer popularity. Results suggest that less secure children are more aggressive and less socially competent in kindergarten, and children who experience more family stress in their preschool years are more aggressive and anxious and less socially competent in kindergarten than their peers who experience less family stress in those same years. Teachers report that boys are more aggressive and anxious in the kindergarten classroom than are girls.

Mindreading and moral awareness in popular and rejected preschoolers

This study sought to examine links among young children's peer relations, their moral understanding in terms of the ability to distinguish lies from mistakes, and their theory‐of‐mind development. Based on sociometric measures, 109 children with a mean age of 4.8 years were divided into groups of popular and rejected preschoolers. Rejected children who had a stable mutual friend scored higher on measures of moral understanding and theory of mind than did rejected children without such friendships. Similarly, popular children who had a stable mutual friendship outperformed other popular children on mindreading, although their moral understanding was no better than that of the popular group who lacked mutual friends. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that peer popularity was a significant independent predictor of children's moral understanding after any effects of verbal maturity, age and theory‐of‐mind were statistically controlled. Moreover, having a reciprocal stable friendship made a significant independent contribution to the explanation of individual differences in mindreading, over and above age and verbal maturity, which also contributed significantly. These results are discussed in terms of conversational, cognitive, and emotional processes in the development of social cognition.

The Attributes Adolescents Associate with Peer Popularity and Teacher Preference

Perceived popularity and perceived teacher preference were investigated in a sample of 351 (179 boys, 172 girls) 10th-grade students from an urban community experiencing a moderate degree of economic distress. Students completed rating scale sociometric and behavioral nomination measures. Data on GPAs and unexplained absences were obtained from the school. Multiple regression analyses revealed that different behaviors were associated with perceived popularity and perceived teacher preference. Low GPA, low submissiveness, and high rates of absenteeism were associated with high perceived popularity and a low perceived teacher preference. Snobbishness and prosociality were more strongly associated with perceived popularity than perceived teacher preference. Students who were perceived as high on both dimensions simultaneously maintained a commitment to their scholastic success at school while behaving in a highly friendly nonsubmissive manner. A relation was also found between individuals' ratings of students' peer popularity and their own behavioral and academic attributes.

Genetic and environmental influences in adolescent peer socialization: evidence from two genetically sensitive designs.

Harris argues that peer relationships are the chief determinants of personality development. Harris's thesis makes the behavioral genetic investigation of peer groups particularly timely. The present study examined genetic and environmental contribution to self-reported peer-group characteristics in two samples of adolescent siblings: 180 adoptive and nonadoptive sibling pairs from the Colorado Adoption Project, and 386 sibling pairs from the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development Study. Substantial genetic influence emerged for college orientation, with the remaining variance accounted for by nonshared environment. For delinquency, however, the majority of the variance was explained by nonshared environment. Although genetic influence was implicated for peer popularity in twin analyses, genetic factors were not important in explaining individual differences in nontwin siblings. These results suggest that although some dimensions of peers are somewhat mediated by genetic factors, nonshared environmental influence is substantial.

Emotion recognition and social adjustment in school-aged girls and boys.

The present study investigated emotion recognition accuracy and its relation to social adjustment in 7-10 year-old children. The ability to recognize basic emotions from facial and vocal expressions was measured and compared to peer popularity and to teacher-rated social competence. The results showed that emotion recognition was related to these measures of social adjustment, but the gender of a child and emotion category affected this relationship. Emotion recognition accuracy was significantly related to social adjustment for the girls, but not for the boys. For the girls, especially the recognition of surprise was related to social adjustment. Together, these results suggest that the ability to recognize others' emotional states from nonverbal cues is an important socio-cognitive ability for school-aged girls.

Gender Differences in Adolescent Self-Esteem: An Exploration of Domains

The relationship between gender and global self-esteem in adolescence, while modest, has been well established, with boys consistently scoring higher than girls. In the present study, we sought to understand gender differences in adolescent self-esteem in terms of its component parts. With a relatively large (n = 545) sample of adolescents, drawn from Grades 8, 10. and 12, we specified 8 domains of adolescent self-esteem (personal security, home/parents, peer popularity, academic competence, attractiveness, personal mastery, psychological permeability, and athletic competence) across a number of different instruments and brought them together into a common assessment superstructure. Gender differences as well as the relative contributions of the different domains to overall self-esteem scores were measured. As predicted, boys attained slightly higher global self-esteem scores than girls did, by a difference of .22 standard deviation units. Contrary to our expectation of more balanced domain effects, boys significantly outperformed girls in 6 of 8 domains, whereas the 2 remaining domains exhibited no significant gender differences. There were no main or interaction effects for grade level. In terms of relative contribution of these domains to global self-esteem for the 2 genders, global self-esteem in boys and girls is predicted in very similar strengths and in the same order of magnitude by identical domains of self-esteem: home/parents, personal security, academic competence, attractiveness, and personal mastery—yielding multiple R 2s from .88 to .91.

Peer and Teacher Sociometrics for Preschool Children: Cross-Informant Concordance, Temporal Stability, and Reliability

Cross-informant concordance (peers vs. teachers), temporal stability, and reliability associated with sociometrics were systematically examined in a sample of 84 preschoolers (M = 4.5 years). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that parallel forms of teacher and peer sociometrics measured overlapping and unique aspects of peer popularity. Reliability, a characteristic of a measurement instrument (sociometric assessment), was differentiated from stability, which is associated with the phenomenon or behavior being measured (children's peer popularity). Teacher-measured popularity was highly stable over an 8-week period, while peer-measured popularity showed lower stability. High reliability was found for both teacher and peer sociometrics. Child age and classroom participation rates did not alter the pattern or magnitude of the modeled relationships.

Social and Emotional Competencies: Contributions to Young African-American Children's Peer Acceptance

This study explored the relation between measures of emotional competence, behavioral regulation, and general social competence and African-American preschoolers' peer acceptance and popularity. These children came from both lower and middle income families. Data were collected in a short-term longitudinal study following children over the course of a school year. Gender, emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and themes of violence in response to hypothetical situations of interpersonal conflict were strongly related to peer acceptance. The results are consistent with findings from middle-class Caucasian samples. The results also highlight the importance of potential influences of context and setting on children's peer status as well as the need for greater understanding of within- group variability with regard to these constructs. Given the growing evidence that peer relationships are related in important ways to children's school adjustment, understanding the development of positive peer relationships may help shed light on ways to help children achieve at more optimal levels in the school context.

Peer Acceptance and Social Adjustment in Preschool and Kindergarten

Research on the relation between social behavior and peer acceptance in preschool children and the long-term consequences of peer acceptance or rejection is reviewed. Preschool children who exhibit aggressive behavior tend to be rejected by peers at an early age and these first impressions have a lasting effect on peer acceptance, in spite of subsequent changes in the child's behavior. Social behaviors that are related to peer popularity vary by age and sex. Children who experience high levels of peer acceptance in preschool and who have friends entering kindergarten with them make a better adjustment to school. Recommendations for fostering social development in preschoolers are discussed.

Effects of Perceived Attractiveness and Academic Success on Early Adolescent Peer Popularity

Effects of perceived attractiveness and academic performance on 9th graders' ratings of peers' popularity were investigated. Participants were 270 9th graders (152 girls, 118 boys) who read a vignette describing a hypothetical same-sex peer with whom the student had been assigned to complete a project. The partner's attractiveness and academic performance were systematically varied in four conditions: high attractiveness/high grades, high attractiveness/low grades, low attractiveness/high grades, and low attractiveness/low grades. After reading the vignette, the students rated the partner's popularity. As hypothesized, analyses of variance revealed that attractive partners were significantly more popular than unattractive partners, regardless of whether the partner had high or low grades. Contrary to expectation, attractiveness was not more important to girls than to boys. Integration with past research and suggestions for future research are offered.

Grade-Level Differences in the Social Value of Effort: Implications for Self-Presentation Tactics of Early Adolescents

Differences in fourth, sixth, and eighth grade (10-, 12-, and 14-year-old) students' willingness to portray themselves as diligent to their popular peers and teachers and their perceptions of the social value of effort and ability ascriptions were examined. The results revealed that the fourth- and sixth-grade students desired to portray themselves as effortful to teachers and peers, whereas the eighth graders were more reluctant to convey to their popular peers than teachers that they study hard. Consistent with these findings, the fourth graders perceived high effort to increase teacher approval as well as popularity among peers, whereas the eighth graders viewed diligence as facilitating teacher approval but low effort expenditure as improving peer popularity. Reasons for youngsters' changing notions of the social value of achievement ascriptions and their self-presentation tactics in school are discussed.

Influence of Communicative Competence on Peer Preferences in a Preschool Classroom

Recent research suggests that children's linguistic competence may play a central role in establishing social acceptance. That possibility was evaluated by examining children's peer relationships in a preschool classroom attended by children with varying degrees of communication ability. Three groups of children were compared: children with normally developing language skills (ND), children with speech and/or language impairments (S/LI), and children learning English as a second language (ESL). Two sociometric tasks were used to measure peer popularity: positive nominations and negative nominations. Children in the ND group received more positive nominations than the children in either the ESL or S/LI groups. When the children's positive and negative nominations were combined to classify them as Liked, Disliked, Low Impact, or Mixed, the ND children predominated in the Liked cell, whereas the other two groups of children fell into the Disliked or Low Impact cells. In addition, the PPVT-R, a receptive measure of single-word vocabulary, was found to be the best predictor of peer popularity. The findings are discussed in terms of a social consequences account of language limitations.

Mothers' and Children's Friendships: Intergenerational Associations

We assessed predictability of the friendship participation and quality, as well as the popularity, of 154 children 8 to 12 years of age from measures of their mothers' social relationships. Measures included questionnaires assessing qualities of the mothers' best friendships and the quality of the marital relationship, and an interview measure of maternal acceptance of the child. Results indicated that qualities of the mothers' best friendship, in particular self-referent reward qualities, significantly predicted child friendship participation, the closeness and helpfulness of children's friendships, child popularity and maternal acceptance. Marital status was an important predictor, and marital quality a lesser predictor, of child friendship quality but not of popularity. Results suggest domain-specific parental influences on children's friendships which are distinct from peer popularity.

Social problem solving, social behavior, and children's peer popularity.

This study examined social problem-solving ability and peer social behavior in popular and unpopular 5-6-year-old children. The 4 most popular and 4 least popular individuals in a school class of 26 children were identified. Responses to a series of four social dilemmas were obtained, and the children were videotaped during free class activities. Popular children gave significantly more effective (p < .01) and relationship oriented (p < .05) strategies for resolving social dilemmas than unpopular children, and they were involved in more peer interactions (p < .05), were more positively reinforcing (p < .01), and showed more positive activity when alone (p < .01).

Children's facial and gestural decoding and encoding: Relations between skills and with popularity

This study examined preschool children's decoding and encoding of facial emotions and gestures, interrelationships between these skills, and the relationship between these skills and children's popularity. Subjects were 34 preschoolers (eighteen 4-year-olds, sixteen 5-year-olds), with an equal number of boys and girls. Children's nonverbal skill was measured on four tasks: decoding emotions, decoding gestures, encoding facial emotions, and encoding gestures. Children's popularity was measured by teacher ratings. Analyses revealed the following major findings: (a) There were no age or gender effects on performance on any of the tasks. (b) Children performed better on decoding than encoding tasks, suggesting that nonverbal comprehension precedes production. Also, children appeared better at facial emotion skills than gesture skills. There were significant correlations between decoding and encoding gestures, and between encoding gestures and encoding emotions. (c) Multiple regression analyses indicated that encoding emotions and decoding gestures were marginally predictive of popularity. In addition, when children's scores on the four tasks were combined via z-score transformations, children's aggregate nonverbal skill correlated significantly with peer popularity.

Family Emotional Expressiveness as a Predictor of Early Adolescent Social and Psychological Adjustment

Parents' support of their children's emotional expressiveness was examined in relation to the children's social and psychological adjustment over a 3-year period. Nonhostile expression of emotion within the family (both observed and self-reported) appears to have provided a buffer against psychological problems over the transition to middle school and to have enhanced concurrent and long-term developmental outcomes, as evidenced by greater peer popularity, more positive self-concept for girls, and more positive social behavior in the classroom for boys. Parents' and children's levels of observed emotionality were highly intercorrelated, suggesting that parents were modeling a level of emotional expressiveness that was similar to the level they allowed or supported in their children.