Popularity in the peer system

320 Pages·2011·1.01 MB·English

by  Antonius H Cillessen

PoPularity in the Peer SyStem

PoPularity

in the
Peer SyStem
edited by
antoniuS h. n. CilleSSen
DaviD SChwartz
lara mayeux
t G P
he uilford ress
new york london
© 2011 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Popularity in the peer system / edited by Antonius H. N. Cillessen,
David Schwartz, and Lara Mayeux.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60918-066-9 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. Popularity. 2. Peer pressure. 3. Social acceptance. 4. Social interaction
in children. 5. Social interaction in adolescence. 6. Social status.
I. Cillessen, Antonius H. N. II. Schwartz, David, 1962– III. Mayeux, Lara.
HQ784.P43P67 2011
303.3′27—dc22
2010045001
To our wonderful nieces and nephews,
the young lights in our lives
who have taught us so much:
Maaike, Jop, Aafke, Susanne, and Yvonne
—A. H. N. C.
Jessica, Lucas, and Sadie
—D. S.
Nathan and Taylor
—L. M.
about the editors
Antonius H. N. Cillessen, PhD, is Professor and Chair of Developmental
Psychology in the Behavioural Science Institute and Vice Dean of the Fac-
ulty of Social Science at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Nether-
lands. Dr. Cillessen’s research interests include peer relationships in child-
hood and adolescence, popularity, aggression and antisocial behavior, the
development of social cognition, and research methods for developmen-
tal psychology (sociometric methods, social network analysis, observa-
tional research, and longitudinal design and analysis). He has served on
the editorial boards of Developmental Psychology, the Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, and the International Journal of Behavioral Development.
David Schwartz, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Psy-
chology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Dr.
Schwartz’s research is broadly concerned with the links between social
problems in the peer group during childhood and adolescence and the
development of psychopathology. He has published widely on topics
related to bully/victim problems in school peer groups, community vio-
lence exposure, peer relationships across cultural contexts, friendship,
aggression, and popularity. Dr. Schwartz has also served on the editorial
boards of Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and the Jour-
nal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
Lara Mayeux, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychol-
ogy at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Dr. Mayeux’s primary
research interests are peer relationships and the development of peer
status in middle childhood and adolescence, with a particular focus on
popularity. Her work, funded by the National Science Foundation, has
focused on behavioral, social-cognitive, and gender issues in popularity.
vi
Contributors
Julie Wargo Aikins, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut,
Storrs, Connecticut
Amy Bellmore, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University
of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
B. Bradford Brown, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University
of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
William M. Bukowski, PhD, Department of Psychology and Centre for
Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada
Antonius H. N. Cillessen, PhD, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Karmon D. Dyches, MS, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma,
Norman, Oklahoma
Gary C. Glick, BS, Department of Psychological Sciences, University
of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
Andrea Hopmeyer Gorman, PhD, Department of Psychology, Occidental
College, Los Angeles, California
Sandra Graham, PhD, Department of Education, University of California,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
John J. Houser, MS, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma,
Norman, Oklahoma
Scott D. Litwack, MA, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut,
Storrs, Connecticut
Peter E. L. Marks, MA, Institute of Child Development, University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lara Mayeux, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma,
Norman, Oklahoma
vii
viii Contributors
Don E. Merten, PhD, Department of Anthropology, Ball State University,
Muncie, Indiana
Adrienne Nishina, PhD, Department of Human and Community Development,
University of California, Davis, Davis, California
Anthony D. Pellegrini, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Amanda J. Rose, PhD, Department of Psychological Sciences, University
of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
Cary J. Roseth, PhD, Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology,
and Special Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
Marlene J. Sandstrom, PhD, Department of Psychology, Williams College,
Williamstown, Massachusetts
David Schwartz, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, California
Rhiannon L. Smith, MA, Department of Psychological Sciences, University
of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
David W. Solberg, BA, Department of Educational Psychology, University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mark J. Van Ryzin, PhD, Oregon Social Learning Center, Eugene, Oregon
Preface
a
n 11-year-old girl cries to her parents one day that the popu-
lar crowd at school made fun of her, and then days later asks if she may
invite those same peers to her birthday party. A well-known high school
athlete is involved in a fistfight with a less popular peer, and the athlete is
reprimanded and sent back to class, while the peer’s parents are called
and he is removed from the school. The news that an admired “super-
couple” has engaged in sexual intercourse for the first time spreads
quickly across the high school campus, and the boy receives pats on the
back while his girlfriend is covertly called a “slut” by other students.
The often paradoxical dynamics of high-status children and adoles-
cents and their peers are puzzling yet fascinating to parents, educators,
and researchers. Feature films of the last 20 years and recent nonfiction
books such as Queen Bees and Wannabes (Wiseman, 2002) attest to the
popular interest in “the cool kids.” Although there has been a recent
surge of interest in popularity and the behaviors of the “in” crowd, social
and scientific interest in this topic is not a recent phenomenon. The first
empirical study on popularity among children actually appeared in Child
Development in the 1930s (Koch, 1933), and Moreno’s classic book
Who Shall Survive? was published just a year later. In his book, Moreno
(1934) described what he called “sociometric stars”—those individuals
who were looked upon favorably by the majority of their peers and stood
out as highly accepted members of the classroom. These early investiga-
tions of high-status children conceptualized popularity as a combination
of acceptance, liking, and positive feelings toward a child on the part of
the social group. It was considered a universally desirable characteristic
in children, thought to be associated with all kinds of positive attributes.
ix
x Preface
A long tradition of studying well-liked children, called “popular” chil-
dren (or “sociometrically popular” children), was born, and hundreds of
studies on the topic were published in the decades following Koch’s and
Moreno’s writings.
Developmental psychologists continued their interest in so-called
popular children well into the 1980s and 1990s, developing unique and
highly technical methods of measuring status and behavior in the peer cul-
ture. These researchers broadened our understanding of these high-status
children in many ways, describing their typical peer-directed behaviors,
social cognitions, and emotional development, and “popularity” came
to be understood as an indicator of any number of socially competent
behaviors and positive outcomes.
Over time, however, researchers began to question what exactly they
were measuring when they assessed “peer popularity,” particularly among
adolescents. Research findings that did not fit the traditional pattern
began to emerge. Consider the experience of this volume’s first editor.
Along with a colleague, he conducted an investigation of children’s per-
ceptions of what makes a peer popular. Children were asked directly to
list characteristics of popular children, and the researchers expected to
hear responses such as “kind,” “funny,” “helps others out,” and the like.
Although those responses did appear, so too did other responses of a very
different nature: “mean,” “snobby,” “hurts other people”—not at all the
traditional understanding of popular children.
It became clear over time that the term popularity meant something
very different to children than it did to the developmental psychologists
studying them. (Researchers in other fields, such as sociology of educa-
tion, had already been conducting ethnographic studies of popular ado-
lescents for some years with much success; the results of their investiga-
tions are also discussed in this book.) To children and adolescents, “being
popular” suggests a complex interplay of social behaviors, attitudes, and
benefits, not all of which are positive, easily understood, or even fair. The
scenarios described in the first paragraph of this preface are representa-
tive of the often confusing and frustrating nature of social status dynam-
ics, but they are certainly not exhaustive. Since the 1990s, a growing
number of studies from a variety of fields have illuminated the distinction
between being liked (our old definition of popularity) and being socially
powerful. Our understanding of the various forms of high status, how
they are alike and different, and how they fit into the ecology of the social
group has been greatly improved by the efforts of these researchers.
This book describes that body of work. Drawing from develop-
mental psychology, sociology of education, social psychology, and other
fields, we present here a summary of the empirical research on popularity
as a social developmental phenomenon. To clarify the terminology we