Adolescent popularity and likeability : associations with risk-taking and self-worth in Australian females and males

Abstract

This thesis presents a series of studies investigating adolescent peer status - both popularity and likeability - and their relationships with gender, risk-taking, and self-worth in the Australian context. The overall objective was to examine whether Australian adolescents differentiate between these two types of high social status from early adolescence (8th grade), through to middle (9th and 10th grade) and late adolescence (11th grade), and to consider gender differences in the characteristics, risk-taking profiles, and self-worth of popular and well-liked adolescents. Results from all six studies comprising the research program confirm a distinction between the two types of adolescent status. The first and second studies used an interviewing methodology to investigate the personality and appearance characteristics of popular and well-liked same-gendered peers in grades 9 (N = 106) and 11 (N = 84). The findings indicated that Australian adolescents conceptualise popular peers to have both prosocial and antisocial characteristics, and well-liked peers to possess only prosocial qualities. There were some similarities between popular and well-liked peers. However, there were also diverging characteristics that mainly related to their behaviours and interpersonal relationships, whereby popular adolescents engaged in activities that differentiated themselves from their peers, whereas well-liked peers displayed behaviours that achieve social connectedness. The relationships between peer status, gender, and risk-taking were investigated in studies three and four. The third study involved 642 students from 9th grade reporting on their own risk-taking activities in eight domains. The results from this cross-sectional study indicated a clear association between popularity and higher risk-taking in five out of the eight domains, whereas likeability was not directly related to risk-taking aside from one two-way interaction. To examine the stability of these relationships and to investigate temporal ordering, 273 students completed the identical questionnaire one year later as 10th graders. Risk-taking predicted higher likeability but lower popularity, but only for females. The relationships between peer status, gender, and self-worth were investigated in studies five and six. The fifth study considered self-worth and its relationships with peer status in a cross-sectional study of 476 students from 8th grade, where there were several findings regarding associations between popularity and domains of self-worth, but none for likeability. These relationships were then examined in the sixth study, which comprised a prospective investigation of 299 students who completed the identical study as 9th grade students one year later. The results indicated that peer status did not predict changes in self-worth, but self-worth did predict changes in both popularity and likeability. Overall, the findings indicated that popularity and likeability are distinct forms of social status, however they demonstrated that the benefits of high popularity come at the cost of increased risk-taking and an emphasis on external contingencies of self-worth. It is argued that there is a need for further prospective research into the costs of longer-term risk-taking, and the relationships between peer status and self-worth from middle to later adolescence, in order to comprehensively understand the benefits and negative consequences of popularity, which is often prioritised and desired by many adolescents. Show more