I talk a lot about popularity here without really taking the time to explain what I mean. Not that most of you don’t know what popularity is–we know it when we see it?–but in my field of research, these days, you don’t utter the word “popular” without qualifying it somehow. There’s more than one definition, and things start to get confusing.

So, without further ado, A Popularity Primer.

Chapter 1. Sociometric Popularity, aka Social Preference or “Likeability.”

This is old-school popularity, the original term for high social status that was coined by developmental psychologists back in the 1980s when research on peer relationships really started to take off. Sociometric popularity referred to kids who had a lot of friends, were well-liked by many and disliked by few, who were nice to other kids, with good grades, and who were on an even keel emotionally. When you heard the word “popularity” used, it meant all positive things. Popular kids were all-around good kids. This is not to say that well-liked kids never have problems–of course they do. But compared to some other children, like the victims of bullies and kids who are rejected by their entire peer group–well-liked kids are doing really, really well.

Chapter 2. Perceived Popularity, aka Being “Popular” or “Cool” or “In”

Sometimes I wonder what your average 13-year-old would have thought if she were to have picked up a few issues of Child Development in the 80s and read some articles about popular kids. She would either have assumed things at her school were totally messed up, or she would have rolled her eyes and made some comment about how adults just.don’t.get.it. (Eye roll.) Enter a few studies done in the late 90s: It started to become obvious that when kids themselves said the word “popular,” they meant something very different than the researchers did.

These days, popularity refers to the kids at the top of the social ladder. Everybody knows who they are, and lots of people want to either A) be them, B) be friends with them, or C) date them. (There’s also D) stay as far away from them as possible, but for some reason, the research hasn’t gotten around to those kids yet. Note to self.) Popular kids are a conundrum, a complex mix of nice and mean, prosocial and aggressive, trustworthy and manipulative. They’re thought to be socially savvy and good at understanding others, but they sometimes use these skills to hurt. Some popular kids fall heavily on the good side of things, some on the bad–and some are a pretty even mix of both. Some stay away from trouble, but others seek it out and flirt with danger, drinking too much and engaging in sex too young. We don’t see the same outcomes in likeable kids.

So, that’s the deal. Two different types of high status, two different sets of attributes and outcomes. I should also mention here that just because it took a while for developmental psychologists to get smart about what “popularity” means doesn’t mean that other fields hadn’t already figured it out–sociologists had been studying the cool kids for quite a while when peer relations people joined the party. We’re indebted to our sociologist colleagues; until popularity research reached a critical mass in our own field, the work of sociologists was almost all we had to go on!