popularity

If you’ve taken even a basic course in developmental psychology, you’ve probably heard the term evocative genotype-environment correlations. Evocative rGE refers to the idea that we’re born with characteristics that elicit certain types of social (environmental) experiences. The inborn characteristics are genetic, and they “create,” to a certain extent, aspects of our environments. An example I often use in my classes is the tendency of some infants to be particularly sociable, positive, and smiley. Those infants are likely to receive a lot more positive social interaction from other people than fussy, difficult infants are.

(To illustrate, I flash a big photo of a crying baby onto the screen, and watch the students frown or quietly say “awww” in sympathy. Then I flash a photo of a baby with a big, toothless grin up there, and watch the class immediately brighten, smile, and even laugh. Their bodies talk, too—their posture relaxes, they’re more open, they point at the baby.)

Because temperamental characteristics like sociability are thought to have a biological (genetic) basis, we can think of infant sociability as a genetic elicitor of positive social interactions—one that has a number of potential beneficial influences on development across the lifespan.

Okay, but this post is actually not about temperament. It’s about peer status.

S. Alexandra Burt (Michigan State) recently published a study suggesting that popularity represents exactly this type of gene-environment correlation. She recruited college men to participate in about an hour’s worth of small-group activities with guys they did not know. After the groups completed their tasks, they privately rank-ordered their group members in terms of how well they liked them. Burt also collected DNA samples, focusing on a specific gene that may be associated with affiliative behaviors and social status. Burt found that the guys who were rated as likeable were more likely to have a certain form of this “social status” gene. She suggests that the gene plays a role in the development of some (as yet unidentified) behavior, which then elicits liking on the part of acquaintances. It’s an excellent, if still theoretical, example of an evocative gene-environment correlation.

But then Burt took it a step further. In another study using similar methods (full disclosure: the article is still in press, so I’ve only read press summaries here and here), Burt found something even more intriguing: college guys with this same gene were more likely to advocate rule-breaking behavior during the group activities – and were again rated as more likeable than guys without the gene. Ah, there it is! Gene influences the development of behavior (rule-breaking), which is associated with the development of high peer status. Now we’re on to something.

To get this off my chest: This study didn’t really measure popularity; it measured social acceptance, or likeability, or social preference, or sociometric popularity—take your pick. This study uses old-school terminology. Hey, she’s a behavior geneticist, not a peer relations researcher. I forgive her.

In some ways, though, this makes the findings even more interesting. Had Burt measured popularity as a dominance-based, “cool kids” kind of status, the findings would have made a lot of sense to me. The association between popularity and rule-breaking is robust; establishing the role of genetics in this dynamic would be all kinds of exciting. But we don’t associate likeability or acceptance with rule-breaking behavior—quite the opposite (see this post about the differences between being liked and being popular). So what the heck is going on here? Are we seeing an age-related phenomenon? Why would young men see rule breakers as likeable, while children and adolescents generally don’t? (And what about college women?) Are we seeing some kind of contextual factor at work? For example, does the experience of leaving for college, or living away from parents for the first time, make young men view rule-breaking as a positive thing? Or is rule-breaking correlated with other characteristics (like, say, charisma) that makes them likeable despite the rule-breaking behavior? This is one of those cool studies that begs far more questions than it answers—and in a good way.

There are obvious limitations to this kind of research and this study in particular. One major issue is that a behavior like rule-breaking (or aggression, or impulsivity, or, well, basically anything) is influenced by more than one gene. It’s impressive that we’ve gotten to a point that researchers can pinpoint specific genes that are implicated in a given behavior, or in psychological phenomena like intelligence or personality. But we’re far from understanding the complex interplay of multiple gene combinations and how they might influence the development of something so complex.

Still. My hat is off. This is the type of research that inspires. It doesn’t have to be perfect—what study is?—it just has to give us a glimpse of what might be going on, and give us some guidance, a path, a hunch.

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!