Question 1

Question 2

Does being popular in high school really matter?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

It does, far more than we think, which is why it is so unfortunate that we don't explicitly talk about and teach social skills in most schools.  But the type of popularity we are talking about really matters, because our likeability leads to positive outcomes and our status popularity leads to negative outcomes even decades later.  Psychologists consider our social interactions to involve a deeply intertwined product of what we observe, what we think, and how we behave all informed by our past experiences.  Research shows that every social cue we see (or don't notice) every day, the way we think about what we have observed, and the way we respond to it all ties back quite predictably to what our experiences with peers were as a child.  We can change it, and we can improve ourselves, but we have to start by talking about how important popularity is.

Question 3

What is the difference between likeability and status?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

Our likeability reflects how much people enjoy spending time with us, experience positive affect/emotions and feel good about themselves when with us.  Our status reflects how much we are powerful, dominant, visible (i.e., everyone knows who we are), and influential.  We are all built to care what others think about us, and in adolescence (and these days long afterwards thanks to social media) we are pushed towards status-seeking in particular.  But beware - likeability predicts good life outcomes, and status leads us to poorer outcomes.

Question 4

How does popularity affect our DNA?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

About 60,000 years ago, humans developed a dependency on one another.  Our species (unlike other human-like species) communicated and worked together to keep each other fed, safe, and to work cooperatively.  Soon, our bodies adapted to prepare us for imminent injury or illness when we became ostracized from our social group.  That's why even today, our brains react to social rejection in many of the same ways we respond to physical pain - with a warning and alert system to make us change our behavior.  And dormant DNA is expressed following social rejection too in ways that may protect our health if we lived millennia ago, but today instead can create risks for depression instead.

Question 5

Question 6

Won't popularity always be linked to the qualities that are highly valued and rewarded in society such as physical attractiveness and achievement?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

It often will, which is why we must create environments that reward what we value as a community.  Interestingly, in our research we studied correlates of likeability and status popularity in the USA and China.  In both countries, aggressive behavior was related to lower likeability.  But in the USA, aggression was related to higher status popularity, and in China aggression was related to lower status popularity.  The results nicely demonstrate that we can influence predictors of popularity by what we explicitly state we value in our homes, classrooms, and communities.

Question 7

How much is popularity tied to physical attractiveness?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

Facial attractiveness (which has a lot to do with facial symmetry and "averageness") is remarkably related to both likeability and status popularity.  Body attractiveness (which often refers to similarity to highly unrealistic societally-promoted body ideals) is most closely associated with status popularity only.  Through a complex cycle, research shows that attractive people are treated differently - even by infants - and each new interaction offers new opportunities to learn, grow, develop, etc until there may be true differences in the skills/abilities (including social skills) of some attractive people compared to the rest of us.  So, that's another reason to feel resentful!

Question 8

Is it possible to recover from peer rejection and teasing as a teen and be popular in adulthood?

Mitch Prinstein · Accepted Answer

Absolutely!  It's a bit complex to get into in full detail here, but the process requires us to confront what biases and behaviors we developed as kids based on our experiences with peers, and then a careful self-assessment of the ways that is influencing us today.   Are we still seeing others as hostile towards us when maybe they are not?  Do we still anticipate we will be rejected, more than is likely to actually happen?  How is that changing our behavior and how is it affecting even our non-verbal behaviors in ways that are remarkably contagious and surprisingly influential in our relationships?

Question 9

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